how many different possible outcomes on the lottery are there?

Question

Could someone tell me how many different possible combinations there are on the UK normal lottery of 6 balls out of 49? cheers

Thanks for your great answers

so you are telling me that if i spent £13,983,816 on lottery tickets i am guarenteed to win? so as long as the jackpot is above this im in the money.....

is exactly what i was thinking! is that right? also you would have to have 14 mill in the first place

Does anyone know what it would be for the euro millions lottery?

Answer 1

The odds of getting all six are 13,983,816 to 1

Note: the above answer forgets to divide by through the possible combinations of the six numbers.

If we multiply the numbers 49 x 48 x 47 x 46 x 45 x 44 we get 10,068,347,520. However, each possible group of six numbers (combination) can be drawn in different ways depending on which number in the group was drawn first, which was drawn second, and so on. There are 6 choices for the first, 5 for the second, 4 for the third, 3 for the fourth, 2 for the fifth, and 1 for the sixth. Multiply these numbers out to arrive at 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 720. We then need to divide 10,068,347,520 by 720 to arrive at the figure 13,983,816 as the number of different groups of six numbers.

Edit: Yes, well the above answer has now changed their response. Well done and all that.

Answer 2

In response to an earlier question on the value of purchasing all possible combinations, it is worth remembering 2 things;

Firstly, even were you to buy £14 million worth of lottery tickets, not all of that would go into the Jackpot. The Lottery funds a number of charitable ventures, and you won't necessarily receive all of what you paid in.

Secondly, the money won in the Jackpot is split among the winners. Unless you can be assured that you are the only person who has entered the winning lottery numbers, it is not exactly a good idea, given that you may get about a third of your investment back.

As for the Euromillions, well,

50/5 * 49/4 * 48/3 * 47/2 * 46 * 9/2 * 8 = 76,275,360

Or a total of £114,413,040, were you to buy every combination

Answer 3

I agree with the roughly 13 million possiblities presented above.
But on the question of whether you could buy that many tickets and be guaranteed to win....
Assuming a week between when you can start buying them and when the draw happens, you would need to fill out over 200 tickets a second..
And a group of people tried to do something similar in the Irish National Lottery about ten years ago. There were fewer numbers at the time (only 32 or 36 I think), so the number of possibilities fewer correspondingly. They weren't planning on doing every possible combination but they had factored the cash won from getting less than 6 numbers, and the loss shared between them turned out to be worth it.
Of course, they were stopped. There are always rules against that sort of participation in a large lottery, so I'd say give up on the idea of winning that way....

Answer 4

13,983,816 - 1. The formula to work this out is: 49/6 x 48/5 x 47/4 x 46/3 x 45/2 x 44. You should be multiplying six numbers that are getting progressively larger. As you can see I'm the only person to tell you the correct formula.

Answer 5

Scam!!!!! That message is both a fake and an outright fraud. Don't contact the phishers and give them any of your personal information at all. If that involves money for insurance or fees, don't give them not one cent of it. Spam that scam message straight into oblivion right away. This is one lottery you'll never win because it's "bogus." You'll have to pay some money to play in the lottery. Another thing, the phishers telling you to "keep this lottery information confidential" would indicate to you not to say anything about this to anybody until they have finished scamming you. That means you will risk making the phishers rich at your own expense while you'll be left holding the bag in the end. Lottery scams are the same, no matter how it's put. This definitely fits the bill here.

Answer 6

Yeah, if you bought all 14 million (approx) permutations every week, you would be guaranteed to win. This would guarantee you a share of the first prize which is around 6 million, but depending on how many other people won, it may be considerably less. But you would also pick up winnings on many combinations of 3 x correct, 4 x correct, 5 x correct and 5 x correct plus the bonus ball. But the one other thing that you could guarantee by buying 14 million tickets is that you will have contributed about £7million to charity.

Answer 7

Yeah this is jsut a simple combination (not permutation)

so u just the the formula (n(n-1)(n-2).....(n-r))/r!
Where n is the number of numbers and r is the number you want so 49*48*47*46*45*44/(6!) = 13.98mil

Answer 8

so you are telling me that if i spent £13,983,816 on lottery tickets i am guarenteed to win? so as long as the jackpot is above this im in the money.....

Answer 9

ther are
6 Combination 49 different possibilities

Answer 10

I agree with Satyricon (give him the points). Thankyou Satyricon, you have just stopped me having to write out a similar explanation.