a day at the races

My snapshot from Doncaster horse races on Saturday.

The gambling from the proceeds of my novel 'The Triangle' have completely stopped. The change to the odds of the National Lottery scam provoked this revised strategy.

Although horse racing odds could be better, at least we had a nice meal, some fizz and a proper sense of occasion, instead of the ever dwindling production values of the lottery.

My own occasional lotto prizes degenerated to becoming mere entries in the next week's lottery.

In the mathematics:

Selecting 6 numbers from 59 is 59 factorial divided by 6 factorial:

i.e. (59! / 6!) = 45,057,474

Now selecting 3 right numbers from the above...

Three numbers from 6, in any order:

(6! / (3!*3!)) = 20

And any three other numbers:

(53! / (3!*50!))

multiply together to give the total combinations gives:
(6! / (3!*3!)) * (53! / (3!*50!))

=

(20) * (23,426)

= 468,520 combinations.

So that's 468,520 chances in 45,057,474 to get three numbers right (around 1 in 96).

Now do that two weeks in a row (i.e a so called 'win', followed by another from the subsequent 'winning' entry):

This is where the springs burst.

And even if they didn't, it would still only give me another ticket for a third week.

To get even close to a decent prize, the odds on 4 numbers are now (excuse my shorthand) 6C4*53C2 = 20,670 choices or for 5 numbers it moves to 6C5 * 53C1 = 316 choices (1 in 7.5 million - twice the odds to be struck by lightning). Maybe £20 for 4 numbers? Pah!

But enough of the mathematics.

It should be immediately obvious from my pix that the Doncaster horse racing was more fun to watch, even if I didn't really have a clue about most of it.

And no, I didn't win anything - although the odds were a lot better. Although, I should have bet on the jockey who arrived by helicopter.