Events in our life strongly depends on the probability. I often try to calculate probability of the events in my profession as well as in my real life. If my memory serves me right, the last such try was about week ago. I was in a good mood and I decided to buy a lottery ticket. I did not expect to win the jackpot seriously. However, I was wondering, what is my probability of winning the jackpot?
I knew that the lottery ticket contained six numbers. Each number was in the range of 1-50. I assumed that the lottery ticket contains only one number. For this case, likelihood formula is relatively simple. Probability of winning the lottery could be calculated by dividing the number of conducive events by the total number of possible outputs. Therefore, possible output is any number in the range of 1-50. Hence, there are 50 possible outputs and there is only one winning number. Pick of the winning number would be the only conducive event. So, the probability of picking the winning number was 150. Nevertheless, the lottery ticket contained six numbers. In this case, I had to calculate compound probability for simple events. There were six simple events of picking winning number. Each of them was non-mutually exclusive. Those events were independent from each other. I used compound probability formula for independent events: P(A and B) = P(A) X P(B). The compound probability formula for the lottery ticket that contained six numbers: P(winning combination) = P(1st winning number) X P(2nd winning number) X X P(6th winning number) = 150×150×150×150×150×150=115 625 000 000.
As you can guess, I did not win the lottery. The odds of winning the jackpot are too low, 1 in 15 625 000 000. A contingency table would not help me in this case, because I do not need any statistical data for this task. The resulting outcome proves the calculated probability every time I buy a lottery ticket.
Works Cited
"Probability Formula." Probability Formula. Web. 16 Apr. 2016. <http://www.probabilityformula.org/>.
