mathematics of re-playing small wins

Reply #5

Coin Toss — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 21:41:00 GMT

Just my two cents but I'm pretty sure the lotteries are very well aware that most small wins go right back into the lottery.

Reply #4

JustMaybe — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 01:00:11 GMT

Powerball is a game where you should just assume you are going to lose, and if you do win a small amount, $100 or less, it's a consolation prize .

If I won $100, I would go to Texas RoadHouse and spend $50 on a steak

Reply #3

Tucker Black — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:25:17 GMT

I did my analysis on scratch-off tickets because most of the prize money goes towards lower prizes. With jackpot accumulation draw games such as Powerball, not much goes to lower prizes.

To summarize my first post, for the $5 Colorado scratch-off $100,000 Super Bonus, the average number of tickets played is 2.5x or 3x your original bankroll, depending on whether your stop point is $500 or $1,000. Not surprisingly, the improved odds of winning a large prize exactly correlate with the average

Reply #2

JustMaybe — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 21:13:46 GMT

I never replay small wins, at least not at the moment when I cash a ticket.

I always buy my tickets before I cash my winners.

I tell the store clerk It's not everyday that I get to walk away with money and they laugh

So I could have a $4 winning PB ticket, but I will get $4 from my wallet, buy my tickets, get my receipt and then cash the winner.

Of course the next time when am buying lottery tickets, the money coming out of my wallet would be what I got paid last time.

Howev... [ More ]

Reply #1

Stat$talker — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 20:20:26 GMT

The Green Hornet sed, You got Yo method outta dizz Book...

Did you consult Ole Texez 2 Stepper bout dat Aluminum foil

mathematics of re-playing small wins

Tucker Black — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 19:09:36 GMT

I was curious as to the improved probability of winning a large prize when you re-play small wins, so I wrote a computer program to calculate it, running 200 million simulations.

Naturally, this depends on the prize structure and what is your cutoff point for large prize . I selected Colorado's $5 scratcher $100,000 Super Bonus. The odds are:

$100,000 = 1 in 960,000

$20,000 = 1 in 480,000

$5,000 = 1 in 480,000

$1,000 = 1 in 480,000

$500 = 1 in 2,500

$100 = 1 in 194... [ More ]