2016 GT350 OW OTT Blue Stripes Tech Pack Raffle

Hey guys,

Just happened to come across this raffle for a 2016 GT350 while looking on Autotrader at cars for sale.

Its a long long ways away, 9/25/16 is the raffle date. But, for those who want one but can't afford it, probably worth putting in a little money to at least try.

http://www.smscardrawing.com/default.aspx

NCGT350 said:

Hey guys,

Just happened to come across this raffle for a 2016 GT350 while looking on Autotrader at cars for sale.

Its a long long ways away, 9/25/16 is the raffle date. But, for those who want one but can't afford it, probably worth putting in a little money to at least try.

http://www.smscardrawing.com/default.aspx

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Raffle tix prices not bad at all... a better chance to win than the billion dollar powerball.

So...is this car just going to be sitting for the next 9 months or what?

Haha very true.

Though, talking about the lottery. For the first time ever, I think ever since odds have changed over the years, it is technically mathematically a good idea to play the powerball.

Normally the expected value of a lottery ticket, the money you can expect to win per ticket based on the odds, is very low. For example, when the jackpot is $40,000,000, the expected value is only $.46, which means each ticket you buy loses $1.54.

However, even that math isn't completely true, as you wouldn't get $40,000,000. That is an annuity, which changes the math, and you have to pay taxes on the amount you get each year, which lowers the winnings and expected value, but that is way more complicated so just using the cash value is the easiest. The cash value then is only $29,400,000. That brings the expected value down to $.42, but still, you wouldn't get $29,400,000 because of taxes. So just for an example, say you get 60% of the cash value after taxes, that is $17,640,000, which makes the expected value $.38. So when the Powerball restarts at $40,000,000 after a winner, if you buy a ticket, according to the math, each ticket actually costs $3.62 instead of $2.00.

If you take all of that, but now apply it to the current jackpot, the expected value of the whole $1,500,000,000 is $5.45, of the cash value $930,000,000 is $3.50, and the take home estimate of $558,000,000 is $2.23.

So the only expected value you can really use, even if you planned to take the annuity, is the $2.23. So according to math, it makes sense to buy a ticket. Obviously the one enormous jackpot skews the math, so odds still aren't good, but regardless, mathematically it makes sense for the first time to buy a lottery ticket as mathematically each ticket you buy right now costs $1.77 instead of $2.00.

Even if the take home amount is too high because taxes actually take out more, the break even point for the expected value is $490,000,000, which would mean as long as you took home 52.7% of the cash value, you at least break even. Which should be possible, I have never won a jackpot, so I dont know exactly what you would bring home after taxes.

Unfortunately, with the jackpot so high, more people are buying tickets, which increases the likelihood of multiple winners. So if two people win, then once again, the expected value is lower than the cost of a ticket and not worth buying. Not to mention if 3 or 4 or more people win.

So, if you play the odds that there will only be one winner, which I believe is around 30%, it makes sense to play. And just for giggles, there is still about a 10% chance nobody wins this jackpot.

The chances of 2 winners decreased dramatically when they changed the over all odds. They are now 1 in 292 million (used to be 1 in 175 million or so).

You completely lost me with the rest of your post, its still statistically nearly impossible to win no matter what the jackpot is.

krt22 said:

The chances of 2 winners decreased dramatically when they changed the over all odds. They are now 1 in 292 million (used to be 1 in 175 million or so).

You completely lost me with the rest of your post, its still statistically nearly impossible to win no matter what the jackpot is.

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better odds of being struck by lighting 8 times

And better odds that someone will back out of a GT350 and get a Camaro SS instead... addle: :headbonk:

NCGT350 said:

Haha very true.

Though, talking about the lottery. For the first time ever, I think ever since odds have changed over the years, it is technically mathematically a good idea to play the powerball.

Normally the expected value of a lottery ticket, the money you can expect to win per ticket based on the odds, is very low. For example, when the jackpot is $40,000,000, the expected value is only $.46, which means each ticket you buy loses $1.54.

