One for the brighter people...

[Group27_Lee]

For fun

Okay, we all know odds of lottery is 14 million to one. If I had a pound and bet on a horse at evens and repeated this every week and used the winnings of this to put on the next bet (ie week by week winnings should be 1,1,2,4,8,16,32,etc). Are my odds better by doing this to get a million pounds or doing the lottery?!

 

[TheBramble]

Your capital growth series appears to ignore the possibility your nag wouldn't be first past the post every week.

To "get a million pounds..." you need an unbroken winning streak of 20 weeks. Possible, but unlikely. The odds are 1:1048576. Although this is 14 times more likely than winning the lottery you will on your 19th week be 'betting the ranch' which will at that time stand at £524,288!!!

The lottery in its favour, does provide an incredible R:R (you only ever risk £1) and after reading Taleb again recently am tempted to do it myself.

 

[Group27_Lee]

Surely you are only risking the pound you start off with the nags, so a better R:R if odds are 1mil to one vs 14mil to one. Obviously if horse loses, you start again, but at least you might get more fun out of it. espicially if you get a few winning weeks, which isn't impossible from experience

Thanks for working out probability. Getting the hang (sort of!) with charts, but maths like this make my head hurt. I'm not even going into what happens if you split any winnings to create a seperate advanced bet and the odds on that.....

 

[LION63]

If you split winnings during the compounding process, you effectively increase the number of winning weeks required and increase the odds that are against you. The flip side of the coin is that by banking some profits along the way you ensure that you are not 'betting the ranch' and have something to show for your effort if things go wrong.

It is a big ask, 99.99% of the population do not have the will to see it through; a simple visit to any casino proves that.

 

[TheBramble]

Surely you are only risking the pound you start off with the nags, .....

The first week yes!

I find it hard to believe you'd get all the way to week 19 - lose your accumulated and hard-won half-million - and maintain such a relaxed stance.

It wouldn't 'feel' like just £1 then...

 

[DaveJB]

I find it hard to believe that:
(A) You can slap £500,000 down in Ladbrokes, yell "I'll take the favourite at Chepstow, thanks', without significant difficulty in getting the slip filled out, and
(B) Slapping said half mill down won't affect the price - it would slaughter the SP, and the bookie would presumably refuse to allow it all on at evens... ie even if they accepted the bet there'd be a 'so much at evens, so much at 4-6, so much at 1-2...' etc that averaged out to rather poorer odds overall.

In contrast the lottery returns what it returns - those brimming with confidence in the power of Aunt Agnes' birthday divided by their Uncle Jim's inside leg and hat size should of course buy 5 tickets with the same numbers on, then if some other devil picks the same numbers you'll get a bigger slice. (I expect)

Dave (Who won £10, once)

 

[oatman]

I'll bet..............you wouldn't have the balls to put down half a mil :cheesy:

 

[Salty Gibbon]

I find it hard to believe you'd get all the way to week 19 - lose your accumulated and hard-won half-million - and maintain such a relaxed stance.

It wouldn't 'feel' like just £1 then...

It's a bit like playing " Who wants to be a millionaire " isn't it ?