California, Maryland United States
Member #53,060
June 22, 2007
1,120 Posts
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Does anyone know how to check what Powerball machine number and ball set will be used in any next draw? Machine numbers are 5-8 AND ball sets are 25-28.
CT United States
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May 21, 2008
781 Posts
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Yup, you won't know until after the draw. But you can find out which past machines and ball sets have been used by going to http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_numbers.asp and clicking on the red ball at the bottom of the text box that starts with: "Every attempt is made to ensure that this list of numbers is accurate,..."
North Charleston, SC United States
Member #69,212
January 6, 2009
45 Posts
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Holy CRAP.
I never knew about any of this! Do most "hot number" lists take into account the test drawings? That's a major set of data that I'll bet many are ignoring in their prediction sets..... and the fact that you have to split your stats by which ball set is used.... man.
This is more complicated than I thought, but also potentially a lot more predictable than I thought.
Of course, there is now the possibility of having the horror of YOUR winning numbers chosen as 'test' numbers before the real drawing.
I'll bet that's happened to someone at least once...... the horror..... maybe there should be a consolation prize for such an occasion...
CT United States
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May 21, 2008
781 Posts
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Of course, there is now the possibility of having the horror of YOUR winning numbers chosen as 'test' numbers before the real drawing.
Maybe true, but then one could argue that anyone who had winning numbers would NOT have had the winning numbers had there not been test draws before the official draw since their draw would have never taken place.
This has came up a few time on the forum since I've been here over the last 6 months, and the fact of the matter is that test draws are necessary to ensure reliable, professional lottery draws. No one would be happy with a live machine break down which could have been caught in the test draws.
New Jersey United States
Member #1
May 31, 2000
27,937 Posts Online
Quote: Originally posted by Stew12 on Jan 6, 2009
Of course, there is now the possibility of having the horror of YOUR winning numbers chosen as 'test' numbers before the real drawing.
Maybe true, but then one could argue that anyone who had winning numbers would NOT have had the winning numbers had there not been test draws before the official draw since their draw would have never taken place.
This has came up a few time on the forum since I've been here over the last 6 months, and the fact of the matter is that test draws are necessary to ensure reliable, professional lottery draws. No one would be happy with a live machine break down which could have been caught in the test draws.
As long as the lottery handles everything transparently — you know what the test draws were — then I don't see a problem.
As a matter of fact, you can look at the test draws as a good thing — again, as long as you know what the draws were — because it provides a much larger set of data from which to see patterns, trends, and tendencies.
United States
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June 16, 2006
1,969 Posts
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Quote: Originally posted by TotallyDavis on Jan 6, 2009
Holy CRAP.
I never knew about any of this! Do most "hot number" lists take into account the test drawings? That's a major set of data that I'll bet many are ignoring in their prediction sets..... and the fact that you have to split your stats by which ball set is used.... man.
This is more complicated than I thought, but also potentially a lot more predictable than I thought.
Of course, there is now the possibility of having the horror of YOUR winning numbers chosen as 'test' numbers before the real drawing.
I'll bet that's happened to someone at least once...... the horror..... maybe there should be a consolation prize for such an occasion...
WRONG.
I have THOROUGHLY used Test draw data for almost 3 years, and there is nothing there 'solid' enough to use in predicting numbers in the next game. I have Excel spreadsheets with ALL this data on it.
And yes, of course folks' numbers have been picked in the test games and not the real games, but that also goes the other way: folks' numbers have been picked in the real games but not the test games.
I have not seen ANYTHING in the ballsets or ball machines used to indicate a 'hot' number belonging to a certain ballset or ball machine, and as I said, I have tracked this very closely for almost 3 years.
If you think this data will help it be 'a lot more predictable than you thought', guess again: hundreds of people have skimmed this data, and so far, nobody has won with it yet that I know of. If there was something to it, you can bet a lot more people would win, and the Jackpot would be hit a lot more often. The only thing I have used this data for is to help eliminate numbers, but that said, it only knocks your odds down from 1 in 178 million to maybe 1 in 138 million = not worth the time, so I stopped tracking it a short time ago.