The script I have dreamed about for several years is finally completed. 100% functioning as intended. 

Now comes the hard part... interpreting all of the statistics and making a pick. I spent several hours in a discussion with ChatGPT that involved no coding, it was purely about the meaning behind the descriptive statistics. As it would happen, the tail end of each column of data produces a frequency distribution list that is the base calculation required to calculate Markov probabilities! So there is no need to process further, as the most frequent number would have the highest Markov probability.

The downside... the next drawn number rarely comes from the most frequently drawn. It does give a clear indication of a pick to try, so I accomplished that goal of a one shot forecast, it just does not win... yet.

I have noticed some anomalies by comparing the overall distribution of each step in processing...

1. The draw history exhibits a mostly uniform distribution.

2. The first pass that records the followers becomes a bit less uniform.

3. The third pass (the most frequent follower of the last follower) is hardly uniform at all. Not exactly a bell curve, but there exists a heavier concentration of certain numbers at the top 1/3 of the distribution.

The next time I have a spare hour or three I intend to remove a week of draw history and run the script as I add each result in, recording ALL of the output and comparing it to see if there are any other indicators not immediately obvious that might help pinpoint the next drawing. I must be diligent to look for patterns that MOSTLY hold true across draws to avoid manual over fitting. Until I find some of these yet to be discovered universal truths, I will continue to paper play the pick 3 mid and eve games.

Once I am ready, I will use the following bet strategy...

Step 1. $1 straight on mid and eve pick 3 until a win happens... then I will be on the state's money... total cost $14 per week

Step 2. IF a win happens, then for one week play $5 straight on the pick3 mid/eve AND the pick5 mid/eve... that will cost $140 and if there is no win that week, back to the step 1, only adding the pick 5 mid/eve for 2 weeks... total cost $56.

With one $1 straight win pick3 in pa =$500, this will take the total cost of step 2 ($196) and the cost of the normal weekly $14 until that first hit happens ( would have to hit within 21 weeks to be profitable).

I don't want to start yet because I do not believe that the highest Markov probability has the chance of being the pick for the entire game. I treat all columns in the history file separately. I am not playing to get 1 in 1,000 or 1 in 100,000 rather trying to pick 1 in 10 for 3 or 5 times in a row, respectively. 

More importantly I learned a great deal about how to use and manipulate pandas data frames in python. I followed software engineering best practices and ended up with a script that produces the desired output in only 87 lines of code. I gave my script a fitting name, follower_refinery.py

My goal for 2024 is a straight win on the pick 5, and I will leave no stone unturned until that goal is reached. When I reach that goal I will upgrade my LP membership to Platinum.

So when I am still a standard member in 2025, you all will know I failed. But maybe this time will be different... I can't ALWAYS lose, right?