Mega Millions Result by LotteryPartners.com

Posted by admin on June 9th, 2008 in Mega Millions Result, Mega Millions Results, Pick3, Pick4, Powerball, Winning Lottery System

Many people want to know how to calculate the odds of winning a lottery.  This simple example can help you determine your odds of winning any lottery.

We’ll use the 5/39 lottery that operates in several USA states (like CA as “Fantasy Five”) as an average lottery in our example. To win the lottery grand prize you have to select all five numbers exactly as drawn in the daily contest.

To understand how to calculate your chances of winning this lottery one simply has to calculate the pool of potential numbers that you as a contestant have available to select.  Then, you have to divide that pool of numbers by the total number opprtunities that you have to win.

That is, the pool/opportunities = odds of winning

• When you select the first number, you have a one in 39 chance of selecting a correct number.
• When you select the second number, you have one less in the pool of potential numbers available for your selection.
• To choose the second number you have a one in (39 times 38)= 1,482 chance of getting them both correct.
• When you select the third number, you have one less in the pool of potential numbers available for your selection.
• To pick the third number you have a one in (39 x 38 x 37) = 54,834 chance of getting all three of them correctly.
• When you select the fourth number, you have one less in the pool of potential numbers available for your selection.
• To pick the fourth number you have a one in (39 x 38 x 37 x 36) = 1,974,024 chance of getting all four of them correct.
• When you select, the fifth number you have one less in the pool of potential numbers available for your selection.
• To pick the fifth number you have a one in (39 x 38 x 37 x 36 x 35) = 69,090,840 chance of getting all five of them correct.

Therefore, total pool of numbers for 5/39 is 69,090,840.

To calculate the opportunities, simply multiply the the total number of chances that you have together (in this case it is referred to as 5! or 5 factorial).

Since you pick 5 numbers, the opportunities equal 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120.

Therefore, the odds of winning all 5 of the numbers in a 5/39 lottery is = pool/opportunities = 69,090,840/120 = 575,757. 

That is, you have 1 chance out of 575,757 chance of getting all 5 numbers correct in a 5/39 lottery.

Using the above method of calculation for lower number wins, you can see that your odds are as follows:

All 5 of 5 winning numbers      1 in 575,757
Any 4 of 5 winning numbers    1 in 3,387
Any 3 of 5 winning numbers    1 in 103
Any 2 of 5 winning numbers    1 in 10