Finding The Probability Of Winning The Texas Lottery

Finding the Probability of Winning the Texas Lottery – I show how to calculate the probability of you winning the Texas Lottery game “Texas Millions” if you buy one ticket.
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39 Responses to "Finding The Probability Of Winning The Texas Lottery"

jws54 says:
September 7, 2010 at 7:01 pm
the odds are written on the back of the ticket
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patrickJMT says:
September 7, 2010 at 11:06 pm
@llorkcir2 i have thought about making some; was not sure anyone would be interested
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llorkcir2 says:
September 8, 2010 at 3:14 am
You’ve got my vote. You’re an excellent teacher, and I think you’d make a lot of complicated probability problems clearer to people studying for the exams. I’d spread the word about you at my school’s actuarial club if you posted something.
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Malo, J says:
September 29, 2010 at 2:33 am
are you off by one number? i came up with .00000000569 (8 zeros, not 9 zeros preceding the 569)… 1 / 175,711,536 = 5.691 X 10 ^ -9
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Uqload says:
October 19, 2010 at 3:53 am
@jiro32 actually, he’s correct, sorry :/
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jaarmen3 says:
November 1, 2010 at 6:17 am
or it can be looked at as the probability of winning the texas lottery: your chances of going outside and falling into a volcano are more likeley to happen that winning a full lottery draw.
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patrickJMT says:
November 4, 2010 at 12:24 pm
@its123baby yep, you sure do
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patrickJMT says:
November 30, 2010 at 4:17 pm
@yingdiskette okie dokie.
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Jimmy Zhang says:
March 4, 2011 at 6:02 am
@gix500
Its 1 over (36 factorial divided by (29 factorial times 7 factorial))
which =
1/8,347,680
= approximately 0.00000011979
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Reema Malik says:
March 8, 2011 at 7:15 am
Well…you have to play to have a chance..and I think the best way to go is quick pick…most of the winners in history almost always played quick pick… and if its your destiny, then you might win…
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patrickJMT says:
March 8, 2011 at 2:37 pm
@bubaabaa lol
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metallicgoth says:
March 12, 2011 at 5:07 am
LEFTY! 😀
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ElRobotFutbol says:
April 1, 2011 at 2:40 pm
a few moths back someone in my city won it I was pissed
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Krinordh says:
April 27, 2011 at 4:25 pm
LOL, this is what I just learned at school 😛
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IJDyt says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:41 pm
thanks alot- i used your model to work out the probability to win the euromillions tonight! its a 80 million pound rollover! We have 5 balls 1-50 then two “special” balls 1 to 11
its a bit easier than yours 0. 000 000 008 581 but i think I’m still gona need a lot of luck!!
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Refugio Villegas III says:
June 18, 2011 at 7:23 pm
I wish I could win the lotto.
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Malo, J says:
July 5, 2011 at 12:42 pm
@Uqload actually, I still think he’s off by one zero, sorry :/
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patrickJMT says:
September 5, 2011 at 10:04 am
@damnd1907 and your point is… ?
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gnyhwy says:
September 6, 2011 at 12:42 pm
@damnd1907 I would like to see a mathematical answer for that, but the simple rational to me would be that there are much more people attempting to win the lottery than there are attempting to get struck by lightning. LOL.
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patrickJMT says:
September 6, 2011 at 4:04 pm
@gnyhwy that sounds about right to me…. not to hard to figure out : )
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EnigmaticNeurosis says:
September 17, 2011 at 8:56 pm
There is a lesson to learn here: do not play the lottery unless you have been struck by lightening.
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patrickJMT says:
November 2, 2011 at 4:40 pm
@latinluigi well, odds are different than probabilities
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IsraeliXdude says:
November 19, 2011 at 8:43 pm
What is probability of you winning lotto in Texas and while going to collect your prize you are struck by lightning?
