Lottery - Real Or Not?

I think it's purely chance. We have some big ones around here, often going past $100,000,000! They are run by the States. Truth is, they don't have to cheat. They take their hugh cut right off the top, then tax your winnings at about 33%. The Lottery is a suckers bet. Your chances of winning are extremely small.

Yes, in a way I agree. But think if you can deliberately roll the amount over. Then the pot just grows and you suck more people in, meaning you start getting more sales, where in fact you are just adding the next draws money. People's greed then comes into the equation. More people jump in thinking if they could only..... Now it is not the $1 or $2 mil. It is now, lets say $4mil. Ticket sales will double. State makes a killing. Remember, the more you have/can get, the more you want. Even for any government in the world, there will never be enough. They make a killing on taxes, but yet there is a lottery??? Yes, to make more money. Think if all taxes are increased with 10% tomorrow. People will go crazy. Lottery is a way for the government to actually give them money for nothing. They don't even ask you. People just give. If I ask everyone reading this entry, no matter where they are in the world, to give me 2.50 in their currency, doesn't matter if its pound, dollar, rouble etc. What do you think would the answer be? But yet we (yes including me) freely give our money away without even thinking twice.

Many people do not play until the pot gets high, then there are a huge number of tickets sold, which increases the odds of a win by a proportional amount.

The odds of strings of digits are actually pretty good when you consider how many there are. It is just a statistical pattern and if you take a course on statistics it will become amazingly clear.

That my be. I still think it would be very hard to rig. Most use the spinning cage with pingpong balls with numbers on them. You can watch the drawing live on TV, a pretty girl shows you the ball and reads out the number. I'm sure your right, any mechanical device can be controlled. But imagine the scandal if word ever got out it was dishonest. That would crush the entire industry. Something like a disgruntled employee. Remember, 2 people can keep a secret, as long as one of them's dead.

Although illegal, football pools are big around here. It's pure chance, no skill involved. You make up a grid, with a hundred squares, pick a square, then the numbers are added later, usually with interested party's present, using a well shuffled deck of cards. The squares can range in price from a buck a peace to $1000 each. We have one every year for the Super-bowl, at $1000 a square. It's pays out for each quarter, half, and the final. The winner puts about 40K in his pocket, from a brown paper bag, tax free, all small bills. So you have 1 chance in 25 to win a lot of money. Much better odds than any lottery!

Much better odds. I would also play it if I could. At least sometime you would actually win it. The lottery you could play all your life, for every draw and never win it. Some idiot here by us actually won 11 mil on a quick pick and it was never claimed. I honestly think you can control it though. I think the lottery terminals close like an half hour before the draw here by us. So it is very easy for a pc to calculate the exact combinations for pay-outs. It still doesn't make sense that millions of people play and there is always only one or two winners. I don't buy that.

Remember for a winner in the Pool, there are a large number of losers.

The whole idea of games of chance, be it a lottery, a Pool, horse-racing, Roulette, whatever, is that there is more chance of the proprietor winning than the aggregate of all the punters. Otherwise there would be no point in the proprietor running the game.

It has been said that national lotteries are actually a taxation mechanism on people who are poor at mathematics........

Yes that is true. You need maths to calculate your losses. The other thing about the lottery is that it is usually the poor that end up giving their money to the government. They are trying to better themselfs on a dream that doesn't exist. How do you tell them that they are better off just buying a bread or whatever might be handy? I have watched the people playing and I tell you, some give their last. It is scary, especially when there is a super draw. Then everyone tries. And you know who smiles.

<.....the poor...are trying to better themselves on a dream that doesn't exist.........tell them that they are better off just buying...bread.....>

Education in mathematics?

What is the underlying question in this post, or has it now run its course?

Nope, no underlying anything. Just wanted to know if possible to control or not? Drifted a bit.

Hi Conrad

For the same number to appear in both draws the odds are good.

With 7 numbers from the first draw the odds of choosing at least one on the first ball of the second draw is 7/49 = 1 /7 Therefore with 7 tries it will be better than 7*7/49 = >100%

Selecting 2 balls in both is better than 70%.

Selecting all 7 the same is 1:322876323 = once in ± 3000000 years.

Cheating would be extremely hard (but you never know).

Advice: Buy Sundays paper on Saturday (and pass it on to me).

Hi Hendrik

I just wish I could buy those papers. But what really gets me is that all over the world the pattern is the same. You always end up with just 1 or 2 winners. And the next ball set (5+bonus) will have a couple more etc, etc. Are the combination of winners so the same that it always ends up to be the same all over the world? You see, the way I figure it is this. If you end up with a lottery where you always have a lot of people winning, then people won't play it so often because it is the money drive that forces you to play in the first place. So lets say the pool is 5mil, and 50 people win the lottery. Next in line is the 5+ bonus and 200 people win etc, etc. You see my point. Suddenly the prize money is not so big. Now imagine this happens every draw. Remember people want the big prize. Not the cheap change. Hehehehe

The reason there are so few winners is that the odds are so great. If you draw 7 numbers from 49, the odds are almost 86 million to 1 that you will have the winning combination.

