Let us come straight to the figures of the Lottery Sambad without using any clichéd phrases "it could be your lucky day" that are seen in social networks. Below there is the data about the standard Dear Lottery daily draw provided by the Nagaland State Lottery (1 PM & 8 PM) and the Sikkim State Lottery (6 PM), which is confirmed for the correctness of the prize distribution scheme by the official websites nagalandlotteries.com and sikkimlotteries.com. The aim is definitely not to discourage anyone from participating in Lottery Sambad, which is absolutely legal entertainment for millions of people every day using lotterysambad.tv. However, the purpose of the analysis is to show you the figures before investing your daily ₹7.
The Number of Total Tickets Per Draw
The standard draw of the Dear Lottery involves 2 crore tickets divided into 200 series containing the combination of pairs of digits from 80 to 99 and a letter prefix A, B, C, D, E, G, H, J, K, L (the actual composition of the series may differ in draws held by the two lottery companies, but the number of tickets is still the same – 2 crore). There is a 5-digit number ranging from 00000 to 99999 printed on each ticket, which means that 1 lakh of tickets make up one series and 200 series make up the total of 2 crore tickets. The price of each ticket is ₹6 in Sikkim and ₹7 in Nagaland; the total revenue thus is somewhere about ₹12-14 crore.
Winners' Distribution Across Prize Tiers
There are about 2,42,200 winners in the total of 2 crore tickets mentioned above and the distribution of the winners across prize tiers shows that the most of them win relatively small prizes. There is the first prize of ₹1 crore won by 1 ticket. The consolation prize of ₹1,000 is won by 199 tickets (identical last four digits of the winner of the first prize in other series). The second prize of about ₹9,000 to ₹10,000 is won by about 2,000 people. The third prize of ₹450 to ₹500 is won by 20,000 people. The fourth prize of ₹250 is won by 20,000. Finally, the fifth prize of ₹120, which is the biggest part of "small wins" is won by about 2 lakh participants. All together the total prize pool amounts to about ₹6.9 crore.
The Probability of Winning Anything with One Ticket
What is the probability of getting anything with one ticket? The probability of winning the first prize of ₹1 crore is 1 in 2 crore, which means that the odds are the same as picking randomly one second out of eight months – quite a small number. The probability of winning any prize, including the small fifth prize of ₹120 is 2,42,200/2 crore ≈ 1.21% or 1 in 82. Statistically speaking, if the person buys 82 tickets, he will have the probability of winning something of 1.21%; it is mostly going to be the fifth prize of ₹120.
The Actual Expected Return of One Ticket
Here comes the math that no one does for you on YouTube, so I will do it. The prize pool of about ₹6.9 crore is distributed among 2 crore tickets, thus the expected return is about ₹3.45 per ticket. You spend ₹7 on it. That means that the expected loss equals to about ₹3.55 per ticket. "House edge" (the share of the ticket price which goes to the state government for development, retailers' commissions and administrative expenses) amounts to approximately 50% of the ticket price. Not much unusual here, but not promoted because "buy a ₹7 ticket with the expected return of ₹3.45" is certainly not the good advertising line.
The True Story about Buying Multiple Tickets
As is commonly believed by the regular players of the Lottery Sambad, buying multiple tickets increases their probability of winning the first prize. Math proves it wrong. If 1 ticket provides you 1 in 2 crore probability, 10 tickets provide you 1 in 20 lakh, 100 tickets provide you 1 in 2 lakh and 1,000 tickets provide you 1 in 20,000 – quite an incredibly small number. In order to increase the probability of winning the first prize to 50%, you would need to buy approximately 1.4 crore of tickets in several draws, spending nearly ₹10 crore on one chance of winning ₹1 crore. Mathematics mocks at such strategy.
The Comparison of the House Edge With Other Games
For a certain perspective, the house edge of Lottery Sambad is rather high as compared to many other games that imply elements of luck. Blackjack played in casino with the application of the basic strategy has the house edge of approximately 0.5%. Roulette has the house edge of 2.7% on the European wheel. Slot machines have 5%-15% of the house edge. World's state lotteries use the house edge of 40%-50%. That is the price you pay for a tiny chance of changing your life. Thus, the Lottery Sambad is quite common in this aspect; it simply has the relatively high "house tax" among the state lotteries.
Conclusion
The math of the Lottery Sambad is described above in a no-hype way because the hype cannot change the probability – the odds are what they are, the only right attitude towards playing the lottery is considering it the entertainment with the chance of winning. The only official PDFs from the website lotterysambad.tv and source portals nagalandlotteries.com and sikkimlotteries.com are the only way to verify the winning tickets. If the figures above can help someone to readjust his budget and consider his daily ticket purchase the harmless ₹7 expenditure and not the gambling strategy and prevent the slippery slope to illusions of patterns – then the math did its job.
