Anyone good at probability and is this problem as simple as it looks? A raffle has 4365 tickets sold in total. My office buys 420 tickets. There are 53 prizes drawn and won. We won NOTHING……two years on the trot!!!! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What are the chances of that?
I'll assume the draws are done without replacement, meaning once your ticket is removed and you win, your ticket is thrown away. The total number of ways to select winners is 4365 choose 53, or 4365!/((4365-53)!*53!). There are 4365-420=3945 tickets that aren't yours. The total number of ways to select winners where you guys don't win once is 3945 choose 53 or 3945!/((3945-53)!*53!). So the probability of you not winning anything is the ratio 3945!/((3945-53)!*53!)/[4365!/((4365-53)!*53!)]=.004535291478 Or roughly a .454% chance of winning nothing. But there's more, assuming it was the same setup both years, you square this number to get a .000021, or .0021% chance of no wins both years.
shmoe has it right. The chances are kind of slim - about 1 in 48000. Who buys the tickets? Did they really buy the tickets?!? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yeah, I'm gonna get to the bottom of this. We're being shafted here, I'm certain of it. And, by the way, since I've brought it up at work, it turns out that there was a mistake and apparently Iv'e won an acre plot on the moon :bugeye: In heaven's name - who the hell needs THAT Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
What's more, the people who supposedly 'gave' you this acre plot on the moon actually have no legitimate claim to it to start with.
Oh, they don't GIVE it away. They charge £19.95 for it - someone is making a healthy profit from this little venture. I'd have preferred to win a picnic hamper or something!!!! Oh well, perhaps they might find gold in my little acre plot and my future offspring's offspring will be rich Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The problem is that the 19.95 is for the piece of paper, not for the plot of land. No one has any legitimate claim to land on the Moon, mainly because (as far as I know) no one has the power and intent to enforce such claims (yet).
And I've worked out there are 9 billion acres on the moon, so as far as I'm concerned it's worth naff all !!!!! I wonder how deep the plot is that I'm entitled to...
