Hi there GASMETERGUY,
I have been following this thread for a while now, just lurking in the background, and I want to offer you some advice.
I see that you are playing/analysing Georgia Fantasy 5 which is a (5/39) lottery game. If I were you I would start looking at the Georgia Win For Life lottery game. Georgia Win For Life is a (6/42 + 1 Bonus ball) lottery game.
Now before anyone says anything I can see that the Georgia Win For Life game doesn't pay the winnings for 1st or 2nd prize in a lump sum, it pays them out at either $1000 a week for life, and $1000 a week for a year. Hey if I won either prize I wouldn't care! I know that there are differences in the prize payout structure of each game but for the purposes of this post I want to put that aside and try and do a comparison between each game and what you might expect from playing/analysing each game.
Let's look at the odds of winning each game:
Georgia Fantasy 5 (5/39) 1 in 575,757
Georgia Win For Life (6/42) 1 in 5,245,786
In a straight comparison of the odds of winning each game your chances of winning Georgia Fantasy 5 are far greater than winning Georgia Win For Life.................or are they?
You see, comparing the odds of winning each game is ok if you are playing that lottery game, but I have found that they don't mean anything when you are analysing lotteries looking for patterns etc.
I have been studying/analysing/comparing the different lotteries here in Australia for a number of years. Our major games are Tattslotto/Lotto/Gold Lotto (6/45 + 2 bonus balls) the name varies in this game depending on which part of the country you live in, Ozlotto (7/45 + 2 bonus balls), Powerball (5/45 + 1/45). I would like to point out that I was looking at Powerball as a straight (5/45) game and not concerned with the Powerball at all.
I would start off analysing one lottery and if I found something I would look and see if I could find the same thing happening in the other two. Quite often I found similarities between Gold Lotto and Ozlotto but I could rarely find the same similarities in Powerball. If you look at the odds of winning each game you will see that there are big differences between all three.
Powerball 1 in 1,221,759 (I am treating this game as a straight 5/45 lottery game)
Gold Lotto 1 in 8,145,060
Ozlotto 1 in 45,379,620
Looking at the odds Powerball it should be the easiest game to win but I was baffled for ages about why I couldn't find any similarities between this game and the other two, seeing that the odds of winning this game are so much lower than the other two. Then it finally clicked that comparing the odds only matters when you are playing the actual lottery games not when you are analysing them. This is when I came up with what I call the “Lottery Ratio”.
The Lottery Ratio is just a simple percentage of the number of winning balls drawn in a lottery compared to the number of total balls in the lottery. It is a simple idea and I have found it to be a useful comparison between lotteries that you are analysing. When working out the Lottery Ratio you have to take into account any bonus balls that are drawn from the same machine. I will now show you the Lottery Ratio figures for each lottery in Australia.
Powerball = (5/45)*(100/1) = 11.11%
Gold Lotto = (8/45)*(100/1) = 17.77%
Ozlotto = (9/45)*(100/1) = 20.00%
Basically, the higher the Lottery Ratio the greater your chances are of finding patterns etc. in the lottery data. The lower the ratio means that your chances of finding a pattern etc. are reduced. Once the Ratio goes below 13% I have found that you are better off focussing your energy towards a lottery that has a higher ratio.
Since I discovered the Lottery Ratio I have found that it is useful to look at the inverse figure of this ratio which I call “Lottery Density”. It is also possible to look at Lottery Density graphically. I have made some images comparing the density of Australian lotteries which I haven't posted here but I would be glad to send them to people who are interested.
So looking at the Lottery Density figures for the Australian lotteries we get the following figures:
Powerball = 45/5 = 9
Gold Lotto = 45/8 = 5.625
Ozlotto = 45/9 = 5
The lottery Density of Powerball is 9. This means that there is one winning ball drawn for every nine balls that are in the lottery. If we look at the Lottery Density figures for Gold Lotto and Ozlotto we find that they are fairly similar (5.625 & 5 respectively) which is why I found similar patterns occuring in both. The figure for Powerball is way higher (less dense) which explains why I was unable to find any patterns within this lottery. The lower the figure returned for Lottery Density, the higher the density and the more chances you have of finding a pattern. The higher a figure returned for Lottery Density, the lower the density and the lower your chances of finding a pattern. I have found that once this figure gets above 7 or so you are better off focussing on a lottery with a higher density.
So looking now at Georgian lotteries we find the following:
Georgia Fantasy 5
Odds 1 in 575,757
Lottery Ratio = (5/39)*(100/1) = 12.82%
Lottery Density = 39/5 = 7.8
Georgia Win For Life
Odds 1 in 5,245,786
Lottery Ratio (7/42)*(100/1) = 16.66%
Lottery Density = 42/7 = 6
Georgia Fantasy 5 has a Lottery Ratio of 12.82% and a Lottery Density of 7.8, this basically means that your chances of finding a pattern in this lottery is very low. If we turn our attention to Georgia Win For Life we find that it has a Lottery Ratio of 16.66% and a Lottery Density of 6. This means that your chances of finding a pattern in this lottery are much higher than finding a pattern in Georgia Fantasy 5.
Another reason why you should consider Georgia Win for Life over Fantasy 5 is because in Georgia Win For Life there is a bonus ball drawn. With Georgia Fantasy 5 your chances of developing a system that gets all 5 of 5 numbers drawn are very slim. If your system was to get all 5 numbers it would probably only do it once or twice in a life-time. With Georgia Win For Life there is a bonus ball drawn, so therefore to win the major prize you have to develop a system that will get 6 out of 7 balls drawn. Your chances of developing a system to do this are far greater. Now I know that Fantasy Five is drawn every day and Win For Life is only drawn a couple of days a week, but putting all of this aside, your chances of developing a system to get 6 out of 7 are far greater than your chances of developing a system to get 5 out of 5. I'm no mathematician but your system to get 6 out of 7 could possibly hit once or twice a year, as compared to once or twice in a life-time. Now I know that there is a good chance that the 6 numbers that this system gets will more than likely contain the bonus ball, but because it is happening far more regularly there is a chance that one day you will hit all 6 numbers.
Anyway, I apologise for such a long post but hopefully you will find some of my research useful, and I would like to wish you all the best with your endeavours!.
Regards,
Grant