hypersoniq's Blog

I am not questioning the randomness of the results, let's be clear on that. The results of all draw games analyzed so far are close enough to expected distributions to be considered random enough, even though they all fail Chi Square tests. That has more to do with the number of combinations drawn with a matrix vs the number of un-drawn combinations that will never be seen in a million years...

I am questioning the randomness of the quick picks! As I purchased my last set of QPs for Monday's draw, I looked to see how truly poorly the QPs performed on Wednesday and Saturday. Wednesday's 3 QP tickets had 1 match (43, a white ball) and Saturday matched zero. I expect similar for Monday. These quick picks did so bad, they would have had the sole 43  match if counting all 6 lines against BOTH draws.

So, what could the premise be here? The Quick Picks are intentionally bad! But how could they all be so far off if they had no idea of what the winning combo was going to be? Could their greed be so great as to send out intentionally bad QPs to force the draws to roll over and increase sales? Because of the randomness of the draw, they would not need to do this but greed is an all powerful drug that nobody is immune to... if humans are involved, the chance of interfering to maximize profits is non zero.

So the premise is, can you buy 3 quick picks and use that data to reverse solve the draw? Can how bad the QPs are be the guide to a better pick?

Why 3 QPs? Why not 1 or 10? Triangulation! Using the data points that are possibly intentionally so far away from the winner to figure out if there is any repeatable truths hidden in the data. 

Notice how the QPs get better when the jackpot gets hit... or in the weeks leading up to the big win...

The low jackpots seem to bring in bad QPs because somebody has to pay for the roll overs... The premise is not as far fetched as it sounds.

I bought 3 QPs for Wednesday Night, matched 1 white ball. I bought 3 QPs for Saturday, will wait until that draw goes off, then will be buying 3 more for monday. QPs don't need the multiplier or anything, so the whole data gathering phase will cost $18 using $2 tickets.

After gathering the data, it will be time for analysis...

The goal? Reverse solve each draw based on the data points from the QP tickets. Will it be impossible? Probably. Will it be repeatable? Most likely will be non repeatable. However long the analysis phase takes (weeks, months, the rest of 2025) will represent savings because all other systems will be suspended.

Why try it? Well, lack of any better ideas, boredom and the challenge... what if? What if it is possible to use 3 QP lines to "triangulate" your best guess? Any jackpot system needs only to work 1 time... the thought of coming up with a system for once that does NOT require studying past draws is enough to green light the project. With a total initial data acquisition cost of under $20,  why not?

May you all find something that works this year, this is my "big idea" for 2025... and it is not even that good... ever forward.

No need to even retool the software, all I need to do is add the combo column to the .csv files!

Only the pick 3 evening has enough data for this, too many zeroes in the pick 5 games... a little over 5% of the possible combos have been drawn, but in pick 3, the minimum repeat is 5 for all 1,000 combos.

Which ever of the holidays you celebrate, may it be a joyous one!

Since I put all that time into creating follower programs for MM and PB... and they each generate just one pick... why not try to play the generated lines for BOTH games? It makes no sense and has no statistical foundation, but then again NOTHING appears to work at any level, so why not? May not have time to run everything until the weekend...

Staying on the 0 1 5 for both PA mid and PA eve. Will do a weekly update to see if that combo changes, but it is pretty far ahead of the nearest competitor.

Results so far less than stellar, but a box hit almost pays for 3 weeks of continued play, and if they slip up and let it out straight, that will allow a live test on one of the the jackpot games...

Otherwise out of ideas for the rest of the year...

Here it is, the most drawn combo across PA pick 3 day and night... 0 1 5

That is what I am going with for the rest of the month. With permutations counted, this combo came up 182 times across day and night draws.

0.50 straight / 0.50 box

With 22 days left in the year, that is 44 draws at $1 per ($2/day), so total cost of $44... that is the plan for closing out 2024. One single box hit would still represent a $4 loss, but that seems worth the effort... and it gives me 22 days to come up with a new direction for 2025.

So, the weekly combo for the PA pick 3 eve and PA pick 3 day both expire today. I still need to sit down and update both to see if anything changed. So here is the plan for the upcoming 7 days (starting tomorrow). When updating, I will be extracting the top 5 combos for each game and setting them aside for paper play for the week. The combo that will be played will be one for both mid and eve that results in combining both p3 data sets. The cost is the same ($14) and paper playing the pick 3 is not an issue should those combos start showing up, at most I would miss out on a $290 hit.

This will allow testing 2 different approaches in the same week, without incurring any additional expense.

The hope is that over 26,000 data points will be better for picking a combo. But then that is it, one combo, both mid and eve covered.

Attempting proof of concept on the pick 3, with the hopes to extend to the pick 5 if promise is shown.

The only additional work would be a combined spreadsheet and .csv file to handle the merge, the python script will require zero modifications.

The fact that I am at the point of merging 2 separate history files might just be an indication that I can finally admit to myself that, though it might be possible, I lack the skill to crack the code...

A best guess is still just a guess, but the idea that what happened the most should indicate what is most probable to happen again is a difficult notion to shake... and that is what these state lottery administrations are counting on.

So I am still here, still innovating and still waiting for them to slip up and catch a win... one that will pay for my final statistical tactic to have a shot at a jackpot game. I just have the patience to wait until they fund it!

Maybe it is time to take the pick 3 eve and pick 3 day data and smash it together to see what top combos emerge...

Since there was no change, let's try posting them...

Mid day PA pick 3 best guess 1 9 8

Eve PA pick 3 best guess 0 8 3

Playing $0.50 straight and $0.50 box.

