MEGA BIG sales have increased dramatically. Probability and expected value
【Sports lottery “MEGA BIG” sales increase dramatically as the odds of winning the first prize jump.】
https://ascii.jp/elem/000/004/218/4218751/
・The MEGA BIG is a lottery that predicts the outcome of 12 soccer matches. Initially, 4 of the 12 games were cancelled due to a typhoon, and only the results of the remaining 8 games would determine the winner, thus increasing the odds of winning the first prize.
・The odds of winning the first prize were approximately 1 in 65,536, a significant increase from the usual odds of approximately 1 in 16.8 million.
・In addition to this situation, there was a carryover of approximately 5.83 billion yen from previous years, which made the situation very attractive to buyers, and many people rushed to buy.
・The 1476th MEGA BIG recorded a record 4.71 billion yen in sales.
The above is a quote from the article
How do you deal with the numbers and figures of probability and expectation?
The MEGA BIG this time became a topic of conversation because of the high winning amount and the high probability of winning, and sales increased dramatically.
I was curious to know what is the expected value of the high probability of winning the prize. I was curious.
I found out that the expected value of this MEGA BIG is 170% to 180%.
In the past I have written about expected value on my blog.
【Lottery Expectations. A World Revealed by Expectations】
https://amimako.com/culture-society-mathematics-lottery-money-expected-value/
The expected values summarized in the blog at this time are as follows
・Lottery tickets and Lotto 6: 45% expected value
・Horse racing and boat racing: 65% expected value
・Pachinko/pachislot: 80% expected value
・Roulette: expected value of 97.2-94%.
・Blackjack: 95% to 102% expected value
・Poker: 95% expected value
Looking at the above, we can see that the expected value of 170% to 180% for MEGA BIG this time is a very high expected value. (To begin with, the fact that it is a positive expected value is amazing.)
So, if you ask me if I would put my money into a MEGA BIG like this one, I won’t. To begin with, I have never bought a lottery ticket before.
Everyone has his or her own view of how high the expected value is, you know.
I believe that probability or expected value is a very fluffy number.
Because it is a number that is neither fixed nor promised,
I think that probability or expectation is a very fluffy number, because it is neither fixed nor promised.
Let me give you an extreme example,
A one-in-six chance dice roll can keep coming up with the same result. However, if you roll the dice thousands or tens of thousands of times, the number will probably converge to 1 in 6.
Likewise, even if you buy a MEGA BIG with an expected value of 170% like this one, you do not know how many years it will take for the expected value to converge to 170%, even if you buy 1 million yen every year. After another 30 years, you may only have a total of 1,700,000 yen in profit.
Well, I’ve really taken it to the extreme, but probabilities and expected values are really fuzzy and interesting numbers, aren’t they?
My personal feeling is that I can’t bet on such fuzziness.
Nevertheless,
I am a person who loves to have expectations and hopes for something, and to work on something.
Since those expectations and hopes are unquantifiable and even more vague, my words above “I can’t bet on such an iffy place” lose their persuasiveness, don’t they? ^^
Just,
The expectations and hopes that I try to work on are, indeed, vague and unquantifiable, but I would strongly argue that they are a bit different from a lottery, where the probability depends on the system of others, because I believe that “I can increase the probability depending on my actions”.
How do you feel about probabilities and expectations?
See you then
Not to mention that information about someone winning on social networking sites is more vague with no certainty. By the way, the expected value of a MEGA BIG in normal time (from next time) seems to be 38%.
