I have an idea... who's with me?

[MissMillie]

The next time there's a really, really, really huge lottery, (in the hundreds of millions) let's borrow the money from a bank to play EVERY available number. It's going to take a number of us to fill out all the lotto slips, but I'm willing to bet that even if 50 or so of us do this, we can pay back the bank and still net a pretty nice nest egg.

We'll have to have all the slips filled out in advance. Then we'll have to take time off from work to stand at the stores and play all the numbers.....

(on edit: and don't forget that playing all those numbers increases the jackpot even more!)

[trof]

1. Super. I'll take out a second mortgage.

Count me in.

[bahrbearian]

2. I've got a Master Card.

[northzax]

3. doesn't work

I'm afraid.

take powerball. your odds of winning are (roughly)1:120,526,770. So you'd need to borrow $120,536,770 to buy every possible combination. Say you take the one-time payout, after taxes, you need a jackpot of about 275 million to cover your expenses. And you'd have to win that solo. If someone else bought the winning combination, you'd need a jackpot of $550m to guarantee just being able to repay your debt.

[MissMillie]

4. There are lottos with better odds

Big Game, Mass Millions, MegaBucks.....

[underpants]

5. Canadians did that on the first Virginia lottery

Back in '93 or so. They won but some law was passed to stop them from doing it again.

[Richardo]

7. Lousy Canadians

;-)

[mcscajun]

6. An Australian syndicate tried that some time ago.

They weren't the only winner, and they actually lost money.

Conventional wisdom says the best you can do is break even.

And you need a huge amount of money to buy every combination; more than you might think.

from Math Forum/Ask Dr. Math:

The number of possible combinations of 6 numbers selected from 49
(without repetition) is

49_C_6 = 13,983,816

So probability of a correct set is 1/(49_C_6)

If you bought 5 million tickets, then you would have 5 million chances
out of 14 million odds of having the winning ticket. To give yourself
a probability of 1 of having a winning ticket, you would have to buy
~14 million. Since many others might have the winning numbers as
well, you could end up sharing the prize, and so reduce very
considerably what you earn. Against that, you would also be winning
all the possible lesser prizes of having 5 right numbers, 4 right
numbers, and so on with other tickets that you had bought.

Buying a large number of tickets might change your expectation
marginally if the lesser prizes were generous, but your expectation
will always be highly negative.

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56134.html

[progmom]

8. killjoy

:P

[mcscajun]

9. Yep

That's me. I only bring forth facts to spoil everyone's fun.

Not.

:bounce: