How to win the Lotto (…as if!)
The other week, even senators had their photos taken placing bets at the lotto. Maybe it was for promotional purposes. No one has really thought this out systematically.
The jackpot prize of Lotto rose this week to P495,597,376 and the PCSO (Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Organization), which administers the lottery, said in advance that the jackpot may rise to P535 million at this Saturday’s draw, in a bigger bid to attract more gamblers, este, er, bettors.
Not enough. The amount to breach, and which would probably… somehow… coincidentally… never be breached (wanna bet?) is 578 million pesos.
Why? That’s about the minimum amount of “capital” you need for a 100% certainty of winning, that is, by putting a bet on all possible combinations, and when you do, you’re only breaking even. Tough.
(yeah, you know, since the number of combinations are finite: A long time ago, we entertained putting together other people’s money to put a bet on all the combinations and we were informed that the capital needed was a lot more than the jackpot…)
Last week, Prof. Tabunda, Ph.D, of the U.P. College of Statistics, in the show “Strictly Politics” by Pia Hontiveros, wrote down the formula. (it’s too long, they’re in factorials, 5x4x3x2x1 repeated 25 times or so etc, over another set of factorials; if you make a quick google search, it’s also there.)
Based on this, according to Prof. Tabunda, your odds of winnng the Lotto is about 28,900,000 to one; or: a one- in- twenty-eight million- nine- hundred- thousand chance.
That is, there are 28,900,000 possible combinations.
For a one hundred percent chance or certainty of winning, you’ll have to bet on all possible combinations. That’s 28,900,000 times twenty pesos (the price of a ticket), or a capital of 578,000,000 pesos.
Lugi ka pa or you’re operating at a loss unless the jackpot is more than 578 million pesos, or a lot more so you’re not just breaking even.
So, we wait….
(But will PCSO allow… isn’t it not supposed to have control over who and how anyone wins)
We’ll just donate our winnings to the media workers’ organizations.
Coincidentally, that amount was never breached. Coincidentally, PCSO raised the price of tickets to 20 pesos each only recently. Such that, it now requires a bigger capital to bet on all the combinations. Making the amount not to be breached, higher. Thereby, making possible raising the jackpot prize to an attractive amount of, maybe 500 million this Saturday. But only so much. Wanna bet?
