Reply to Joe Schmoe's 4/17/2002 8:02:05 PM ET message
Your formula is creative, but I don't think it is correct!
Assume there is a lottery with 1/10 odd of win (9/10 Odd of lose), and suppose 10 different tickets sold (all combinations). With your formula, chance of nobody win
= ((N - 1)/N)^T
= ((10 -1)/10^10
= 0.347
In simple logic, the winning ticket is sold. It is because all possible patterns sold. Therefore, the formula is false!
Please participate and solve this math problem!
Original Message:
A few messages ago I was wondering how to calculate the odds that nobody would win. Looks like it's ((N - 1)/N)^T where N is the total pool of numbers and T is the number of tickets sold. Let's apply this to the drawing just held: 2,744,447 won $1 with the odds of 1 in 62. So there were approximately 170,155,714 tickets sold. (76,275,359/76,275,360)^170,155,714 gives 10.75% chance that nobody wins.