Dom Barnes

The Great Lottery Experiment

Thursday, April 24th, 2008 | misc

I sometimes buy scratchcards. Not often but occasionally and I rarely win. The odds of winning are about 1 in 4.29 and I seem to win less than that. So here is what I propose.

I will take 10 pounds sterling (£10 GBP) and purchase 10 of one type of scratchcard, from one vendor, from a single batch, so they are all sequentially generated. I will scratch the panels off and see what I win. From those winnings, I will purchase more scratchcards of the same variety. I will continue to do this until one of the following situations occur:

1) I win the jackpot
2) I win £100 total
3) I go broke
or 4) after doing this for 6 rounds, I seem to be getting nowhere.

Now what is the point? Well I can sell this as a real life maths experiment, to test the probability of winning against real life. Now theory says that in those first 10, I should win 2 times. Now I could only win £1 on each, meaning I then purchase 2 more cards, and with a probability of 1:4.29 and ony having 2 cards, my odds are low, so it is likely that I will reach outcome 3 soon. But then again, I could luck out and hit 3 or more cards, perhaps with higher winning prizes. Truth is, I could hit the big time (well average of £6k on most scratchcards) within that first batch. Its even possible I will reach outcome 2 fairly quickly.

Either way, it would satisfy my curiosity, and at a cost of £10, why not. And to defeat those who may say this is merely to feed some gambling habit, if I win the jackpot, I will donate between £500-1000 to a range of 5 charities chosen by me, and disclosed here, or if I win a smaller amount (outcome 2) I will donate 20% to a single charity, again disclosed here. Now bare in mind that outcome 2 might take me over £100. I mean if I have unscratched cards, I might as well carry on.

I will try and do this next week and report back with my findings. 

Tags: experiment, lottery, maths, probability, scratchcards

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