TITLE:
Winless Lottery Steak and Generalized Geometric Distribution
AUTHORS:
Kung-Kuen Tse
KEYWORDS:
Lottery, Geometric Distribution, Expectation, Telescopic Series, Geometric Series
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Mathematical Finance,
Vol.14 No.3,
August
2,
2024
ABSTRACT: In the U.S., the two most popular lotteries are Mega Millions® and Powerball. In Mega Millions®, players pick six numbers from two separate pools of numbers, five different numbers from 1 to 70, and one number from 1 to 25, a total of six numbers. In Powerball, players choose five numbers from 1 to 69 and one number from 1 to 26. If there is no winning ticket this time, the amount of jackpot (matching all six numbers) increases for the next draw until a winning ticket is found. We estimate the average number of draws it takes for a winning lottery ticket to be found.