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219 points skadamat | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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xnorswap ◴[] No.41301135[source]
My favourite corollary of this is that even if you win the lottery jackpot, then you win less than the average lottery winner.

Average Jackpot prize is JackpotPool/Average winners.

Average Jackpot prize given you win is JackpotPool/(1+Average winners).

The number of expected other winners on the date you win is the same as the average number of winners. Your winning ticket doesn't affect the average number of winners.

This is similar to the classroom paradox where there are more winners when the prize is poorly split, so the average observed jackpot prize is less than the average jackpot prize averaged over events.

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pif ◴[] No.41301213[source]
> The number of expected other winners on the date you win is the same as the average number of winners.

Sorry, but no! The total number of expected winners (including you) is the same as the average number of winners.

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cortesoft ◴[] No.41301876[source]
To understand why your totally understandable conclusion is wrong, it helps me to think about what it means to determine the average number of other winners when I win.

The reason is similar to the Monty Hall Problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem)

To understand, lets think about the simplest representation of this problem... 2 people playing the lottery, and a 50/50 chance to win.

So, we can map out all the possible combinations:

A wins (50%) and B wins (50%) - 25% of the time

A wins (50%) and B loses (50%) - 25% of the time

A loses (50%) and B wins (50%) - 25% of the time

A loses (50%) and B loses (50%) - 25% of the time

So we have 4 even outcomes, so to figure out the average number of winners, we just add up the total number of winners in all the situations and divide by 4... so two winners in the first scenario, plus one winner in scenario 2, plus one winner in scenario 3, and zero winners in scenario 4, for 4 total winners in all situations... divide that by 4, and we see we have an average of 1 winner per scenario.

This makes sense... with 50/50 chance of winning with 2 people leads to an average of 1 winner per draw.

Now lets see what happens if we check for situations where player A wins; in our example, that is the first two scenarios. We throw out scenario 3 and 4, since player A loses in those two scenarios.

So scenario one has 2 winners (A + B) while scenario two has 1 winner (just A)... so in two (even probability) outcomes where A is a winner, we have a total of 3 winners... divide that 3 by the two scenarios, and we get an average of 1.5 winners per scenario where A is a winner.

Why does this happen? In this simple example it is easy to see why... we removed the 1/4 chance where we have ZERO winners, which was bringing down the average.

This same thing happens no matter how many players and what the odds are... by selecting only the scenarios where a specific player wins, we are removing all the possible outcomes where zero people win.

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xnorswap ◴[] No.41302605[source]
You said my conclusion was wrong (edit: Apologies, I confused the nesting level here), then proved it correct by calculating the expected number of winners given you win as 3/2.
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1. FabHK ◴[] No.41302690{3}[source]
(I think cortesoft was responding to pif, whom you also responded to, thus agreeing with you.)
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2. xnorswap ◴[] No.41302783[source]
Ah, thank you, navigating the nesting on here is difficult sometimes and this has proven a very contentious topic!