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I'm curious.... Would money for large tournament field buy ins be better spent on lottery tickets? Does anyone know the point at which when a field size hits a certain point it is no longer worth buying in to that tournament, rather it would be more valuable to play the lottery instead?I think that it would be better to play the lottery, because i think the odds of winning the lottery may be better than winning tournaments such as the WSOP especially because of the payout...don't you agree? Also lotteries may pay a larger amount... E.G. WSOP 7.5 million while winning lottery would pay out 100 million

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I'm curious.... Would money for large tournament field buy ins be better spent on lottery tickets? Does anyone know the point at which when a field size hits a certain point it is no longer worth buying in to that tournament, rather it would be more valuable to play the lottery instead?I think that it would be better to play the lottery, because i think the odds of winning the lottery may be better than winning tournaments such as the WSOP especially because of the payout...don't you agree? Also lotteries may pay a larger amount... E.G. WSOP 7.5 million while winning lottery would pay out 100 million
To match all 6 numbers in a lottery, your odds are aprox. 1 : 13,983,816.Ignoring skill advantage, your odds of winning the WSOP this last year were 1: 5,619 (although it might be closer to the 1:13 mil range for some people).Patrick
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To match all 6 numbers in a lottery, your odds are aprox. 1 : 13,983,816.Ignoring skill advantage, your odds of winning the WSOP this last year were 1: 5,619 (although it might be closer to the 1:13 mil range for some people).Patrick
if you want to counter the OP's argument, at least make a sensible counter argument.to your argument, i say a lottery ticket costs $1 and could win $100 million or more, while a WSOP ticket costs $10,000 and could only win $7.5 million.
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When u really think about it, wat really r the odds of turning 10000 into 350000 playing in the main event? I would think a better bet would be to place all 1oooo on a single roulette wheel number. The payout would be 350000 and the odds r only 36 -1 . And it wouldnt take 6 days to get the result.

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its not just that...the odds of winning the lottery are specific...while a tournament takes into account multiple times of surviving all ins of 70%-30% 60%40%... 50%50%... and opposed to all ins your odds of winning a hand or losing a hand when you are not all-in also is a factor ... and not to mention skill level of course.

