normally A ticket is usually not an assignable asset. Most rules make a bearer ticket claimable by whoever holds it and do not treat it as a security that can be sold, margined or held after its window. Where a ticket is held in an account, the account's own rules on transferability apply.
Draw Desk / The ticket
Draw 02
A ticket carries numbers, and the numbers are the chance
A draw ticket is small enough to be treated as a receipt, and it is not one: it is the instrument the prize is claimed against. This page is about what is on it, why the numbers on it are the whole of the chance, and why a chosen line and a generated line are the same thing to the arithmetic and not the same thing to the crowd.
Draw ticket
- Sheet
- DD-57-03
- Subject
- The ticket
- Carries
- a fixed set of numbers
- Claim on
- the ticket, inside a window
3 tiersA printed sum: the rules state the amount, and it pays whoever matched, however many that is
1 tierA split fund: a declared share of the prize fund, divided among the lines that matched it
1 tierCarried forward: an unwon share of the fund moved into a later draw instead of paid
Direct answerA draw ticket is an instrument carrying a fixed set of numbers entered into one named draw. The numbers may be chosen by the player or generated at random by the terminal, and the two are identical in probability: each line is one combination out of the same pool. The ticket, or the account record of it, is what a prize is claimed against, inside a window that the rules state.
One line, one combinationChosen and generated are equalThe ticket is the claimA window, not indefinitely
What is on a ticket
A ticket names the draw it belongs to, the format and the pool the numbers are drawn from, the numbers themselves, the price, the date and a serial or barcode that identifies it. Where a ticket is printed at a counter this is a physical object, and where it is held in an account it is a record with the same fields. The two differ in how they are lost, which is the subject of the claim page, and not in what they entitle the holder to.
The numbers are the whole of the chance. Nothing else on the ticket - the serial, the store, the time, the amount of the purchase - has any bearing on which numbers are drawn, and nothing about a ticket makes one combination likelier than another. The pool is small enough that the count of combinations is worth knowing exactly, and the odds page computes it.
Chosen numbers and a generated line
identical odds The arithmetic does not care
A line of six numbers chosen by a player and a line of six numbers generated by the terminal are both one combination out of 45,057,474. No set of numbers is more likely than another, and no pattern is a system.
different in one way The crowd changes the sharing
The two lines differ in one respect that is real: how many other tickets are likely to have the same numbers. A tier whose fund is split among its winners pays less when more tickets match it, and numbers that many players pick are matched by more tickets. That is a fact about how people choose, not about the draw.
Multiple lines on one purchase
Buying several lines in one draw multiplies the chance in the same straight line as buying one line in several draws, and the arithmetic of the two is identical. What differs is the shape of the result.
- Several lines, one draw. The chance of taking something from that draw rises in proportion to the lines, and the chance of a large tier is covered several ways - which also raises the chance that two of your own lines match the same tier and split between themselves.
- One line, several draws. The chance per draw is unchanged, and the chance of eventually hitting a large tier accumulates over the series. The spend is the same. The experience differs: a series offers many small losses and one distant possibility, while one draw with many lines concentrates the same chance into one evening.
- A subscription or multi-draw ticket. Some draws sell a ticket into several future draws at once. The chance per draw is the same as buying each separately, and the price is often the same, so it is a convenience rather than a discount - worth checking rather than assuming.
Worked example - lines, draws and the same total spend (illustrative)
Ticket price 2.00; budget 20.00; top-tier chance per line = 1 / 45,057,474
Option A - ten lines in one draw:
chance of the top tier from this purchase = 10 / 45,057,474 = 1 in 4,505,747
draws played: 1; lines bought: 10
Option B - one line in each of ten draws:
chance of the top tier in any one draw = 1 / 45,057,474
chance of at least one top tier across the ten draws = 10 / 45,057,474 = 1 in 4,505,747
draws played: 10; lines bought: 10
The two figures above are the same number, which is the point: the arithmetic
of a chance is a count of combinations bought, and it does not care how the count is split.
Expected return on the 20.00 spent, at a 50% prize fund: 20.00 x 0.50 = 10.00
The second figure is the one that never moves. Splitting the spend changes the shape of
the outcome and the timing of the entertainment and not the expected return.
What a ticket is not
not transferable
not a position
no lever The number of lines is the only lever. A player cannot raise a line, add to it after the draw closes, cash it out early, or hedge it. That is what separates a draw ticket from nearly every other product in this series.
not an investment
no yield A ticket has no yield and no asset value. Its expected return is the split in the rules, which is below the price, and a rollover raises the effective return of a particular draw without changing the split of the money staked in it.