Actually the odds are 86 million to one that you WILL NOT have the winning combination.

milo

Hi Conrad

With the small number of players in SA a winner is only due once in 3 draws. (wild guess)

I think the current draws are much skewer than the previous lot. I promise to download the winning numbers someday and produce statistics as from December.

Now that is exactly why I asked in the first place. It just seems more obvious than before.

Actually you can fix a lottery. In 1980, here in Pittsburgh, some local TV folks injected white paint into the "6" balls, then bet heavily on combinations involving 6. The winning number was 666, but a quick analysis of the betting patterns showed abnormalities and the payouts were suspended. Everybody went to prison for a lot of years, proving that you can murder people or hold up banks and get leniency, but if you really want to make the state mad, screw up the lottery.

I remember something like that, was'nt a newscaster envolved in on that?

Actually, he was the host of "Bowling for Dollars".

The nature of randomness it that it may appear to be not random....

The numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6 are just as likely as any other 6 numbers...

I just love those guys you overhear saying how they 'nearly won'
'I had three numbers which were only one away from from the actual number...and if onlty I'd chosen Aunt Elthel's birthday instead of ....' yawn..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A friend once said, you will only win if JC wants you to!!!

I actually think that having bought a ticket, the numbers I have chosen shy away from the pickup point like water on an oily surface

The best way to win a lottery is work in the post office.

We had a deal where you could send in your "used " ie "losing" tickets back to the lotto for a second chance drawing.

Guy that dated a gal in our office worked at the post office and collected "used " lottery tickets.

Put them in envelopes cancelled the stamps on the envelopes himself, and then on a break, WALKED BACK TO THE PLACE WHERE THE BAGS OF MAIL TO THE LOTTO WERE.

OPENED THEM UP AND PUT A COUPLE OF HIS ON TOP OF EACH BAG.

GUy was pretty lucky, his tickets got drawn a couple of times. before the POSTAL INSPECTORS and LOTTERY INVESTIGATORS nailed him.

We no longer have a mail in second chance drawing.

You said:"I truly believe, if it is mechanical it can be controlled to do whatever the board wants."

WIsh you could have seen my mechanical Rolling mill. You'd lose your faith in control mechanics right quick.

milo "control is an illusion- ask any parent, and most dog owners!"

this is interesting question. As a total newb with programming, i did not not know what to do with my new found learning with a scripting language that left me with a gui to play with buttons.

So, I targetted powerball lottery. I averaged 10 years of numbers to find the top ten most called for numbers drawn....

and not one of my top ten combinations have showed up with more than 3 individual number matches.

Therefore, I have also concluded, they know what "card counting" is somehow within thier machines. Just a guess, I could really care less.It is to say, if someone did the opposite of top ten (to tease you lottery counting weirdos) the odds would be in fact reduced....(another guess) But with odss the way they are, you would need supercomputing and a crazy dive into algorithms.

Also, with over 1 million of my own written unique numbers, the odds come out to nearly exact to what the odds really are to win, taking into account 1 million of my own "pretend play" randomly.

I do not believe in random. I actually stopped playing with that script, as I am not serious about the aforementioned, and lastly, I do not like the lottery. The only time I play is with a ticket as given to me, never purchased.

"I would like to find out what happens with the Lottery? Is it chance, or is it controlled? "

IF it is an honest lottery it is the "Luck of The Draw" that determines the numbers drawn.

IF "The FIX is in," i.e. it is a dishonest lottery the numbers drawn are the result of a non-random or preschedled drawing sequence then any think can happen. This seldom happens as the lotteries are generally run by the states and they want to have patrons of the lotteries to have confidence that the lottery is honest.

Honest lottery or not IT IS A POOR INVESTMENT. Save one dollar a day that you would have spent on a ticket and at the end of the year you have a guaranteed $365 in hand.

Thanks for everybodys input. I think it is a tough one. Will also do some playing around with numbers and see what comes up. I heard someone say that you have more chance off dying in a plane crash than win the lottery, even if you don't fly often.

Actually you have the same chance of winning a lottery whether you buy a ticket or not.

The probability is delta, where delta is very tiny, and it rounds down to zero

I disagree. I win $1.00 every week - by not playing

The Lottery is a tax on people with poor math skills!

wow. this got quite a discussion going... my two cents worth (which is rapidly dwindling in value along with the US dollar) is that it is the nature of the human mind to try to find patterns in randomness.... to make sense of what occurs by chance. Hence: Statistics.

The lottery doesn't have to be unreal. The operators have determined that the return on investment of the players works out to be negative.

Something like 80% of lottery winners live miserably ever after, too, since we are hardwired to like reward for real and effective effort.

It is only waste of money and easy comes easy goes.

"Of course the game is rigged, but if you don't play, then you can't win."

-- Lazarus Long

I have a theory, though I have not acted on it. Here in Ontario we have Lotto 649 which is drawn every Wednesday and Saturday. Now lets say you aquire a listing of all the number combinations ever drawn and see if there has been exact number combinations drawn twice. My guess would be yes there has, maybe even a few, so for arguements sake lets say in the history of Lotto 649 there have been 3 times that an identical number combination has been drawn. Now here is my theory, is it not a probability that there will be an exact number combination that hits a third time? Just play the first 3 number combination winners every draw, and if another combination should be added to the "twice winner list" then just add that number for future drawings to your list and play the 4 combinations every draw. So you spend $6 or $8 a week. That would only be about $8300 over 20 years or $415 a year. Any thoughts??

