Playing every UK lottery combination?

Question

Let's say I had put all 13.5 and a bit million possible combinations of UK lottery tickets on for last Saturdays draw (as in every possible combination there is), I would obviously have won the jackpot, but how much would I have won in lower prizes too (I would have won some 5 numbers, more 4 numbers and lots of 3 numbers).

How many of the tickets would win each rank of prize basically.

Answer 1

The 13,983,816 tickets you have played would match as follows:

6-of-6..............1

5-of-6...............258

4-of-6...............13,545

3-of-6...............246,820

2-of-6...............1,851,150

1-of-6...............5,775,588

0-of-6...............6,096,454

I used the combinations generator at the following link

http://us-lotteries.com/Ohio/Classic_Lot...

Answer 2

i know that the odds of winnimg a tenner are 54/1

Answer 3

There is only one combination  for the winning 6 numbers = 1 ticket

From the 6 numbers there are 6!/5!(6-5)! = 6*5*4*3*2*1/5*4*3*2*1(1)! = 72-/120 = 6 ways   to  to  have 5 numbers.

for 4 numbers = 6!/4!(6-4)! = 720/48 =  15 ways

3 numbers = 6!/3!(6-3)! = 720/36 = 20 ways

so,

6 winning numbers = 1 way

5 numbers = 6 ways

4 numbers = 15 ways

3 numbers = 20 ways

This is assuming they give one prize for the same combination of numbers.

So, if you bought 14 million tickets and half of them had the same 3 numbers - 12, 31, 40 and they came up  they would only give one prize for those 3 numbers and not 7 million.

Answer 4

i dont know, and you wouldnt make a loss.

tho i would wonder why someone with 13 odd million quid to plap the lotto doesnt just keep his original 13 odd million! lol

i read about some scientist who found a formular to cover each lotto number, or something, long story short, after a few years and more than a few pounds, they won. lol

Answer 5

There are 14 million possibilities so it would cost 14 million pound, the total prize money for the lottery is around double the jackpot, any more winners and the jackpot is reduced to compensate.

Either way you would make a loss

Answer 6

That's agood question and so far nobody had answered it correctly.

The UK lottery has 6 main numbers numbers and 1 bonus ball

If you play every combination you would win the following

1 winning line of 6

5 winning lines of 5 plus the bonus ball

219 winning lines of 5 numbers

8,909 winning lines of 4 numbers

288,419 winning lines of 3 numbers

As an example I will demonstrate how you calculate some of the above

The six numbers we will call A B C D E F

So to calculate how many lines of say 5 wins there would be we would have to calculate the winning permutations which are as follows

A B C D E

A B C D F

A B D E F

A C D E F

B C D E F

So you have 5 permutations, but you played those 5 permuations with every other number. So there are 44 numbers left that they would of combined with. 44 x 5 = 220, but remember that 1 of them would have been the winning line of all 6 numbers so you have to subtract 1

That's the number of winning combination lines if you played every possible combination on the UK lottery

GavinT

Answer 7

You would lay out all that money to guarantee a first prize and then you might find you would have to share that first prize with someone who had bought just one ticket.  The more persons who win apart from yourself the more you would lose.  Lotteries are run for the organisers and rely on fantasists like yourself to make it pay for them. You would be better off playing roulette.   At least you would last longer, although never winning in the long run.

Answer 8

Not sure, but you would of made a loss

Answer 9

Some guy tried this near the beginning of the lottery in the 90s.  I remember the story.

The issue is that you need to perfectly complete a slip for every single possible number combination.  So you'd need to print out every possibility on the computer and then check them off as you complete them to ensure that you cover every outcome.

Let's say it takes an average of 30 seconds to fill out one ticket.  To do it carefully, and to file the completed ticket and everything else (including breaks and such).

That's going to be about 7m minutes, or 14,583 eight hour working days.

So the only way to do all that is with a staff of helpers.  With staff comes the risk that they won't do their job properly.  You could end up doing all the work only to find that the one combination that won didn't get entered by some idiot who was supposed to do it.

Once you have every combination covered, you have to buy the tickets.  Logistically it's going to be pretty hard to purchase 13.5 million tickets between the machines opening after the draw and the time they close before the next draw.

But even if all that is possible, keep in mind that only half of the money spent on tickets ends up in the prize pool.  So to really get ahead, you're going to need to win the jackpot.  Realistically, you need to hope that you are the only one who wins, because a split jackpot will really hurt you.

To do all this is going to cost £13.5m to buy the tickets, and perhaps another million or so in staff costs.  Ultimately, the chances are that you will come out behind.

The person that tried this before did not manage to cover all combinations due to time and staff constraints.  I believe he ended up losing quite a few thousand on his investment.

Honestly, if you have £13.5m, you'd be better off investing it and taking a nice 10% rate of return.  Frankly, if you just purchased a bunch of houses in London, you'd double your money in a few years.  Not to mention your rental income.