# Math Help - how many tickets should I have

1. ## how many tickets should I have

Hi,
I am new to this forum and please excuse my grammer as I am not good enough at Mathematical terms.

To win the first prize in lottary 6/49 we have to have 13.983.816 tickets ok ?
if I played all those tickets and win the first prize. how many 5 winning tickets and how many 4 winning tickets I have ? What is the simple formula for that ?

My second question is that how many tickets can I play(write-fill ??) if I have one (1) lucky number and how many tickets if I have 2 lucky numbers.
(by "lucky number " I mean the number which I am sure to drop? )

thanks

2. I'm not sure what you're asking.
It seems that you need to pick 6 out of 49 numbers (without replacement) correctly in order to win.

${49\choose 6}={(49)(48)(47)(46)(45)(44)\over 6!}$

which is 13,983,816 so I guess I understand that part.

I'm not sure what
5 winning tickets and how many 4 winning tickets
means
I guess you want 5 correct numbers and that is 49 choose 5.

3. For the benefit of those of you who didn't spend the afternoon sipping tea, this is a question on the UK national lottery.

The lottery draws 6 balls at random (without replacement) from a pool of 49.

Prizes are awarded for matching:
3 balls
4 balls
5 balls
6 balls

"If i buy 1 ticket for every possible combination, how many times will i win the 5 ball prize"
which is $^6C_5 * 44= 264$
Reason: Out of the 6 correct balls, there are $^6C_5$ sets of 5 balls you could match. For each of those you could pick any one of 44 values for the last ball

"If i buy 1 ticket for every possible combination, how many times will i win the 4 ball prize"
which is $^6C_4 *45*44= 29700$

i think he means

editincorrect formula fixed
"if i am sure that 1 number will drop, how many different ticket combinations are there that i can buy? (ie how many possible outcomes of the lottery are there)":
If you know the value of 1 ball, the lottery is just choosing 5 balls from 48: $^{48}C_5 =1712304$

Try and do "2 lucky numbers" on your own

ok. if I pick 13,983,816 tickets ,I win the biggest prize..meanwhile I am paid because I have 5 correct numbers and 4 correct numbers.. how many winning 5s and 4s are there ?

is this the formula ? 49/5(!) =635.628 which is to many or 13.983.816/635.628=22 5 winning tickets?

6. Thanks for SpringFan25,

His reply is what I am after ,

you are great..

7. Hi springFan25,
in 49/6 ,say I have two "lucky numbers" which are ,say 5,10 . I keep writting these two numbers till I get the biggest prize ..I change the the other four numbers so how many tickets should I have ? I should have less tickets because I have "two lucky numbers"
so what is the formula ?

thanks

8. i made a mistake on the formula for the second question, i should have said:

"if i am sure that 1 number will drop, how many different ticket combinations are there that i can buy? (ie how many possible outcomes of the lottery are there)":
If you know the value of 1 ball, the lottery is just choosing 5 balls from 48: $^{48}C_5 =1712304$

For two lucky numbers, you are just choosing 4 numbers from 47
$^{47}C_4$=178365

9. Originally Posted by SpringFan25
i made a mistake on the formula for the second question, i should have said:

"if i am sure that 1 number will drop, how many different ticket combinations are there that i can buy? (ie how many possible outcomes of the lottery are there)":
If you know the value of 1 ball, the lottery is just choosing 5 balls from 48: $^{48}C_5 =1712304$

For two lucky numbers, you are just choosing 4 numbers from 47
$^{47}C_4$=178365
Ok.. That will help...a lot..
Thank you very much