Tickets for a raffle cost $13. There were 753 tickets sold. One ticket will be randomly selected as the winner, and that person wins $1400. For someone who buys a ticket, what is the expected value?

1 answer

To calculate the expected value for a person who buys a raffle ticket, we need to consider the potential outcomes and their probabilities.

  1. Winning the Raffle:

    • If a person wins, they receive $1400.
    • The probability of winning is \( \frac{1}{753} \) (since there is 1 winning ticket out of 753 sold).
  2. Not Winning the Raffle:

    • If a person does not win, they receive nothing.
    • The probability of not winning is \( \frac{752}{753} \) (since there are 752 losing tickets).
  3. Net Money Calculation:

    • If the person wins, their net gain will be \( 1400 - 13 = 1387 \) (the prize minus the cost of the ticket).
    • If the person loses, their net gain will be \( 0 - 13 = -13 \) (losing the cost of the ticket).
  4. Expected Value Calculation: The expected value (EV) can be calculated as follows:

\[ EV = (P(\text{win}) \times \text{net gain if win}) + (P(\text{lose}) \times \text{net gain if lose}) \]

Substituting in the values we derived:

\[ EV = \left( \frac{1}{753} \times 1387 \right) + \left( \frac{752}{753} \times -13 \right) \]

Calculating each term separately:

  • For the winning outcome: \[ \frac{1}{753} \times 1387 \approx 1.842 \]

  • For the losing outcome: \[ \frac{752}{753} \times -13 \approx -12.934 \]

Now, adding these two results for the overall expected value:

\[ EV \approx 1.842 - 12.934 \approx -11.092 \]

Thus, the expected value for someone who buys a ticket is approximately -11.09 dollars.

This means that, on average, a ticket buyer can expect to lose about $11.09 from the $13 ticket price.