No, you should go to the casino, and here’s why:
We we’re having a discussion on the rig recently about winning stupid amounts on the lottery, specifically the EuroMillions lottery, with an estimated jackpot currently of £18M. That is a staggering amount of money, but mainly because its a staggeringly low chance of winning it.
Here’s how it works, all explained by the website, how kind.
Any person even vaguely briefed in statistics will be able to tell you to win the jackpot (by matching all the numbers, all 7 of them) the chances are 1/50 x 1/49 x 1/48 x 1/47 x 1/46 x 5! x 1/11 x 1/10 x 2!. This comes out as ~ 9E-10. That is 0.000000009% (a chance of 1 [in 1] = 100%). That is small. So very small. But this got me wondering, are your chances better on one of the best return bets available, Red or Black at the casino.
Red/black at the casino pays off an equal win to your bet, with your bet returned, so your money is effectively doubled. The cost of a EuroMillions ticket is £2. So how many wins do you need to double this up into £18M. (Obviously this would be impossible in a conventional casino as these have maximum table stakes, but lets play it out anyway). With the use of possibly my favourite programme excel it turns out that 24 wins makes £16M(£777,216). This is close enough as the next value is double this. Red or black is not a true 50/50 chance, because of the zero. No-one expects the green zero! On some roulette wheels/tables there exists even a 00, but not in this hypothetical casino.
Our simple wheel with 36 coloured numbers and one 0 green
36 coloured numbers, one 0, chances of hitting your selected red/black = 18/37.
so, (18/37)^24 is the chance of winning 24 times and making your desired jackpot of £16M. This number is ~3E-8, or ~ 0.0000003%.
Lets compare
Lottery: 9E-10 0.000000009%
Roulette: 3E-8 0.0000003%
Woah, turns out roulette gives a statistical chance 2 orders of magnitude greater than the lottery! A significant improvement, but granted still not likely.
S0 next time you want to chance £2 on £18M, go to the casino, not only are your odds greater but if you win even a few you have the chance to back out with an improved sum of money!
Life, The Universe and nothing important 