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At 08:08 AM 10/28/2005, Smith, Jeff wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">But
the odds that you will win are not impacted by the number of tickets that
are sold in total...only the number you buy. When you take into
account the total number of tickets sold, all you get are the odds that
the lottery will be won by anyone.<br>
</font> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">I'm also a little confused by
that def of odds. Consider flipping a coin. The probability
that it will come up heads is 1/2. That def says that the odds in
favor of it coming up heads is 1.</font></blockquote><br>
Ah there's the rub. Odds are not "in favor". The odds of heads
is 1 and the odds of tails is 1. The odds therefore are the same. If you
flip 2 coins then the odds of both being heads is 1/3, ditto both tails.
Odds of being different is 1/2.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""> <br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#0000FF">Jeff<br>
</font> <br>
<dl>
<dd><font face="tahoma" size=2>-----Original Message-----<br>
<dd>From:</b> bob
[<a href="mailto:bgailer@alum.rpi.edu" eudora="autourl">mailto:bgailer@alum.rpi.edu</a>]
<br>
<dd>Sent:</b> Friday, October 28, 2005 10:52 AM<br>
<dd>To:</b> Smith, Jeff; Tutor@python.org<br>
<dd>Subject:</b> Re: [Tutor] Can anyone help me?<br><br>
</font>
<dd>At 07:28 AM 10/28/2005, Smith, Jeff wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dd>Aren't the odds just based on how many tickets you buy? The
odds aren't<br>
<dd>affected by different people buying more tickets. If only one
person<br>
<dd>buys a ticket in the entire lottery system, his odds of winning are
the<br>
<dd>same as if two people play, and the same as if 20 million
play.</blockquote><br>
<dd>According to the wikipedia: "In
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_theory">probability
theory</a> and
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics">statistics</a> the
odds</b> in favor of an event or a proposition are the quantity p</i> /
(1-p</i>), where p</i> is the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability">probability</a> of the
event or proposition." If you assign equal probability of winning to
each ticket then odds are how many tickets you buy relative to how many
tickets everyone else has bought. <br><br>
<dd>The probability </i>of a ticket winning is 1 / m**n where m is the
highest number possible and n is the number of numbers. If a lottery uses
6 numbers each in the range 1..42 then the probability of a ticket
winning is 1/5489031744. <br><br>
<dd>All of this is mathematics. Sometimes one or more tickets win. Is
that "luck"? <br>
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