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When u really think about it, wat really r the odds of turning 10000 into 350000 playing in the main event? I would think a better bet would be to place all 1oooo on a single roulette wheel number. The payout would be 350000 and the odds r only 36 -1 . And it wouldnt take 6 days to get the result.
good point... but you also have to take into account that lotteries pay out even if you dont hit all the numbers as do tournaments pay out even if you dont win 1stas opposed to roulette where you either win or lose
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When u really think about it, wat really r the odds of turning 10000 into 350000 playing in the main event? I would think a better bet would be to place all 1oooo on a single roulette wheel number. The payout would be 350000 and the odds r only 36 -1 . And it wouldnt take 6 days to get the result.
good point... but you also have to take into account that lotteries pay out even if you dont hit all the numbers as do tournaments pay out even if you dont win 1stas opposed to roulette where you either win or lose
screw roullettePut it down on the big wheel on the 45-1 shot at the wynn.good times
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To match all 6 numbers in a lottery, your odds are aprox. 1 : 13,983,816.Ignoring skill advantage, your odds of winning the WSOP this last year were 1: 5,619 (although it might be closer to the 1:13 mil range for some people).Patrick
if you want to counter the OP's argument, at least make a sensible counter argument.to your argument, i say a lottery ticket costs $1 and could win $100 million or more, while a WSOP ticket costs $10,000 and could only win $7.5 million.
I'm sorry, but I have trouble responding to something completely senseless. I don't see how I could make a 'sensible counter argument' with the information given.He said he felt that the odds of winning the lottery were better then winning a tournament like the WSOP ME. That is ludicrous. If you want to start talking abou the EV of both scenarios, then you need a lot more information then what was given. I'm not a math wiz, so I would get lost pretty quickly I'm sure trying to calculate the EV of entering the WSOP ME to the EV of buying 10,000 lottery tickets.Patrick
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its not just that...the odds of winning the lottery are specific...while a tournament takes into account multiple times of surviving all ins of 70%-30% 60%40%... 50%50%... and opposed to all ins your odds of winning a hand or losing a hand when you are not all-in also is a factor ... and not to mention skill level of course.
Exactly. I think you would need to appeal to a Andrew Prock, Bill Chen, Barbara Yoon (when he was still alive and posting) type to get the answer you are looking for. There seems to be way too many variables to come up with an answer, at least for me.Also, did you mean buy 1 ticket 10,000 times, or buy 10,000 tickets and enter 1 time....Orrrrr did you mean buying only 1 ticket, 1 time?Patrick
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its not just that...the odds of winning the lottery are specific...while a tournament takes into account multiple times of surviving all ins of 70%-30% 60%40%... 50%50%... and opposed to all ins your odds of winning a hand or losing a hand when you are not all-in also is a factor ... and not to mention skill level of course.
Exactly. I think you would need to appeal to a Andrew Prock, Bill Chen, Barbara Yoon (when he was still alive and posting) type to get the answer you are looking for. There seems to be way too many variables to come up with an answer, at least for me.Also, did you mean buy 1 ticket 10,000 times, or buy 10,000 tickets and enter 1 time....Orrrrr did you mean buying only 1 ticket, 1 time?Patrick
I think he means 10,000 different number variationsmeaning u have 10 thousand chances to win.
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1 ticket or 10,000 tickets would not make a difference, i mean in general how do you feel about it? Im saying it would be extremely difficult to get a correct answer id just liek to see everyones opinion on the matter.
are u kidding?of course 10 thousand tickets makes a difference.If its lotto 6/49 and there is like 14 million possible combinations.and you have 1 ticket, thats 1: 14 millionif you have 10 thousand. thats umm.. well a lot better odds, i failed math 3 times1: 1400 i'm smrt edit: now that i think about it, thats much better odds than the 1 : 6000 WSOP ME odds
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1 ticket or 10,000 tickets would not make a difference, i mean in general how do you feel about it? Im saying it would be extremely difficult to get a correct answer id just liek to see everyones opinion on the matter.
Hmm...I still keep thinking of different variables that come into play. Like someone mentioned, both the tournament and the lottery pay out for less then first, so all that would have to go into the equation, as well as the chances of multiple people splitting the lottery jackpot (which happens often in Cali). Heh, if you wanted to take it another step, you'd have to include taxes, as well as any sort of endorsement money the winner of the ME might receive. Well...In general, I like the odds of winning the WSOP better, but the pay out for the lottery is a much better value (i think). I'd love to see someone with a great mathematical mind sort through everything and come up with a reasonable solution.Patrick
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it boils down to expectation.the lottery always has a negative expectation. no matter how big the jackpot is, you will always be getting improper odds to play. this happens because more people play when the pot gets bigger, which increases the likelihood that the jackpot is split between two winning tickets.poket tournaments, on the other hand, don't have to have a negative expectation. it is true because the house charges rake, the average net winnings of participants will be negative. but since poker is a game of skill, you can have a positive expectation for a tournament if you have a big enough advantage over the field.whether your expectation is positive or negative doesn't depend on the size of the field, as the OP seems to think, but rather on the average skill of the field and your own skill level. so if you are a better player than, say, 60% of all entrants, you should play the poker tournament instead of the lottery.

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To match all 6 numbers in a lottery, your odds are aprox. 1 : 13,983,816.Ignoring skill advantage, your odds of winning the WSOP this last year were 1: 5,619 (although it might be closer to the 1:13 mil range for some people).Patrick
if you want to counter the OP's argument, at least make a sensible counter argument.to your argument, i say a lottery ticket costs $1 and could win $100 million or more, while a WSOP ticket costs $10,000 and could only win $7.5 million.
most big lotteries are won by more than one person
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I can't believe 20% of people on a poker forum have honestly picked lottery tickets. First, where's the fun? Playing poker involves some degree of skill, even for a donk, and it is enjoyable. Secondly, and I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up yet, if you want a straight look at the EV, state lotteries keep around 50% of the money plowed into them by the ignorant people that play. Harrah's held out 6%, I believe. Like my old statistics prof used to say, "lotteries are a tax on stupid people."

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This is such a dumb thread. Everyone knows that lotteries are -ev there is no skill involved to compensate for the large portion of lotteries pools that goes to administration and in some cases charity. The only situation where a lottery might me approaching +ev is when it hasn't been won in a very long time which i guess would be the same as an overlay in a poker tournament. I know people will say that the tournament fee in poker is the same as administrative cost for lotteries which it is however poker has the element of skill so certain players are able to overcome the -ev that the fee causes and be +ev for the tournament. I couldn't give you the math behind all this buy im fairly confident im right

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state lotteries keep around 50% of the money plowed into them by the ignorant people that play.
Really? I'm not challenging you, because I have no information that says otherwise, but that seems ridiculously high. Can you tell me where you aquired that percentage?
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You are talking 10000 chances to win vs 1 chance to win? You would have a .0007 chance of winning the 6 number lottery if you buy 10000 $1 tickets. Your chances of winning the WSOP, if you go with the argument that x number of entrants gives you about x-1 odds of winning, are worser, much much worser.BTW i did all these calulations on my fisher price calculator, so believe me at your own risk.

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