However, even that math isn't completely true, as you wouldn't get $40,000,000. That is an annuity, which changes the math, and you have to pay taxes on the amount you get each year, which lowers the winnings and expected value, but that is way more complicated so just using the cash value is the easiest. The cash value then is only $29,400,000. That brings the expected value down to $.42, but still, you wouldn't get $29,400,000 because of taxes. So just for an example, say you get 60% of the cash value after taxes, that is $17,640,000, which makes the expected value $.38. So when the Powerball restarts at $40,000,000 after a winner, if you buy a ticket, according to the math, each ticket actually costs $3.62 instead of $2.00.

If you take all of that, but now apply it to the current jackpot, the expected value of the whole $1,500,000,000 is $5.45, of the cash value $930,000,000 is $3.50, and the take home estimate of $558,000,000 is $2.23.

So the only expected value you can really use, even if you planned to take the annuity, is the $2.23. So according to math, it makes sense to buy a ticket. Obviously the one enormous jackpot skews the math, so odds still aren't good, but regardless, mathematically it makes sense for the first time to buy a lottery ticket as mathematically each ticket you buy right now costs $1.77 instead of $2.00.

Even if the take home amount is too high because taxes actually take out more, the break even point for the expected value is $490,000,000, which would mean as long as you took home 52.7% of the cash value, you at least break even. Which should be possible, I have never won a jackpot, so I dont know exactly what you would bring home after taxes.

Unfortunately, with the jackpot so high, more people are buying tickets, which increases the likelihood of multiple winners. So if two people win, then once again, the expected value is lower than the cost of a ticket and not worth buying. Not to mention if 3 or 4 or more people win.

So, if you play the odds that there will only be one winner, which I believe is around 30%, it makes sense to play. And just for giggles, there is still about a 10% chance nobody wins this jackpot.

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I got excited reading expected value on a car forum. Do you play poker?

If I win the Powerball I will buy someone here on this forum a new GT350....caveat is it must be a non-R and you can pay the ADM.

Who will that be? Well, we'll have a lottery drawing for that.

krt22 said:

The chances of 2 winners decreased dramatically when they changed the over all odds. They are now 1 in 292 million (used to be 1 in 175 million or so).

You completely lost me with the rest of your post, its still statistically nearly impossible to win no matter what the jackpot is.

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That is just the odds that one ticket purchased will win the lottery. Because so many tickets are purchased as the jackpot rises, the odds of someone winning rises exponentially as well. Now that is not MY odds or YOUR odds, just the odds of SOMEONE in the US winning. What you are referencing is actually very different since that is the odds of one individual person winning and not the odds of there being a winner. Sounds the same, but is much different.

The odds were changed to get more people to play because people now have better odds to win small amounts like $4 because there are fewer numbers for the powerball (red ball), but winning the jackpot is less likely because there are now more white ball combinations since the numbers go higher. So, they keep people wanting to play by letting them win more small amounts and decreasing jackpot odds which in turn makes bigger jackpots, so more people play.

So, in theory when the Powerball restarts, yes, it is very very very (1000 more times) unlikely that two people will win, even one person winning might as well be mathematically impossible because of the number of tickets sold. BUT, the odds are still much higher for SOMEONE to win, even when the jackpot is $40 million, but your personal odds when buying one ticket do not.

BUT, with how many tickets are being purchased now, the odds of multiple winners goes up exponentially. Also, the odds below don't take in to account all the people who choose their own numbers. By choosing your own number, you are naturally choosing more likely numbers, unless you purposely decide not to. So, you could choose to play 1,2,3,4,5 and a powerball, which nobody else will probably play because it seems impossible. When in reality, every combination has the same probability.

But, most people don't purposely choose numbers they think will be played less, so they choose lucky numbers, birthdays, ages, etc...This increases the odds that multiple people will pick the same numbers as more tickets are purchased, but you cant really quantify that. So just know that the odds of multiple winners are actually higher, as the odds below assume every ticket is purchased with randomly generated numbers.

An easy example to see what I mean is, there are about 292 million combinations to win the powerball. 440 million tickets were sold last weekend, but not one of them matched all the numbers, and only 28 tickets got 5 out of 6 numbers right! There is obviously A LOT of duplicate tickets since way more tickets were purchased than there are possibilities.

Also, its not possible to know how many tickets are purchased leading up to a lottery drawing.

