Category:Math
The new 2019 Lotto Max payout scheme: more ways to lose money!
Before I even updated my Lotto Max Calculator with the new payouts, I knew right away the OLG wanted to accomplish two things with their changes to Lotto Max:
- Multiple draws per week, slightly more (but more difficult) ways to win non-jackpot prizes will allow them to say “more ways to win!” as well as …
- “Bigger jackpots!” whi
The math behind running it twice and maximizing PokerStars’ Card Match EV
Expected value of “Running it Twice”
First, let’s settle that running it twice (or any number of times) has the same expectation as running it once.
It is intuitive to deduce that the probability of the second run winning is equal to the first run. Simply recognize that the second run out doesn’t actually depend on the first (pret… Read more
3 ways of increasing your chances of winning in Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Max
If you didn’t know already, the lottery is one of the worst ways to gamble. Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Max generally return less than 55 cents per dollar you put in over the long run.
Check out the EV calculator to compute an estimated expectation for any given jackpot.
If you must play, then there are ways to maximize your expected value. These tips revolve … Read more
Is PokerStars “The Deal” a zero-sum game?
In reality, the short answer to this question is no, “The Deal” is not a z… Read more
Does PokerStars manually control when the Big Deal jackpot is won?
(Update: the jackpot as of 12:30 GMT Friday, January 27 is now over $470,000. Given that there now have been roughly 21.8 million losing entries, if the odds of the hitting the jackpot are truly 1 in 5,197,920, meaning that the jackpot wheel is fair, neither predetermined or unevenly weighted, we should have expected the jackpot to be hit 4 times by now. S… Read more
The expected value of playing The Deal at PokerStars
“The Deal” is a recently released promotion from PokerStars that allows … Read more
Expected Value Calculator for Lotto Max and Lotto 6/49
Discover how you throw away nearly half of whatever disposable income you put towards playing the lottery. You may be surprised how much you lose on average when you dream of winning big!
* * *
December 2024 comment from author: I haven’t updated this in a while. There are now different ways to win for Lotto 6/49. Lotto Max increased their ma… Read more