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WYR $1 million now or every day your chances of winning $1 billion increase by 0.005%?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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I actually think within 2 years you're well over 50% likely.
Within the first year you're over 1.5% probability (0.005 * 300 = 1.5) per day.
That means in the second year youd have 365 days with a probability over 1%. According to ChatGPT, cause I didn't feel like doing the math myself, the cumulative odds are over 50% by day 166 (which sounds about right to me), and by day 430 you're basically guaranteed to have won.
The math for any given day is p(win) = 1-prod(1-0.00005n) from n=1->n
The OP specified that the probability is the cumulative probability. Otherwise I’d agree with you
I'm pretty sure what I've written out is regarding the cumulative probability, as in the odds over all drawings.
If the drawings are only ever year though, then that really changes things as my calcualtions were about daily drawings. If only drawing every year, then by year five you're already at 25% chance of winning, not great and certainly could mean the million is better for those who are older.
I think you are mixing up one-time probabilities and cumulative probability.
The probability of 0.005% increasing every day is the cumulative probability. So by year 5 the odds of having won the billion are 5x365x0.005%=9.125%, no additional formula. To get to 25% cumulative probability you’d have to wait some 15 years.
I think we're both using the wrong word, as I can't find an actual definition for "cumulative probability". However my formula is what you'd use to calculate the probability of having won at least once over all the drawings.
While you are right that by year five the odds of winning are 9.125%, that is the odds of winning just on the fifth draw. However, you had a chance of winning each year prior, meaning that the odds of winning by year five are higher than 9.125%.
Its like with die, the odds of rolling a 3 is always 1/6, but the odds of rolling a 3 if you roll twice is ~30%.
I would use this definition, that is in the OP, the probability given is the one of having won the draw by that time: the first year when the draw happen the probability is 0, the second year the probability of having won is 9.125%, while the probability at the third year is 18.25%. This is the sum of the probability of having won either of the two draws (you can’t win more than once).
If you want to interpret the probability as a one time probability, then I agree with you.