Selecting Lotto numbers

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376 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2091826 17-Sep-2018 11:31

eracode: Short story: You may have slightly better odds from one draw to another if a lottery keeps jackpotting - but buying more tickets in any given draw cannot increase your odds in that draw - which is what @KiwiTim was originally advising.

So you disagree with Ronald Wasserstein, executive director of the American Statistical Association. I think I'll put my money on him being correct.

eracode

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#2091985 17-Sep-2018 14:49

KiwiTim:

eracode:
KiwiTim:

If you want to increase your chances of a big win work out how much you are planning to 'invest' in Lotto over the rest of your life, then spend it all in one draw, once only. There you have maximized your probability of winning..

What is your logic for this?

Here's a simple example: A lottery issues 1000 tickets. Your probability of winning if you buy one ticket is 1/1000

If you buy 10 tickets in the same lottery draw, the probability of winning is 10/1000 or 1/100; much better odds, but on average, 99 times out of 100 you will win nothing.

The more tickets you buy in the same draw, then the higher your chance of winning.

If you buy 10 tickets in 10 separate lotteries of 1000 tickets, your probability of winning in each lottery remains the same, 1/1000, so it is better to buy them all at once.

It doesn’t matter whether you buy 10 tickets in 10 separate lotteries of 1000 tickets each - or 10 tickets in one of the lotteries - your EV remains the same. Simple. As. That.

Good luck with your theory.

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

KiwiTim

376 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2091995 17-Sep-2018 15:13

Going back to my original example of a simple raffle with 1000 tickets, $10/ticket, prize value of $6000. The top chart shows the probability of winning with X number of tickets.

Bottom chart shows Profit, Cost and Expected Value.

I'll leave it at that. The Charts show exactly what happens when multiple tickets are purchased in the same lottery.

KiwiTim

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Ultimate Geek

#2091996 17-Sep-2018 15:15

Ignore the second chart, somehow I duplicated it.

kryptonjohn

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#2091999 17-Sep-2018 15:20

quickymart:

Here's something I've always wondered.

I (like probably a lot of other people reading this) wouldn't mind winning something in Lotto, or even Instant Kiwi. I mean a significant prize - $15 is nice, but I won't be retiring on it :D

I've always wondered with the winning ticket, are most of the winners numbers chosen by the punter, or are they random numbers chosen by the machine (Lucky Dip)? I'd be curious to know the breakdown - is it 50% chosen, 50% random, or...?
I know the odds of winning the big prize are quite low, but it's something I've always wondered about and I can't seem to find a breakdown online anywhere.

I trust statistics and probability enough to be confident that lucky dips would match out perform self selected tickets (assuming the lucky dip has a reasonably good random number generator). Why? Because it will have a decent spread of numbers whereas self selected tickets probably have some redundant selections.

In other words, lucky dip percentage of wins would match lucky dip percentage of sales (or better).

KrazyKid

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#2092031 17-Sep-2018 16:01

Here is an article about a syndicate that tried to my 7 million tickets (all possible combinations) to win 27 million in 1992.

They only managed to get 5 million of the tickets at a cost of $5 million dollars before they ran out of time.

However it seems it may have paid off :)

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/25/us/group-invests-5-million-to-hedge-bets-in-lottery.html

sen8or

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#2092033 17-Sep-2018 16:02

But with a random draw of 6 numbers from a barrel of 40 numbers, any number combination theoretically has the same chance being drawn. Although I don't think it has happened yet, but 1,2,3,4,5,6 has the same odd of being drawn as 1, 5, 19, 22, 24, 40

We are only up to draw number 1787, there are what, 30mill or so possible number combination draws on the 6 numbers (or is that the powerball odds, can't remember) but whilst you can easily argue that 1-6 hasn't yet been drawn, there are millions of possible combos that haven't been drawn yet, so its not really surprising.

Would be more interesting to see if the same winning numbers have occurred more than once?

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kotuku4

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#2092431 18-Sep-2018 11:50

lotto, a game for people who don't understand statistics.

I still buy a ticket now and then, so I am a mug too.

Justification; someone has to pay the people at the lotteries commission. And the charities.

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#2092434 18-Sep-2018 11:53

kotuku4: lotto, a game for people who don't understand statistics.
I still buy a ticket now and then, so I am a mug too.

Justification; someone has to pay the people at the lotteries commission. And the charities.

Statistically, someone wins a few million bucks every month in 2018.

BlueShift

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#2092569 18-Sep-2018 14:22

kotuku4: lotto, a game for people who don't understand statistics.

I still buy a ticket now and then, so I am a mug too.

Justification; someone has to pay the people at the lotteries commission. And the charities.

I can spend <$20 and go to the movies for 2 hours and enjoy an imaginary world.

I can spend <$20 on a Powerball ticket and spend all week enjoying the imaginary world where I win $10 million and retire to a beach, or series of beaches...