Total cost for 7 days = $14

Possible hits $250 straight / $40 box

The closest to a win would have been yesterday mid, when they drew 1 9 7... I was taking 2 days off so I would have missed it if they drew the 8 instead of the 7... 

Already dropped the match 6, and in the process of debugging the pick 5 script, so that is also on the shelf.

$14 per week for the rest of the year.

The first week picks for the pick 5 ended up being slightly different in week 2, the pick 3 was added in week 2. Since I am moving forward with the pick 3, it is interesting that the combo choice has not changed for either day or night...

I simplified the sorting process by adding a composite column, which simply adds the straight and box hits of the combos together. It was a simple adjustment that needed a variable to add the other 2 (straight + box hits) and creating a column header and writing the new column to the csv file.

I am still seeing some inconsistent counts in the pick 5 output, which makes it an ideal time to remake the code to count properly as the switch to the pick 3 only is underway.

I also noticed some inconsistencies when looking at the number of draws in the csv files vs. The spreadsheets. The history files were initially entered by hand so events such as the infamous 666 evening draw and their short lived "double draw" results could be kept out.

I may have to resort to running the entire history file creation again, only this time with the year to year copy data from the URL instead of manual typing... that will be an ongoing project... I have gotten better at cleaning data, but it is still a monumental task, as pick 3 evening data goes all the way back to 1977 and the website only gives out a year at a time.

I almost wish I did not see the anomalies, but data consistency is important.

The pick 5 test, week 2. So far, the combo changed from one week to the next, with each matching 4 of 5 at least once. On the pick 3 side, it was 2 out of 3 twice in the only week tried so far. There are 2 cycles of mid and eve left, now it is time to pick just one to go into the weekend and next week. There could still be a hit, but must proceed as if there will not be a hit.

Pick 3 cost could be done 2 ways...

0.50 st and 0.50 box for $14 for a week, prizes $250 st / $40 bx

Or

$1 st and 0.50 box for $21 for a week, prizes $500 st / $40 bx

Then there is the pick 5...

$1 straight and $1 box for $28 for a week, prizes $50,000 st / $425 box.

Being mindful of the odds... this system only looks at combos with unique digits...

Pick 3 unique digit draws represent 72% of all draws, (120 when factoring in 6 way permutations) where pick 5 unique digit draws only represent 30% of all draws (252 when factoring in 120 way permutations).

Draw updates are also considered, as each history file will need to be maintained.

I came up with a work flow to update with a simple copy paste from the PA lottery past draws site so if I only update once a week it is the same as updating more or less frequently.

From looking at the data, the plan going forward is to go cheaper... $14 for 0.50st/0.50bx pick 3. Altering the play strategy so that a box hit will trigger adding in the pick 5 for the next 7 day cycle. 

From just 12 days of the test, it is much less frustrating than generating a pick for each draw. It is nicer to see digits matching more often, and one day they will mess up and maybe I get a hit...

I have added the 148 most recent draws to the PB history and I am working on the 14 months of missing data from the MM history.

The plan here is that the pick 3 box can fund the chase for the pick 5, and the pick 5 box can fund the chase for the jackpot games... not bored with playing, just over paying for it... even if a box on the pick 3 works, I will still spend $2 to add in a week of pick5...

Like every other system I have worked on for the past 20+ years, the reasonable expectation is that it does not work, though it IS the first system that also looks at box hits as a win. I could live with $14 to $16 per week for playing... I dropped the match 6 so there is already $14 per week towards it. 

This year has been slow, but the one straight hit gave me the Raspberry Pi 5 that I otherwise would have passed on. That is set up now as a local network web server so I can practice building full stack web solutions... will give this system a fair chance for the remainder of 2024. Maintenance once a week is much better than daily!

The numbers changed slightly. The mechanism for picking the straight combo to play out of the 120 permutations is up and automated, and work has begun to modify the process for the pick 3.

No hits straight or boxed, but having 3 out of 5 was the most frequent event, followed by twice having 4 of 5 on the day game... and one of those had 3 in position.

1:100,000 odds on a straight hit, 120:100,000 odds on a box.

Statistically it performed better (without actually hitting) than recalculating the followers for each draw. Updating the draw history files once a week is much less time intensive than daily.

I will re run the program after updating the draws. Perhaps one more week before taking what was learned from this pick 5 experiment and rolling it down to the pick 3 to continue testing at 1/2 the cost.

Looking at combos and permutations and also staying with a combo for a week rather than 1 draw are all in direct opposition to everything I have worked on for the past 20 years, However, what I have seen in this last year has pretty much left me with the sense that isolating individual columns is never going to work. There is still a nod to frequency when deciding the straight combo,  and 3 out of 5 in the right place was a positive indicator that it is as good as any other solution... but studying the permutations of the desired event (5 unique digits) and having the spreadsheet be able to instantly verify the correctness makes sense to me... still only playing one combo for day and one combo for night.

I will be trying to stick to the above for awhile to give it an actual chance. 

Why limit to 5 unique digits? Because there are 120 permutations and the $1 box bet returns $425, well below the $600 claim form threshold.

Will be waiting for any type of win before an attempt at running the vertical horizon frequency by combo position program on the PB or MM. That seems like something that should wait until I am back on house money...

Not a prediction script, just a draw generator that can output a possible combo for whatever game the parameters are set for... one that can be given a start date and make n number of runs. Would not matter if it was a pick 2 or a pick 6 (or a pick 5+1).

Might be something to work out just for the challenge... run the script, then make sure the seeds cannot be reverse engineered (by avoiding prng system calls...)

Don't know what the actual use would be, outside of in interesting code project...