The Local lottery has 39 numbers and if you match all 5 which they select you win the jackpot. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 575,757, can someone show me how these odds are figured?
2007-10-28 04:11:06 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
to be able to figure out the odds all you have to do is list all the possibilities available. in this case what you have to do is list all the combinations of 5 numbers possible without repeating, in this case the possible combinations are 575,757. after you have that you assume that the average person only buys one set of 5 numbers and this is the 1 out of 575,757.
one example of what theyr would do is this:
list all the possible combinations:
1,2,3,4,5
1,2,3,4,6
1,2,3,4,7
etc......
98765 (higest combination)
if you add all the possible answers you get the odds.
2007-10-28 04:18:20 · answer #1 · answered by Connie22 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Do you know permutation and combination?
nCr is the number of ways youcan select r things out of n things and given by
n! / r! (n-r)!
5! means =5x4x3x2x1
The answer is, 5 numbers can be chosen out of 39 in 39C5 ways.
39 ! / 5! 34!
=39 x 38 x 37 x 36 x 35 / 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1
=575,757 ways.
Your ticket is one of them. So, your odds of winning the jackpot is
1/575757
2007-10-28 11:24:52 · answer #2 · answered by cidyah 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
there are 39 numbers from which 5 will be chosen...
the number of combinations can be computed by using nCr..
n=39; r=5; 39C5 = 575757...
so, the probability that one ticket/combination will win is 1/575757
2007-10-28 11:21:08 · answer #3 · answered by joyce 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
that doesn't make sence to me. you have one chance in 39 to get one number. so it should be 39x39x39x39x39 it doesn't add up to 575,757 it adds up to 90,224.199 I don't get it
2007-10-28 11:26:15 · answer #4 · answered by hifi1863 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