# Lottery question

#### mathhurts

##### New member
I am not sure of how to figure this, can someone please help me. I have reserached the internet and came up with the the odds of winning a particular lottery's grand prize is 1 in 146,107,962.00 and based on a \$1 play (rounded to two decimal places). How do I know what the odds against winning the grand prize would be(which I thought would be the same odds of winning it). Also what would be the probability of winning the same grand prize. Can someone please steer me in the right direction on how to solve this? Thanks, Paul

#### stapel

##### Super Moderator
Staff member
mathhurts said:
I...came up with the the odds of winning a particular lottery's grand prize.... How do I know what the odds against winning the grand prize would be...?
It works just like they said in class: Given that the probability P(A) of a success for event A, the probability of not-A is 1, less the probability of A (that is, 1 - P(A)).

Note: These values will be the same only in the case that, as in flipping a coin and getting "heads", the probability of success is 1/2, so that 1 - P(A) = 1/2 = P(A).

Eliz.