4 ms·
While true, expected value isn't necessarily a useful metric at that point. If I have a one in a googol chance of winning a googolplex dollars, it doesn't real
by eximius 8y ago
While true, expected value isn't necessarily a useful metric at that point.
If I have a one in a googol chance of winning a googolplex dollars, it doesn't really matter that the expected value is going to be huge, I still won't win anything because I'll be insolvent before the requisite number of tries to have a reasonable chance of winning.
- solotronics 8y agothats why the people who do this work as a company and pool their resources
- grkvlt 8y agoIt's more that the people who do this do more than just buying a single ticket with positive expected value - as described in the article.
- tunesmith 8y agoYeah, the Kelly Criterion is a good thing to explore in situations like this. If there's (truly) positive EV, you still should only spend a certain percentage of your bankroll on the bet. And if the bet has high payoff and low odds, your bankroll likely has to be astronomical in order for the bet to be a good decision.
- grkvlt 8y agoTrue, +EV is useless if the variance is huge, as is the case with lotteries.