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patrickJMT says:
November 22, 2011 at 11:51 am
@IsraeliXdude well, those are independent events, so you would multiply the individual probabilities together
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Joe Smith says:
November 27, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Can’t win if you don’t play. Someone will eventually win. It happens all the time. 🙂
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patrickJMT says:
November 28, 2011 at 10:13 am
@hydrobot2003 yes, just not to you
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MiekWave says:
December 22, 2011 at 3:29 am
So If I was an evil millionaire with 25.8 Million dollars and I purchased 25.8 Million tickets with a 1 in 1 chance of winning a jackpot of say, 51.6 Million, I would win $25.8 million back twice!
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patrickJMT says:
December 22, 2011 at 3:10 pm
@MiekWave people actually did this; the jackpot was larger than the number of tickets so they tried to buy all possible combinations, however, they ran out of time. they still did manage to get the winning ticket though.
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TERRY CALEB says:
March 5, 2012 at 11:00 pm
I NEED HELP WITH THE TXLOTTERY
Mega Millions
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omgitsfreakenrobert says:
May 16, 2012 at 2:28 am
After a quick 3-4 video refresher I was able to understand many questions better, thanks!
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Mike Malloy says:
January 12, 2013 at 1:07 am
Excellent. I had guessed 1 billion to one. However, you moved over to the right side of the decimal, and it was about 1 trillion (pico) to one. Is that correct?
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hakufirefox says:
March 17, 2013 at 7:10 am
Your videos are so helpful. Thank you for all of your tutorial videos. They are all fantastic.
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Laerrus999 says:
April 20, 2013 at 2:51 pm
I’ve been playing the Texas lottery off and on for the past 18 years, and I am done with the game. They added the “Extra!” feature this past Sunday that works much like Powerplay or Megaplier, but the odds of winning are still 25 Million to 1. Jackpots now only go up by $250,000, the game will probably never break $10 Million again. The TLC should have dropped the numbers in their ball matrix down to 49 or 50 for better odds if they wanted to boost sales.
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jksatte says:
September 13, 2014 at 5:40 pm
That’s the thing about the statistics; despite the infinitesimally small chance of winning someone always does. I still have to throw my hat in the ring lol. I always do. My time is today. Yeaa!!!
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CobraL0rd says:
May 16, 2015 at 12:23 pm
You must be off by one zero. I calculated 0.00000000668 (8 not 9 zeros after the comma). Which actually means there is a ~6.7 billionth of a chance for someone to win. But never give up guys!
It just means that assuming you buy 3 lottery tickets per week, assuming there is a lottery 3 times per week (which is the thing with my country), and there are ~52weeks/year -> you get 3*52 = 156 lottery tickets per year. This yields you 156*0.0000000067 = 0.000001 chance of winning, which is only a millionth of a chance. Now that’s still kind of a low chance, but there is still hope! If you keep trying in A Million years there will be 1.0452 chance of winning! You just have to teach your offspring to have faith! At the same time assuming that each lottery ticket costs a dollar you will have spent a mere amount of 156 million $ (excluding the change of times, which will augment the price of the ticket AND the earnings from the lottery by a bazillion times!).
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Kenneth Clay says:
December 3, 2015 at 9:17 pm
What ????????????????????
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ROD BOY says:
May 10, 2016 at 10:28 pm
now that they got that idiot Richard from fast and loud doing demon horns on the 2$ scratch-off iam not playing any more GOOD JOB PROMOTING SATANISAM TX LOTTERY
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Eunice Johnson says:
April 9, 2017 at 12:24 am
Dream Breaker, Heart Breaker, but it is very entertaining to learn how to calculate the chance to win : )
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NuclearNedla says:
June 7, 2017 at 4:52 am
I don’t get it, there is 1 combination of the 5 balls you choose, and there are 56^5 combinations in your sample space, so your chances of having the right “combination” is 1/56^5? Is it because the sequence matters? or that the choosing of each ball is dependent? or that there can’t be duplicates?
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