"I have a theory ....."

If the drawings are indeed random, then this theory makes as much sense as any other.

This is ill thought out. That past does not preordain the future. There are no "hot Numbers" or "cold Numbers" As a young SPC pup I wandered perchance into a las vegas casino where they had just put LED signs above each roultette wheel. These signs showed the numbers AND colors That were recently rolled.Every time I saw a "run " of eight Green or Eight red numbers in a row, I bet the opposite color. I "knew" that the odds of nine "heads" in a row (or Tails) was less than half a percent.

The error of my thinking was that the red green was a consecutive heads tails issue.

In reality, the odds were 50 /50 (or whatever they are accounting for the zeros) on the wheel for the next spin, not the .4% of nine in a row.

Only way i know to lose money faster is to date a high maintenance gal. with a boat.

Your $8 per week would just about cover my once a day soda fountain Pepsi Cola habit.

On the other hand, Your way is zero calories...

milo

Thanks Milo for your response, I understand what you are saying about Induction (we cannot predict the future by the past) however let me use another example. Lets say that a CRAZY casino has decided that it will pay $1,000,000 (the usual is a 30X payout) for a $1 bet on a particular number on a roulette table, lets say number 21. Now because of the wheel being random (grant that nothing is rigged) there is the possibility that the number 21 will never hit again even if it is the number that has hit the most often over the past year. I believe 1000's would flock to that casino and be betting on number 21. The reason would be because of the odds with only 36 numbers and a green 0 and/or 00, but with Induction we are not talking about odds at all, just that you can't predict the future by the past. I understand how my theory seems no different that just picking 6 numbers out of 49, but I guess it just seems more likely to me because of patterns actually occuring. The one that comes to mind is the couple who won the top prize in the dream home lottery in British Columbia and then a few years later won it again. Then we ask, what are the odds? ;-)

ANd I wonder if one of those people works in the post office. See my earlier post.

Nice to see you in this conversation Del.

milo

You should have seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead first.

Any thoughts??

Sorry but it's complete garbage.
The human brain naturally tries to find patterns and shapes...it's part of being a hunter gatherer. Randomness will always throw up repeats of numbers... if you care to do the maths you could doubtless work out the probability of enumber sets recurring. Assuming the lottery uses the numbers 1 to 99 then...oh I just can't be bothered....
Maybe you can if it interests you sufficiently...but I expect it will agree quite closely to the stats... Maybe take six dice and see how often you get a 1,2 & 3 somewhere in the six numbers.... you may be surprised.

Del

"Randomness will always throw up repeats of numbers..."

Interesting, my point exactly.

The point is...long term you will get an even spread of all numbers, combinations etc... but you can never predict from the data.

If you flip a coin enough times it will come up heads & tails 50:50
If you flip 15 consecutive heads...what is the probability of the next flip being tails?

It's still 50:50 (or 0.5 if we are strictly talking probabilities).
Plenty of people loses plenty of money by making the false assumption that the coin has some sort of memory...
Del

Sure it is dumb to play but I put my $2.00 a week in to the lotto just to have a choice. If I don't then the state will surely impose an income tax. Then on a certain day I will HAVE to pay up. This way if I don't have the $2.00 I don't play.

Besides if I pay the tax instead of the lotto I have NO chance of winning and all of the money goes to the politicians. As for the poorest of us being taken by the lotto, what other chance do we have, if I spend my last buck on the lotto, keeping it would not get me out of poverty anyway, would you take away all hope? Another thing is, it is worth a few dollars to be able to fantasize being rich and famous.

I believe that any numbers you pick for a lottery drawing is a winning combination until they draw the numbers. Thats when things usually go bad. I have the right numbers...THEY keep drawing the wrong ones!

The best way to make a small fortune on a lottery or casino is to invest a large fortune on it

We have 12 states in a mega-million drawn on tuesday and friday they draw 5 numbers plus the megaball, if 5 winning numbers are drawn less the megaball you receive $250,000 (second place) as the pot grows there are always more second place winners simply because more people play. and the most second place winners usually are where the bigger population of people are. (california, new york-new jersey ect.) its all stastics, buy one ticket in 1000, your chances are 1 in a thousand, buy 2 tickets and your chances are two in a thousand ect.

oilcan13

Hi Guys- been off line 3 weeks due to dial up probs (turned out to be break in phone line ext)- I have long thought that Lottos were rigged- apart from the huge odds of picking 6 from 45(8.3 million to 1)- I have not bought lotto for years for the fact that not spent is saved- but just watching the lotto balls spinning by compressed air into a bowl, it is apparent to me only the central balls are lifted by the air before the scoop lifts up in the center to catch the lucky? ball/s- it is quite obvious to me that it would be easy to crook the results- the same happened in earlier versions of :fair, random, choice machines!. Am I the only one to notice this, or are most people just plain stoopid!.