July 20th, 2007 at 12:09 am I can parse most of that…except that ‘d’. What the hell is that?

• clearmoments Says: February 24th, 2008 at 9:37 pm Rationally speaking the lottery is a bad investment. Okay the odds do get better as the jackpot goes up, but not by much. If you discount the cash flows and the divide by the average number of winners, the best case scenario is you come out losing an average $0.20 per $1 ticket (depending on the size of the jackpot.) Take for example the Florida Lottery C(6,53): E(P) E(W) E(P)[adj] Lump TVM Lump Sum TVM $105.7 5.0 $21.1 $7.0 $0.92 ($0.69) ($0.96) $84.7 3.9 $21.8 $7.3 $0.95 ($0.68) ($0.96) $67.6 2.8 $24.1 $8.0 $1.05 ($0.65) ($0.95) $53.6 1.9 $28.4 $9.5 $1.24 ($0.59) ($0.95) $43.0 1.9 $22.4 $7.5 $0.98 ($0.68) ($0.96) $33.2 1.6 $21.3 $7.1 $0.93 ($0.69) ($0.96) $23.9 1.5 $15.5 $5.2 $0.68 ($0.77) ($0.97) $19.5 3.3 $6.0 $2.0 $0.26 ($0.91) ($0.99) $18.2 1.8 $9.9 $3.3 $0.43 ($0.86) ($0.98) The first column E(P) is the jackpot (millions) the second column E(W) is the expected number of winners, (extrapolated from historical data. E(P)[adj] ...  more