Originally posted by CucumbaMan
I usually join the hunt about 160-170k jackpot.
In the time I've been keeping track, I only missed two jackpots -- one at 198K (16 days) and one at 58K (3 days)
Based on overall average jackpot increase per hour (490), 170000 will be reached March 6th[1]
That is 2 days before the projected winning date based on average number of days between wins, so that seems like a good choice. In the last cycle, I joined the fray at 190,000, and it was won at 192,000
This time, I'll be entering at about 09:00 Mar 6th [1]
And of course, we can always dream that we hit the jackpot ourselves!
As to the odds of winning the jackpot...
Since we're only playing 7 coin per entry, we need a royal flush. Let's assume also, that all of the winners have been playing 7 starscoin, so a royal flush is needed.[2]
There are 4 combos of straight flushes out of 2598960 possible combinations of 5 cards. We'll ignore the process of picking the discards. Therefore the chance of winning for 1 person each time is 4/2598960 or 0.00000154
However based on long term average number of players at the time the jackpot is won (17,500) the chance that one of them wins is that number x the chance for each. Let's assume that that many players play once in each 12 hour period, so double that number each day.
35,000 x 0.00000154 = 0.054 (surprisingly high)
So the chance that none of them wins is 0.95
The chance that no-one wins on Day 2 is the same, so the chance then no-one wins on either day is 0.95 * 0.95
If we keep going, it appears that the chance of someone winning at some point in the 1st n days reaches 50% on day 12.
If you alter the numbers so that number of players is only 10,000 on average at the beginning, and grows to that 17,500 average at the end (growing by 1000 per day), then the 50% mark is reached on -- (drumroll please) Day 16
So from all this it seems like to be on the safe side, it makes sense to start playing around that time -- or a little earlier.
Best of luck,
VS
Disclaimer:
I am not a mathematician, statistician or any other -ician or -ologist that makes me an authority on this stuff. Also, I just made up the assumptions. If you use different ones, the values vary widely
[1] -- assuming of course that no one wins it before then.
[2] -- the odds of getting a straight flush are more than 10x better than the odds of getting a royal flush, so this might seem like its +EV to play with 70 -- however the payout if someone else wins is the same no matter how much you bet, nor how many times you play in the preceding 12 hours.
