Lottery

[krtel]

Do you guys think winning the lottery is a matter of luck? I was reading somewhere that there is a mathmatical approach to increasing your odds and I looked on amazon.com and found a couple of books on it. What do you all think? Is there really a way to increase your odds, or is this all a rip off?

- Krish

[Tim]

I say it\'s complete BS.. don\'t waste your time.

[Gerund]

My take on your question is this: If you knew of some method that significantly increased you chances of winning the lottery, would you:

..... A. Perfect your method in secret, play the lottery, and enjoy your winnings however you see fit; or
..... B. Write a book that tells others about the method, thereby diluting your chances or winning, and possibly not even make money on the book?

The answer seems self-evident to me, but maybe I\'m a cynic?

[seadove]

Krtel
Here is my story about winning the lottery :

Some 10 years ago I worked in a famous oil company, and some days before I bought a lottery ticket.That particular friday I decided to check up on my way to see if I won something.
And there it was, 500 pounds, wow, I was so overjoyed I didn\'t know what to do.I reached the office and blabbered about it and everyone came over and wished me for my luck.Then someone came to me and said that I should treat everyone and buy them some cakes and other sweet things.So I said alright I will and so I dished out something like 75 pounds for the entertainment and everyone was having a ball on my account.But I didn\'t mind actually, as long as everyone was happy.
Then I started to develop a splitting headache and it became worse by the hour and I didn\'t have a car at that time so I called my girlfriend and asked her to come and pick me up.She said no she has lots of things to do and I begged her \"please do this for me I\'m not feeling that well, come and pick me up\" and she said no once again.

Then I told her that I won the lottery 500 pounds.

\"I\'m coming, I\'m coming\" she told me.

She came alright, dragged me to Marks and Sparks and there I dished out something like 400.

Lottery is a wonderful thing indeed.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Lottery will definitely change your perspective. I was standing in line at the 7-11 when the guy in front of me won a thousand dollars. All of a sudden, he started to look exactly like my cousin. Actually, a lot like my long-lost brother, come to think of it. ...

[EXIT63]

Every week in this country somebody wins the lottery. Just never me. And I could really use it right about now!!!

That guy from West Virginia who won 300 mil. I heard he\'s going to buy a Brand New Double-Wide!!!

And how bout those people out in Californy. They hit the pick 5 and the pick six on the same day. What were the odds on that? 42 billion to one!!!! or someting like that.

[Wolfe]

do you really think it would get that high in the amount IF some1 knew how to \'play the odds\' and win?..no they wouldn\'t, so that takes it back to luck of the draw.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

One thing I notice is that people who win a lot, play a lot. I understand the concept that you can\'t win if you don\'t play. I\'m just afraid my luck would be that I end up even broker from buying all those losing lottery tickets.

[Wolfe]

i dont play either(not the lottery anyways) /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif

[Mtnjim]

The lottery is a tax on those too dumb to understand statistics.

Any number always has the same chance of being drawen as any number, there is no number that hasn\'t been drawen that becomes \"due\"

IMHO
Jim

[Gerund]

Actually, it\'s pretty interesting what happens to probability theory in the macro versus the micro. You get two simultaneous realities, each equally valid. Figure that one out. (I hope nobody wants the illustration; it\'d be a long post)

[belgareth]

\"The lottery is a tax on those too dumb to understand statistics.\"

An essential truth!

[Whitehall]

On the pure odds, the lottery is a tax on innumerancy. I think of it as voluntary taxation - I usually forego it myself.

That said, there is a window where once you know the pot and make a reasonably accurate guess on the number of tickets sold, sometimes the odds look better. I remember that there was a syndicate from Australia (I think) that made a business of it. They would track lotteries around the world and when the expected number of participants and the total pot were in that rare correct agreement, they would make a big buy of tickets - 10s of thousands.

On the other hand, from the player\'s perspective, the price of a lottery ticket does have a marginal utility as an investment. The odds of getting rich from a lottery ticket are probably better than the odds of spending that same dollar (or euro or pound) on night school or other self-improvement. One can\'t spend the same trival amount in a real investment - the transaction costs are too high.

Actually, I met two guys who got rich off lotteries and never played - they did mathmatical consulting for the state of California lottery.

Frankly, government lotteries are a vice and bad public policy, in my not-so-humble opinion.

[CptKipling]

I think the method they are talking about is the bisual selection method (TM CptKipling 2003).

Since all the different combinations have the same chance of winning, it makes no difference what pattern your sellection makes on the bit of paper. So if you make a selection that no one else is likely to make (like all your numbers in a strait line, then it makes it more likely that you wont be sharing your winnings with anyone. Having said that it doesnt make it more likely for you to win.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

The 7-11 guy talks about this man who comes in and plays 11111, then 22222, then 33333, etc., and in about three months wins enough money to last him the year, and then he quits for the year.

[druid]

when I took a proobabilty and statics course (it is intened for CS majors -- Math, CS, and stats are interrelated fields) I remember in the beginning taking about some guy who performed a coin flipping experiment. He flipped a coin like 50000 times (somewhere in the 10\'s of thousands) and kept track of each flip and wheter it was heads or tails (ignoring the rare possiblity that it lands on the edge). After all the flips were done he found that approximately (it was something like 52% and 48%) 1/2 the time it was heads and the other half tails. He discovered that the value of the limit was 0.5 (50%). But this is looking at the entire data set. Imaige that your are on the 3000th flip (or anywhere in the middle) and you have had all heads (or close to it) then there would have to be some tails coming up soon to balance out those heads. right?

Also, stats and math are not the same thing. Stat. is used to guess at a avg (or some other statistical value) of a large data set using a small sample of it. There is a margine of error invloved. Math is precise, though it would take some serios computation to arrive at a number. That is why we have statistics.

On a side note one time I went to my state\'s lotto website (floridalottery.com) and they have data for the past 5 years on there. I wrote a small c++ program that counted the total numbers drawn and how times each number was drawn (it was a pick three lotto) and I found that each number was drawn almost equally (some were drawn about 1% more than the others).

[bivonic]

Buy two tickets & your odds of winning are doubled. Question answered. Buy three tickets & your odds of winning are tripled! Assuming different combinations.