Some lottery winners seem to have won the jackpot within their first attempts, while others take 20 years to finally receive the prize. Your real chance of winning the lottery could be improved if you knew the right formula. That is a very common concern and one that is easy to cover if you know where to look. This guide precisely aims at giving you a chance to find out how to calculate lottery winning numbers’ probabilities so that you may finally know what you are doing.
Table of Contents
- What is the Real Chance of Winning the Lottery?
- How to Calculate Your Chances of Winning the Lottery?
- The Odds of Winning the Lottery
- How to Calculate Lottery Winning Numbers?
- What Are the Chances of Winning the Lottery Online?
- How to Improve Your Chances to Win the Lottery?
- Is the Lottery Worth Playing?
- FAQs
What is the Real Chance of Winning the Lottery?
Your real chance to win lottery games is simply calculated through a lottery formula that considers your odds of winning the lottery prize you are after. Your odds simply are how close you are to having your numbers drawn as the winners of the jackpot. In short, your total coverage of the possible outcome combination represents your chances of winning the lottery.
Now that we covered the basic and theoretical concepts, it is time to understand how to calculate the chances to win the lottery.
How to Calculate Your Chances of Winning the Lottery?
It is not difficult to calculate your chance of winning the lottery, even if the formula may scare some players at first glance. In fact, just looking at the odds that we indicate for the games on our online lottery pages is enough to figure out your probabilities. Still, just to be sure you won’t have to rely on external sources every time, let’s dive into the calculation.
Calculating the Chances of Winning the Jackpot
The jackpot is by far the most important lottery prize and what people usually understand as “winning the lottery”. Therefore, let’s take a look at the formula to calculate your chances of winning any lottery:
- n = total of numbers in the pool
- r = total of numbers you may choose
- ! = factorial
Therefore, a game such as Lotto 6/49, which you can play online from the Philippines, would use the following information:
- n = 49
- r = 6
The factorial “!” means that you need to multiply the specified number by the subsequent one in descending order. For example, 49 x 48 x 47 x 46 (…) x 3 x 2 x1 would equal “n!” in this example. The result is 13,983,816, but how does that summarize your chance of winning?
Basically, that result from the lottery formula is the number of possible combinations in that specific lottery game. With a single ticket, your chances are summarized in odds of 1 in 13.98 million.
Multiple Drums
You may be wondering how to know your chances to win the lottery in the case of lottery games such as Powerball and Mega Millions, which have two drums. If you got the formula of the odds of winning the lottery right, then there is nothing to worry about.
Simply calculate the two drums separately with the formula you just learned in the topic above. Therefore, using US Powerball as an example that we can play from the Philippines, that would mean calculating first the drum of 5/69 numbers and then another one of 1/26. Then, we multiply them after dividing one by each separate result:
In the case of Powerball, we would end with 1/11,238,513 x 1/26 = odds of 1 in 292,201,338. Believe it or not, those are the real chances of winning lottery games such as Powerball.
Chances of Matching Smaller Prizes
We should not forget that smaller and secondary prizes are also part of playing and winning the lottery. They may not be as interesting as the jackpot, but they can certainly be useful, even if only to purchase more tickets. So, if you are not certain about your chances, you may calculate them as well!
The formula is a bit larger but definitely not more complex if you understand how to insert the numbers:
- k = numbers that you need right for that prize tier
- n = total pool of numbers
- r = total numbers drawn
Continuing with the Powerball example, if we wanted to understand our chances of winning the lottery prize for three correct numbers, these would be the values:
The Odds of Winning the Lottery
After learning all that, what are the chances of winning the lottery? Well, it varies from one game to another and is totally dependent on the total of numbers you may pick from and how many you may choose per ticket. The more combinations there are, the smaller your chances of winning, and these are your real odds for popular lotteries:
| Lottery | Jackpot Odds | Second-Prize Odds |
|---|---|---|
| US Powerball | 1 in 292,201,338 | 1 in 11,688,053 |
| Mega Millions | 1 in 302,575,350 | 1 in 12,607,306 |
| Euromillions | 1 in 139,838,160 | 1 in 6,991,908 |
| Eurojackpot | 1 in 95,344,200 | 1 in 5,959,013 |
| Cash4Life | 1 in 21,846,048 | 1 in 7,282,016 |
| France Loto | 1 in 19,068,840 | 1 in 2,118,760 |
| Austria Lotto | 1 in 8,415,060 | 1 in 1,357,510 |
| La Primitiva | 1 in 139,838,160 | 1 in 13,983,816 |
| SuperEnalotto | 1 in 622,614,630 | 1 in 103,769,105 |
| Lotto Texas | 1 in 25,827,165 | 1 in 89,678 |
| Lotto 6/49 | 1 in 13,983,816 | 1 in 2,330,636 |
| OZ Lotto | 1 in 45,379,620 | 1 in 3,241,401 |
How to Calculate Lottery Winning Numbers?
Some people wonder how to calculate lottery-winning numbers and know at least a portion of the numbers that will be drawn. There are countless theories out there about how statistical analyses could reveal the most probable results. However, being the lottery a game of chance, you cannot calculate the winning numbers.
What Are the Chances of Winning the Lottery Online?
When you play the lottery online through the websites that we have tested and approved, you know that you are playing with the real odds. Therefore, your chances of winning any online lottery are the exact same as someone playing locally. That applies to both Philippines’ lotteries and those from abroad.
How to Improve Your Chances to Win the Lottery?
If you cannot calculate lottery winning numbers and rely purely on luck, how to improve your chances to win the lottery? The answers are close to obvious, but we want to make sure that you understand all your possibilities.
Buy More Tickets
If every combination is a chance of winning the lottery, the more tickets you cover, the better your odds. Therefore, instead of playing a single ticket in a weekly drawing, consider purchasing more if you can. Sometimes it might be even better to cover a few more combinations once a month than just one or two every week because your odds in that specific drawing will be improved a lot.
Play in Syndicates
There are websites like theLotter promoting online syndicates in which you preserve your anonymity and buy a share with 50, 100, 200, or even 500 lines at once. While that means winning results in sharing the prize with everyone else playing, the cost tends to be dozens or hundreds of times smaller.
If you can cover more possibilities for a smaller price, that is possibly worth sharing the prize in most of the difficult lotteries. Also, nothing hinders you from playing alone as well while giving syndicates and group play a try. You may try organizing one yourself, but be aware of the bureaucracy and troubles it may generate.
Play Through Syndicates on theLotter
Choose Wisely
While I did use Powerball as an example to show how to calculate your chance to win the lottery, notice that it is extremely hard. If a prize above millions is a must, there still are great picks out there with better odds. Maybe you do not need hundreds or dozens of millions for a jackpot, and that opens up a whole world of lotteries in front of you that is easier than the big names in the market.
Some great examples are the Austria Lotto, with odds of 1 in 8.14 million for the jackpot, which are the same as the Australian Monday or Wednesday Lotto. The Irish Lotto is also a reasonably less difficult lottery with odds of 10.73 million.
