You don’t have to spend a lot to win a lot in New York. Whoever just won $18.4 million after shelling out one dollar for two chances at the jackpot would probably agree. The New York Lottery drawing sold one ticket that matched all six winning numbers, for an $18.4 million grand prize.
Lottery tickets for New York Lottery’s iconic LOTTO game are a bargain compared to those of many other lotteries. You get two draws for a single dollar, twice as many as the single game ticket common to many lottery draw games.
The trick, of course, is coming up with the right ticket with the right numbers.
What were the winning numbers?
The winning numbers for the February 1, 2023, New York Lottery LOTTO drawing can be found in this press release.
Where was the winning ticket sold?
The winning LOTTO ticket was sold at a New York Lottery retailer, Soler Brothers Deli & Grocery. The location is indicated on the map below.
What are the odds of winning the jackpot?
The New York Lottery has provided a helpful page showing the likelihood of winning each of the LOTTO prizes. According to this page, the odds of winning the jackpot by matching all six numbers are 45,057,474 to 1.
I explored the odds of winning another big lottery jackpot, Powerball, in a recent NewsBreak article:
Check your lottery tickets – prize worth $3.9 million still not claimed
Powerball jackpots are some of the largest in the history of the lottery, and the odds are as enormous as you would expect: nearly 300 million to one. (To be exact: 292,201,338 to one, according to this Powerball webpage.)
To have an even chance of winning the Powerball jackpot, according to my non-professional calculations, you would have to play every game for approximately one million years.
LOTTO odds are better than Powerball odds!
The LOTTO is different. The odds, shown above, are a fraction of those for the Powerball games. Powerball is played three times a week, while LOTTO is played twice. Finally, every ticket consists of two plays.
Taking all that into account, my “for entertainment purposes only” estimate indicates that you would have to play every LOTTO game for a little over 100,000 years to have an even (that is, 50 / 50) chance of winning a jackpot.
When you include the chances of winning any prize, the odds change dramatically. The New York Lottery page says:
“OVERALL ODDS OF WINNING IN A SINGLE PANEL 1 in 92.05”
This calculation naturally includes all prizes, including the 5th place prizes, with their nominal payout.
A cool way to visualize long odds
Sometimes lottery odds are so huge it’s hard to imagine what the numbers really mean. This quick video puts it all into easily understandable perspective:
How do you feel about the odds?
We all know that “the odds favor the house,” or in this case, the state. Still, we hope for some luck. Bear in mind that the gloomy odds I mentioned earlier only refer to the grand prize.
Some of the lower tier prizes can be substantial as well, and the odds of winning these are much better. Leave a comment if you would like to share your thoughts about this.
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