I suppose this has a slightly higher probability than winning the state lottery three times in a row, but I'm not sure
<OT>Quick query: what kind of 'lotteries' are around? Probably different in different places. I've noticed that the UK is calling what I'd call 'Lotto', rather like 'Keno', a 'lottery'.
To me a 'lottery' has a fixed amount of numbers (tickets, entries) and one is drawn out to be first prize. There may be other prizes, but they are each a single entry drawn from a fixed number, with the prize amounts for each fixed ahead of the draw; there's a very similar idea with raffles.
What's called 'Lotto' (and similar varieties of gambling) here is where you pick a series of numbers from a field (it started out 6 from 1-36, it's now 1-40, and there are all sorts of variations where you pay more money and can pick more numbers). The number of entries is variable, it fluctuates more or less randomly between draws. Then they pick a series of numbers from that field, and however many entries matched those numbers divide up the amount alloted to the first prize - the size of which partly depends on the number of entries. If no entry matches, a prize isn't won and it rolls over to the next draw.
Since there are now 150,000 tickets in each lottery (was 100,000), you know the odds, and the prize amount -- admittedly it's usually much less than the possible first prize for 'Lotto'. The odds are trickier to calculate for 'Lotto', but they are HUGELY greater, and you also may end up divvying it up with a lot of others, so you could end up with less than the lottery prize.
So, are you saying 3 x 150,000 to 1 (several people have won twice since we started State lotteries 70-odd years ago) or 3 x 3,000,000-or so to 1?</OT>
I want a million gazillion dollars -- no, Euros -- and a new XBox 3-whatever-it-is and for -Terminator 3- to never have happened, and for George Lucas to find a job that suits him, whatever that might be. ... <ahem> and a pony? <ducks & covers>
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