Hey guys, just checking in here from CT for the first time. Looks like a good deal of helpful info on this site, should be interesting to read through it all! I happened to stumble on this site a few days ago while searching for a few lotto playing tips, and so far I like that I see!
Ok, about me.. I'm a software guy and have always been interested in numbers. I have been playing the lotto on and off for the past few years, just grabbing quick picks whenever I happened to be at the local gas station and the lotto was high. Just for fun, a few weeks ago I thought about writing a bit of software to analyze patterns in the numbers and see if I can't predict which were most likely to show up on the next go-around. So far no huge luck (except not when I've bought tickets, ha) but writing different methods and checking the results has been quite addicting. I have been working on an Application that calculates likely lotto numbers for CT (since I live there) for the Powerball, Cash 5 (5/35), pick 4 and pick 3 lottos. I began with the powerball, but have been focusing more in the Cash 5 and pick 3 or 4 lottos over the past few weeks since there is a much better chance of winning. I started writing the application not quite knowing what I was going to use for calculation exactly, so I created 5-6 different simple methods. One goes through and figures out which numbers are the most frequent, another calculates which numbers haven't been seen in the longest time, one method calculates which numbers are 'due' based on the average number of draws between their hits (and how long they've been 'out'), etc. Nothing ground breaking. I created the app so it will loop through all past drawings in my database and calculate which ones were expected, and show me what my results would have been. Kind of neat.
One thing I wasn't sure about was how deep I should be searching in the database. I know that searching deeper than the previous time the game format has changed would be pointless, but I've read a few sites that have conflicting ideas of how many records are 'best' to use. I didn't take any advice from those, but instead tweaked the application to loop through 'pool sizes' of varrying amounts. That way I can select which method to use, and it generates a report on the number of hits from each different pool size. For example, I can see that for the 5/35 Cash 5 drawings a pool size of 50 only hits 3 balls 5 times, and 2 balls 38 times. This method with a pool size of 16, hits 4 balls 2 times, 3 balls 9 times, and 2 balls 51 times, and the jackpot (all 5) once on 6/13/07! I'm sure it was completely randomly (not because of the awesome-ness of my calculation) since that/method pool size combo doesn't hit that much elsewhere. The overall pool here is about 360 drawings back to 1 year ago.
Just for kicks, that method calculates these for tonight (May22): 23-26-27-29-33 (w/pool size of 16).
Here are some other methods I use for CT Cash 5 with their most active pool sizes -
CT Cash 5 - May 22 picks
10-11-16-19-31 (Longest Since: pool size - 13)
3-7-26-27-33 (Most Frequent: pool size - 159)
5-8-13-19-34 (Least Frequent: pool size - 75)
23-26-27-29-33 (Due Up: pool size of 16) * Guessed jackpot for June 13, 2007.
1-9-11-19-29 (Games Out (skips): pool size - 14)
Just a few days ago I converted this app to work for the Pick 3 and Pick 4 lottos, but it's still a work in progress. Those games are different, naturally, because they partially rely on position and the numbers are independant (as you all know). I'll give my picks with the application as-is, but in it's novice state it just calculates based on exact position. i.e. a number in the first position will only be checked against other first position picks back through the history, with no combos implemented yet. That will be changed here shortly. I also have to double-check my database since I noticed previously that it had a few of the drawings missing for some reason. But anyway, here are the picks so far:
CT Play 4 - May 22 picks
1-0-6-1 (Longest Since: pool size - 41)
0-9-4-8 (Most Frequent: pool size - 38)
5-0-9-1 (Least Frequent: pool size - 38)
5-2-4-1 (Due Up: pool size - 35) * This method/pool guessed the jackpot for May 6.
7-2-1-0 (Games Out (skips): pool size - 41)
CT Mid Day 4 - May 23 picks
0-9-0-6 (Longest Since: pool size - 38)
8-4-8-0 (Most Frequent: pool size - 33)
0-0-7-2 (Least Frequent: pool size - 39)
4-1-1-1 (Due Up: pool size - 49)
5-7-1-0 (Games Out (skips): pool size - 40)
CT Play 3 - May 22 picks
3-4-3 (Longest Since: pool size - 33)
0-9-7 (Most Frequent: pool size - 45) * This method/pool guessed the jackpot for April 12.
3-7-5 (Least Frequent: pool size - 46) * This method/pool guessed the jackpot for May 9.
2-0-3 (Due Up: pool size - 33)
3-4-6 (Games Out (skips): pool size - 33)
CT Mid Day 3 - May 23 picks
9-5-3 (Longest Since: pool size - 33)
2-6-7 (Most Frequent: pool size - 36)
9-1-3 (Least Frequent: pool size - 36)
5-6-0 (Due Up: pool size - 41) * This method/pool guessed the jackpot for May 20 and April 28.
5-7-9 (Games Out (skips): pool size - 33)
I only have data for the play 3 and 4 games back to November 07, so I'll be adding more shortly and seeing how the calculations do when checking back further.
I guess I should toss in my powerball predictions as well, why not.
Powerball - May 24 picks
5-35-40-50-54, PB: 10 (Longest Since: pool size - 68)
13-21-23-30-47, PB: 18 (Most Frequent: pool size - 114)
3-6-25-39-40, PB: 9 (Due Up: pool size - 41)
So there's my intro. Looking forward to getting some tips from the pros here ;) Catch you guys around.
- Stew