da lottery
right then i'm notoriously pish with numbers but here goes...

i am told that putting on 2 lottery lines has hardly any bearing on shifting the odds in your favour.

but lets say you put the SAME numbers on on TWICE - if you do win and its split between say, 3 winning tickets - you get not one but TWO shares of the jackpot! so not only do you win the lottery, you win it TWICE in one week AND seriously piss on the other winners chips.

warrafuckingcant!
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 12 May 2009, 10:11, 14 replies)

Surely putting 2 lines on
would double your chances?
(TheColonel, Tue 12 May 2009, 10:45, closed)

The way I see it you'd just move from something like 1 chance 16,000,000 to 2 chances in 16,000,000... so no real improvement.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Tue 12 May 2009, 10:48, closed)

Therefore double?

/pedant
(TheColonel, Tue 12 May 2009, 11:49, closed)

apparently not
odds go from about 13.9 mil to 1 to around 13.7

i aint good with figures but i heard some maths bod on 't radio talking about this

there is another way to look at the outcome...

its 50/50...

you either win or you dont
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 12 May 2009, 13:12, closed)

ARRRRGH!!!!
2 choices != 50/50

*head explodes due to mathematical rage*
( Tedium Alduce me to interlow myself., Tue 12 May 2009, 14:36, closed)

^
:D
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 12 May 2009, 17:02, closed)

Well,
Putting the same numbers on twice doubles your expected winnings while also doubling your outlay. The result is the same. The only thing that's affected is the jackpot, where your winnings become 2/n+1 instead of 1/n, where n is the number of winners. This is slightly less than doubling your return, so actually your expected winnings have gone down by a very small amount.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Tue 12 May 2009, 10:54, closed)

I just realised
That I failed to take into account the possibility that there *are* no other claimants to the jackpot. In that case, you win the same amount as with one ticket (less the extra quid), whereas buying two different tickets gives you two chances to win the Jackpot, so that's a significantly better (while still very small!) expected return.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Tue 12 May 2009, 13:00, closed)

your missing my point
if there are three winning tickets and you have two the other poor sod is gonna be well pissed off with you
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 12 May 2009, 13:14, closed)

It's true
www.oddee.com/item_95629.aspx

story number 3
( Jinxy13 is hating the S key, right about now., Tue 12 May 2009, 11:34, closed)

yeah
cgi.ebay.com.au/Little-Britain-----Andy-----Yeah-I-Know--T-Shirt--XL_W0QQitemZ260399103660QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090425?IMSfp=TL090425126001r3558#ebayphotohosting
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 12 May 2009, 13:20, closed)

surely this is a great idea though?
If there are two winners say - then both get half the winnings.

fine.

BUT

if you had two tickets, then there would be 3 winners - two of which would be you, so you would get a 2/3 lion share of the winnings.

of course you would have to be very, very , very ,very *10^99 lucky to win.

But if you did.....
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 12 May 2009, 15:11, closed)

erm... my point
entirely
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 12 May 2009, 17:03, closed)

Correction Marge...
Three hundred and eighty million to fifty!
(Zutroy started without you, Wed 13 May 2009, 4:30, closed)