Also, after looking in to some numbers, a good estimate of the number of tickets that will be bought based on past drawings including this past weekend is somewhere around 800 million tickets! Which is much higher than I thought when I made my last post. Just for reference, around 440 million tickets were sold last weekend.

The odds from last weekend were roughly:

0 - 22%
1 -33%
2 - 25%
3 - 12.5%
4 - 5%
5 - 1.5%
6 - .4%

So there was still over a 20% chance that nobody would win, which most people probably would think is impossible with how high the jackpot was. One person winning was still the most likely outcome, though 2 and 3 winners was still very high, and compared to the odds of buying 1 ticket and winning, even 6 winners was very high!

BUT, if we look at this upcoming drawing now, estimating 800 million tickets sold, which is almost double the last drawing, the odds are below:

0 - 6%
1 -17.5%
2 - 24%
3 - 22%
4 - 15%
5 - 8%
6 - 4%

So it is now more likely that there will be 2 or 3 winners than 1 winner, and even 4 winners is very close to as likely. With 5 and 6 winners having good odds as well. Obviously these numbers could be drawn out to as many winners as you would like, but its very unrealistic.

The lottery is an enigma for 99.99999999% of people, and that is why it is so popular, and it is just very hard to wrap our brains around such large numbers and small percentages.

Lastly, it is true that it is nearly statistically impossible to win. But you can also look at the lottery once the jackpot gets very high, that statistically, especially now, it is very unlikely someone will not win. There aren’t numbers for how many tickets are sold when the jackpot is at $40 million, the only number I could get was a little over 14 million tickets sold when the jackpot was $110 million. With that few of tickets sold, the odds no one would win is over 95%. So why would you play when there is only a 5% chance ANYONE in the entire US will win? But when there is only a 6% chance NOONE will win, there is better justification of purchasing a ticket.

bdub85 said:

I got excited reading expected value on a car forum. Do you play poker?

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Haha I know, never thought this was what I would be posting about in a Mustang forum.

Yea, some. Used to play a lot more years ago, but not really much anymore. I also don't live anywhere where I could go play for real money, so playing for free in local poker clubs as my free time has gone down has become less of an option.

I was near Boston about 4 years ago for work, so I stopped by the Mohegan Sun, went to the poker room, took $100, played a couple hours, won about $500 and left.

So if I lived near a casino, I would probably go play poker a lot more. I would be happy to take $100, play all day, and leave with nothing because it is fun, though my goals is obviously winning. Which with poker, specifically texas hold'em for me, I dont often lose all my money if I stick to playing smart.

Thanks NC, I didnt realize folks put so much effort into number theory regarding lottery winnings. I just read up on it, give the unprecedented 1.5 billion jackpot at this point, it looks like we are well past the point of diminishing returns and the probability of a multiple winner instance is ever increasing.

NCGT350 said:

Haha I know, never thought this was what I would be posting about in a Mustang forum.

Yea, some. Used to play a lot more years ago, but not really much anymore. I also don't live anywhere where I could go play for real money, so playing for free in local poker clubs as my free time has gone down has become less of an option.

I was near Boston about 4 years ago for work, so I stopped by the Mohegan Sun, went to the poker room, took $100, played a couple hours, won about $500 and left.

So if I lived near a casino, I would probably go play poker a lot more. I would be happy to take $100, play all day, and leave with nothing because it is fun, though my goals is obviously winning. Which with poker, specifically texas hold'em for me, I dont often lose all my money if I stick to playing smart.

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It's a lot of fun. I used to play weekly with some friends for fun money.

I've switched mainly to Fanduel now. A lot of the same concepts from poker generally apply. It's pretty easy money.

krt22 said:

Thanks NC, I didnt realize folks put so much effort into number theory regarding lottery winnings. I just read up on it, give the unprecedented 1.5 billion jackpot at this point, it looks like we are well past the point of diminishing returns and the probability of a multiple winner instance is ever increasing.

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No problem. Yup it is crazy for sure. Though I cant argue with your initial statement that one in 292 million is nearly impossible. For most, that is all they need to know to never play.

I have only played a few times ever, when it is very high. Even though the math wasn't as good as this jackpot, I am still a human that would like several hundred million dollars!! I don't live and die by these calculations, but I like to show people that with how high it is, it is not all that dumb to go play $10 or something to try.