If a lottery ticket has odds of 1:4.96, how many would you have to buy to get a winning ticket?
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Answer me
ANSWERS: 3
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There's no limit to how long a string of losing tickets you could buy. Winning is never guaranteed. The probability of winning can be figured this way: "Betting odds are written in the form r:s ("r to s") and correspond to the probability of winning P = s/(r+s)" ( Source - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Odds.html ). So for 1:4.96, we have P = (4.96)/(5.96) = 0.832 -- better than 83% chance of winning. Already better than 50/50. If you buy 2 tickets, your chances of winning are 1-[(1-0.832)^2] = 0.972 -- better than 97%! With four tickets you win 99.9% of the time. That's my kind of lottery!
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none i've already won you cant lose if you don't play
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On average, five.
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