The COMBIN() function is worth a look if you ever have a set number pool to draw a limited number of items from and need to know the maximum combinations. Confused? The lottery is a perfect example, particuliarly any lottery that draws all of the balls from the same pool. In this example let’s use a fake lottery where we have 6 balls drawn, each one can be between 0 and 42. What is the maximum number of combinations that can be drawn?
Tip: COMBIN() Find Maximum Combinations
We can find out the answer to the lottery example by using the COMBIN() function. Here is a look at the syntax:
=COMBIN(NumberInPool,DrawCount)
So we have the number in pool as 42 and our draw count is 6. This returns the maximum number of combinations as 5245786 (aka your odds). The picture shows a couple smaller examples and the lottery example in action:
SideNote: This doesn’t accommodate unique strings, ie, 1-2-3-4-5-6 is the same as 6-5-4-3-2-1 and equals 1 combination.
SideNote: For the true lottery buffs, this doesn’t work for balls drawn from multiple pools.
SideNote: Obviously you can apply this to more than just lottery numbers.
August 25th, 2004 at 6:19 pm
I need someone to develop or provide a way in an Excel spreadsheet to enter some numbers and have the spreadsheet loaded with Lottery results. Then, using numbers manually entered, compare all combinations of the numbers to past Lotteyr results. If results are found, then calculations as to payout for the number of tickets that would have won on the combination of numbers. The payout analysis would include 3, 4, 5 and 6 number combinations taken from a group of 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 numbers.
Anyone out there that might help??