The way the odds work, you either buy one ticket so you're in to win if the stats gods like you, or you buy a million tickets and try to tilt the table in your direction.

grimwulf

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Master Geek

#2092570 18-Sep-2018 14:26

I've always been convinced that lotteries are rigged.

All the tickets are bought via machines that 'phone home' the numbers selected on the tickets.

They then have machines pull the numbers rather than having a human do it out of a bag or similar. Sure you could have some type of sleight of hand by the human, but I'd put far more trust in that than a machine.

Reasons:-

Machines are inherently incapable of true randomness - there's always a pattern to their RND() generation
Machines are programmed, and can be programmed to select whatever numbers the programmer wants (sure, it's probably slightly harder with bouncing balls all over the place, but there are ways...)
Combine the fact that the programmer has access to all the data about what tickets have been bought for what draw - it would not be hard at all to 'manage' the payouts as the operator require.

Then we have the so-called auditors - the guy or gal in a suit with a briefcase... watching... the machine run it's pre-programmed routine. "I can vouch for the fact that the machine did what it was supposed to and no one interfered with it"... no kidding.

Then you have the bloopers over the years, where various 'hosts' of the results shows announce the ball chosen before the machine actually does so... hmm... how could they possibly know that...?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33746126

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/time-warp-reveals-the-lotto-numbers-early-120446

Then again, it could just be that my dad was a bit obsessive on this topic and convinced me at an early age that the whole thing was a have and not to waste my money on it.

Davy

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Master Geek

#2092586 18-Sep-2018 14:47

grimwulf:
I've always been convinced that lotteries are rigged.

All the tickets are bought via machines that 'phone home' the numbers selected on the tickets.

They then have machines pull the numbers rather than having a human do it out of a bag or similar. Sure you could have some type of sleight of hand by the human, but I'd put far more trust in that than a machine.

Reasons:-

Machines are inherently incapable of true randomness - there's always a pattern to their RND() generation

Machines are programmed, and can be programmed to select whatever numbers the programmer wants (sure, it's probably slightly harder with bouncing balls all over the place, but there are ways...)

Combine the fact that the programmer has access to all the data about what tickets have been bought for what draw - it would not be hard at all to 'manage' the payouts as the operator require.

Then we have the so-called auditors - the guy or gal in a suit with a briefcase... watching... the machine run it's pre-programmed routine. "I can vouch for the fact that the machine did what it was supposed to and no one interfered with it"... no kidding.

Then you have the bloopers over the years, where various 'hosts' of the results shows announce the ball chosen before the machine actually does so... hmm... how could they possibly know that...?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33746126

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/time-warp-reveals-the-lotto-numbers-early-120446

Then again, it could just be that my dad was a bit obsessive on this topic and convinced me at an early age that the whole thing was a have and not to waste my money on it.

Loving the presenter's face toward the end of the BBC video - thanks!

kotuku4

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#2092682 18-Sep-2018 16:52

BlueShift:

kotuku4: lotto, a game for people who don't understand statistics.

I still buy a ticket now and then, so I am a mug too.

Justification; someone has to pay the people at the lotteries commission. And the charities.

I can spend <$20 and go to the movies for 2 hours and enjoy an imaginary world.

I can spend <$20 on a Powerball ticket and spend all week enjoying the imaginary world where I win $10 million and retire to a beach, or series of beaches...

The way the odds work, you either buy one ticket so you're in to win if the stats gods like you, or you buy a million tickets and try to tilt the table in your direction.

As long as you understand, buying a ticket or not does not significantly change your odds of actually winning anything. Lotto and gambling preys on our greed for a big win.

$20 per week, invested at 8% say kiwisaver moderate fund, or similar investment. Sorted savings calculator

You'll have saved up: $33,268 including compound interest of $16,096.71

nathan

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#2092949 19-Sep-2018 08:22

kryptonjohn:

quickymart:

Here's something I've always wondered.

I (like probably a lot of other people reading this) wouldn't mind winning something in Lotto, or even Instant Kiwi. I mean a significant prize - $15 is nice, but I won't be retiring on it :D

I've always wondered with the winning ticket, are most of the winners numbers chosen by the punter, or are they random numbers chosen by the machine (Lucky Dip)? I'd be curious to know the breakdown - is it 50% chosen, 50% random, or...?
I know the odds of winning the big prize are quite low, but it's something I've always wondered about and I can't seem to find a breakdown online anywhere.

I trust statistics and probability enough to be confident that lucky dips would match out perform self selected tickets (assuming the lucky dip has a reasonably good random number generator). Why? Because it will have a decent spread of numbers whereas self selected tickets probably have some redundant selections.

In other words, lucky dip percentage of wins would match lucky dip percentage of sales (or better).

a number chosen by a computer, has more chance of winning, that a number chosen by a human - because?

quickymart

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#2093311 19-Sep-2018 17:12

Turning the conversation around a little - how about the odds of winning Instant Kiwi? Better than Lotto or basically the same?

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