How THE LOTTERY WORKS

Lotteries take many forms, but most involve a random draw of numbers. If your numbers match the randomly selected numbers, you win. The more of your numbers that match the ones drawn, the bigger the prize you win.

Whether you buy your tickets online or in-person, the odds of winning a lottery vary wildly, as do the price of a ticket and the prizes. The odds may depend on how many tickets have been purchased—by you and by other people—and how many numbers you need to match. Generally speaking, the odds of winning the top prize are very low, even in comparison to other types of gambling.

Let’s take the example of a fairly common lottery, a draw of six numbers between one and 49. The odds of winning the jackpot, which requires you to match all six numbers, are 1 in 13,983,816. And that’s not all. Even if you win, if more than one person also matches all six numbers, you split the jackpot, reducing your share.

But prizes are awarded if you match only a portion of the numbers drawn, right? 

Yes, but the odds of matching five out of six numbers—1 in 55,492—aren’t exactly great. And in many cases the prize for matching five numbers is small, often only a few hundred dollars, compared to millions of dollars for the jackpot.

The odds of winning a 50/50 draw typically depend on how many people buy tickets. If you buy one ticket, you get one number. If that number is selected in the draw, you get half the value of the tickets sold. In other words, the house advantage for a 50/50 draw is typically around 50 percent, meaning half of the amount wagered is taken away from the prize pool.