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Patterns in Lottery Numbers
markmcb writes "Most everyone is familiar with the concept of the lottery, i.e., random numbers are selected and people guess what they will be for a cash prize. But how random are the numbers? Matt Vea has conducted a pattern analysis of the MegaMillions lottery, which recently offered a sum of $370M (USD) to the winner. Matt shows that the lottery isn't as random as it may seem and that there are 'better' choices than others to be made when selecting numbers. From the article, 'A single dollar in MegaMillions purchases a 1 in 175,711,536 chance of landing the jackpot ... a player stands a mildly better chance of winning a partial prize through the selection of weighted numbers.'" Includes some excellent charts of his analysis.
Most lotteries (as opposed to raffles) have less than half the money spent by lottery ticket buyers going into the payout pool.
You're already losing by buying the ticket.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.
These differences aren't that compelling. To me I would say, "Congratulations, you have found some deviation from equal frequency for all balls. But this would happen in any instance of drawing these balls."
I'm concerned that this has been an exercise in deviation in pseudo random systems. The same could be done with a computer simulation and similar results would be found.
I hate to say it but this study points out to me that the lottery is actually pretty much as close to random as it could get. In fact, the summary of the paper states that if there were some event to skew this, then you could achieve a small bonus: However, in the event there is some peculiar factor skewing the ball selection such that any of these trends continue, a player stands a mildly better chance of winning a partial prize through the selection of weighted numbers. However this peculiar factor can not only be identified but if it exists, it is highly unlikely it is anything even remotely observable.
My work here is dung.
And if you look up in the night sky, you'll see an archer, a bull, a big and a small dipper.
What's your point?
Of course you can't conclude much from this analysis. In any random distribution you're going to see random statistical fluctuations causing some clustering. Some numbers will get picked more than you'd predict by chance, just by chance. And necessarily some numbers will be picked less often than you'd predict by chance. The upside of this is that you can predict the extent of this clustering and compare that to the actual data to see if it's rigged.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
One of the slogans for the Illinois lottery used to be "you can't win if you don't play", but I figured every time I didn't play, I won $1. Its both stupid and ironic that many of the same people bitching about taxes pay this voluntary tax!
At the astronomical odds against winning, I figure my chances of finding a winning ticket on the ground are only marginally worse than my chances of buying a winning ticket. So rather than give extra money to the government so it will be funnelled to politically connected rich people, I just watch the ground.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
While you can analyse the numbers that come up, the interesting data isn't usually available to you: namely what numbers people are betting on. For example in the UK lottery it is known that about 10,000 people a week bet on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So that automatically is a really bad choice because if that combination came up, you would get £prize / 10,000.
Example: if lots of people bet on (eg.) birthdays, then you'd expect the people to select numbers > 31 less frequently, which means you could try to cover bets with numbers > 31 and have a greater payout. Without the distribution of betting numbers though you can't tell.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
2) You don't get an edge in the lottery by picking numbers that are more likely to come up; you get it by picking numbers that other players are less likely to choose (e.g. >31), so that you don't have to split your win with as many others.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Let's simulate the history of MegaMillions in a computer, using a hardware random-number-generator that we trust to be completely random with an even distribution.
Examine the results and look for patterns. Odds are, you will see minor variations from "average." After all, if you flip a coin 1000 times, odds are you won't get exactly 500 heads and 500 tails.
Next, let's repeat this 100 times. Odds are you will see such patterns in most of the experimental runs, but the patterns will vary from run to run.
Think of the real-life MegaMillions lottery as a single experimental run.
How do you counter this?
You could slice-and-dice the MegaMillions into 100 "experimental runs" each consisting of a random 10% of actual drawings. While the overall trend of this slice-and-dice will reflect the real history of MegaMillions, the results of the individual "experimental runs" should vary enough to convince people that this is just a statistical fluke, or at least it's flukiness can't be ruled out.
In particular, let's slice MM into 10 time periods with an equal number of drawings. Odds are the most recent time period's statistical anomalies won't match those of earlier times.
The bottom line:
There is nothing to suggest the statistical anomaly of the history of MM so far will continue.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What stuck with me though we a couple of ideas:
- What happened in the past has no influence over what will happen in the future. You may have flipped seventy-five heads, but the odds of the next penny landing head or tails is still 50/50.
- The decision whether to make a bet in any game is based on a variety of factors - the size of the bet, the size of the possible prize, and the odds of winning. No one of those three is enough to make a decision, you need to know all three.
In life, as in games, you have to make decisions based on real odds, not of conjecture or media speculation. Where's the bigger risk? A falling meteor, or getting hit by a city bus? Food poisoning or a terrorist attack?Three Squirrels
Rosencrantz: [flips coin which lands as 'heads'] 78 in a row. A new record, I imagine.
...
Guildenstern: Is that what you imagine? A new record?
Rosencrantz: Well...
Guildenstern: No questions? Not a flicker of doubt?
Rosencrantz: I could be wrong.
Guildenstern: Consider: One, probability is a factor which operates *within* natural forces. Two, probability is *not* operating as a factor. Three, we are now held within un-, sub- or super-natural forces. Discuss.
Rosencrantz: What?
Exactly, a couple years back at vegas, the roulette wheel spun black 13 times in a row.
Thats like 1/.48^13th.
Random things.. happen.
Randomly- some poor investing sod out there has made every choice correctly and been hammered by random market events.
Likewise- some lucky fool (that thinks he is brilliant) has picked google or tasr or crox on some non-logical basis and won big.
That's why you use Mutual Funds and ETF's. You get average performance. You lose the home runs, but you also lose the strike-outs.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
There is an even higher risk of termination by not making that drive for 5 days...
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Back in the early 20th century, the mob used to run a kind of informal lottery. It was called a "numbers game". There were places (like barbershops) where people could pick a number from 1 to 1000, and if their number came up, they won. The mob typically paid out between 800-to-1 and 600-to-1. This meant that the mob paid out 60-80% (and kept 20-40%) of the money people initially paid. On the other hand, most state lotteries only pay out about 50% of earnings, making them a worse bet than going with the mob.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/underground/1114undergroundpm.html
Thats like 1/48^13.
Random things.. happen.
And guess what? Last night in Vegas, the roulette wheel spun this:
Red, Black, Black, Red, Black, Red, Red, Black, Red, Red, Red, Black, Red.
That's like 1/.48^13th.
A lot of people would be better off in understanding "randomness" if they would just realize that these two situations have exactly the same probability. Humans just assign more "meaning" to certain sequences than others.
I was quite amused when I first heard of it. I d onot know if it has ever actually been done, however.
Pick some random stock, send email to 2*10 suckers that it will go up, and to an equal number of suckers that it will go down.
Whichever direction it moves, divide that batch of suckers in two, pick some other random stock, send half email taht it will go up and half email that it goes down.
Repeat until you have only a few suckers left. They will see you as a genius who has correctly predicted the last {n} stock moves correctly. It may be the final sucker, or the last 2, or 4, etc.
Now tout a stock you have just bought and make some money!
Infuriate left and right
I didn't win the green suit, M-16 rifle, and two-year all-expenses-paid vacation to exciting tropical Vietnam, or the grand prize magic bullet with my name on it, and since my number was high enough to get classified as 1-H, I didn't even win the third-prize government-health-care physical exam. Haven't bought another ticket from those bastards since then.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Can you win at roulette by betting there will be "only 8 reds in the next 13 spins"? No, you have to say *which* spins will be red of those 13. In other words, you're arguing here that order doesn't matter...but it clearly does.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.