This is one area of the lottery that you are directly in control of. So it’s a simple question, deserving a simple answer.
[A] Yes.
OK, maybe you want more answer for your money. 🙂
Buying more tickets instantly changes the odds of winning. It’s your No.1 sure fire way to do so. And it’s extremely simple to work out the increased chances of winning you get.
Does Buying 2 Lottery Tickets Double Your Odds/Chances?
Yes, buying two lottery tickets will double your odds over buying just the one ticket. The math proves this.
OK, that still means you only have a 2 in 13 million chance of winning (for a 6 from 49 game). But it’s still twice the chance you had before. The odds are doubled, your chances of winning are double.
Does Buying More Tickets Increase Odds?
Yes, buying more tickets increases odds further.
So if you buy three tickets you now have three times the chance. Buy a hundred tickets and you have, yes you guessed it, a hundred times the chance!
(Of course buying a hundred lottery tickets can be pretty expensive to do by yourself, which is why I suggest to friends that they consider playing in a syndicate. And yes syndicates do win pretty often – see How Often Do Syndicates Win the Lottery?).
Can You Buy Every Lottery Ticket Combination?
Technically yes you can buy every lottery ticket combination. Depending on the game this can be quite a lot of work or a vast effort requiring a whole team of people.
Pick 3 for example has 1,000 combinations – but Powerball has over 292 million.
How Much Would It Cost To Buy Every Powerball Combination?
Powerball has 292,201,338 different combinations. So at $2 per play, it would cost $584,402,676 to buy every Powerball combination.
And yes, that is more than $584 million. So if you’ve got that much spare to spend on tickets, you probably don’t need to bother playing anyway. 😉
Is It Possible To Buy Every Lottery Combination?
With a smaller game like Pick 3 it is of course possible. Buying 1,000 combinations takes a bit of work, but it can fairly easily be done.
Buying tickets for a larger game takes huge resources. Just consider how long it would take to generate millions of playslips. Then each of those playslips has to be put through a lottery machine. Even with a large team of people it would take days to process them.
Is Buying Every Lottery Combination a Good Idea?
Buying every lottery combination would of course mean that you will win the jackpot. Plus a whole bunch of other smaller prizes too.
But it’s not however a good strategy. Because the cost of tickets would normally be far greater than the total of the prizes you win. So overall you would lose money.
Does buying more lottery tickets increase your odds? Yes, buying more tickets does change your odds of winning. It also just happens to be the one of the best ways to boost your chances of winning. But it should always be considered together with your overall lottery strategy – as it’s just one piece of a much bigger pie.
The real answer to the question is: Yes you have more chances of winning, and what you forget to talk about is the payout. More winners means that the pot has to be split.
Second: if you play a dense wheel your odds are higher and yes you come closer to win the pot. You may perhaps not win the pot when you have the right numbers but your payout will be higher.
I suggest that you analyse wheelings and banksystems in a spreadsheet.
Lottery syndicates are an easy way or a lazy way to play but the payout suffers due to commissions and services paid by you. The cheapest syndicate is to create one with your friends. I am against quickpicks (machine chooses for you).
For knowing the odds, check out the formula of combinations. I won’t get more mathematical here now. A good wheel is the one with 8 numbers where any combination of 5 is correct. Most of the people won’t hit 6 / 8 in their lifetime but maybe a 5 / 8 or 4 / 8.
Regards
Just another expert
You can actually participate with 1 quick pick ticket in any lottery game pool. Remember every lottery game is a just a big pool of players in itself.
When I posted the above, I forgot to mention that lottery games are not a cumulative thing.
Yes, you’re right. How many times you won or lost in the past makes no difference to your odds in the next draw.
But a lottery isn’t really a pool (not in the syndicate sense anyway – is that what you meant?) because you don’t personally get anything when other people win.
This is a brilliant post. I mean, the math is far too advanced for me, but I think I have the gist of it. If I buy two tickets I have twice the chance to win… if I buy three tickets I have three times the chance to win??? Right?? What if I buy 4 tickets? I think the math may be far too complex for me on 4 tickets. It probably includes some kind of irrational numbers or something only Will Hunting could understand. Thank you for releasing these “secrets” to us, the Internet population. Only with brilliant mathematicians like you can someone like me actually beat out those fat cats who can manipulate the lottery with fancy maneuvers like buying multiple tickets. I think you should be tested for a possible genius level IQ. Thank you so much.
I love a big dose of sarcasm at the best of times.
But ask around, read some of the comments here – a lot of people genuinely do NOT understand even the most basic math of the lottery. That’s why there are so many scammers cranking out “winning lottery systems“.
You’re welcome.
Maybe best to divide the amount of #’s to be played into the total #’s available. For instance the lotto plays 6 #’s out of 49 divide 6 into 49 now you have a ratio then take this ratio and divide the #’s you want to play into the first quotient received from the 6 divide into 49 work out this will at least tell you the percentage of odds available for that or those pics. Then the task come to determining which combinations of #’s to place on a ticket, yet some of many of your selections may prove to be correct.
Thanx for the forum to reply, take care.
So if we’re talking odds and not probability then the odds of winning the jackpot for a 6/49 lottery is:
1 ticket, 1: 13,983,815
2 tickets, 1: 6,991,907
3 tickets, 1: 4,661,271
140 tickets, 1: 99,883
6,991,908 tickets, 1: 1 or evens
The maths is this
number of tickets bought / (13983816 – number of tickets bought)
Hope this helps.
Peter… is there an infinite number of number combinations to the lottery that you are referencing?
If not… the odds of winning are not affected by the number of tickets bought. The only thing that is affected by the number of tickets that are bought is the likelihood that more than one person will win.
The overall odds of any particular ticket winning are not affected by the number of tickets bought. But the odds of the jackpot being claimed are – i.e. the more tickets sold, the more likely the winning combination will have been played.
And of course, the more tickets you personally buy the better your odds of winning.
An interesting question for you please – are your odds better buying 5 tickets with 3,000,000 odds OR 1 ticket with 1,800,000 odds?
Your odds are better with the 5 tickets.
You have to ‘simplify the fractions’ to be able to compare. (Sorry about the math terms – it’s way easier than it sounds!)
Basically, the 5 tickets give you odds of 5-in-3,000,000.
So you divide both sides by 5 to give you a ‘1-in-something’. Which comes out to 1-in-600,000.
Now you can compare directly: 1-in-600,000 vs 1-in-1,800,000.
Which means the ‘5 tickets’ give you 3 times the chance of winning the jackpot.
You also need to consider ticket price to make a ‘fair comparison’. I get into all this stuff in my Strategy Group (and keep the math easy).
Thanks, very much, for your explanation and super quick response LG!
Interesting article LG. In regards to going through the tedious task of filling out lots of lottery slips, I want to let you know that in Canada we have the option of filling out a slip for 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 number combinations, which would save a ton of time and fewer slips to fill out. For example with the 5 number combo, you are guaranteed at least 1 number, so if your selection gets a hit of 5, then you would win the jackpot of 6.
See link:- https://www.olg.ca/en/lottery/play-lotto-649-encore/combination-play.html