The Meaning of Random Drawing

Reply #23

four4me — Thu, 18 May 2006 19:52:47 GMT

Shane3 i usually just get i qpick and 4 tickets with my personal numbers. When the pot gets up to 20 mill i somtimes get 20 dollars worth of tickets all together.

Todd has some good wheels on this site and if you think you have an idea of what numbers might come out, save up for the big pot and run one of his wheels. you just might match all 5 if not all six.

Reply #22

Shane3 — Thu, 18 May 2006 17:59:48 GMT

I appreciate the help Four4me......but I have just decided that if MM is gonna make it that much more difficult to win by messing with the ball sets then I am just going to go to $5 each drawing and stop the insane madness of spending an average of $250 to $300 per drawing for the last 3 months.

The last drawing was the camel that broke that back. I have been playing the number 48 on every single ticket for the last 12 drawings. I switched on Wednesday and what do you know..... 48 showed up n... [ More ]

Reply #21

four4me — Thu, 18 May 2006 15:29:10 GMT

Close observations on my end of MM shows that they seem to be rotating 3 ball sets possibly 4. If you dissect each drawing since the new changes were made you can see from week to week from which balls were drawn that they fit into 3 groups. And a 4th group is mixed inbetween all three groups. I call that group the wandering group, balls that don't follow a specific grouping. Split all the numbers in the mm drawings into three groups and see where the most balls fell in each group.

Usually 3... [ More ]

Reply #20

konane — Thu, 18 May 2006 14:15:39 GMT

Each ball in each ballset is weighed and each has to be within a very close tolerance weight of each other.

When ballsets are selected and put into the machines for each pre and post test they are handled with gloves to prevent even body oils from throwing off their weights.

The above I've read several times which seems to be SOP for all lotteries.

However, no matter how carefully they handle those balls, they do manage to exhibit certain behaviors such as affinities with certain numb... [ More ]

Reply #19

Shane3 — Thu, 18 May 2006 13:44:26 GMT

Here is my point regarding this matter of randomness. Randomness must be naturally occuring, without purposeful interference from an outside source. Both Powerball and MegaMillions lead the public to believe that to match all 5 numbers the odds are.....1 in 3,819,816 for MegaMillion and 1 in 3,478,761 for Powerball. Then the odds increase when you muliply each by the number Megaballs or Powerballs.

If they do not ensure that each ball weighs the same.....so that they have to change to various... [ More ]

Reply #18

RJOh — Thu, 18 May 2006 02:42:23 GMT

I realized the balls may be a different set, but there's nothing I can do about that. I assume that balls were changed in the past and effected what I've observed so if I continued to observe the reoccurring of an event then changing the balls must not effect it.

For example when I play MegaMillion, I can't afford to play all the megaballs so I definitely don't play 25 because it has not come up in the last 165 drawings. 90% of winning megaballs have been drawn in the previous 125 drawings,... [ More ]

Reply #17

justxploring — Thu, 18 May 2006 00:07:51 GMT

Think of a person flipping a coin 10 times and coming up with head every time even though the odds are suppose to be 50/50 of coming up tail. If you were betting on the next flip, would you bet head or tail? Some people would bet tail because the odds are suppose to be 50/50 and tail hasn't come up yet, but it makes sense to me to bet head because the flips have not been 50/50 and head seems to be the preferred outcome. RJOh

Great analogy! I would probably bet on tail, but you do make sen... [ More ]

Reply #16

four4me — Wed, 17 May 2006 19:32:37 GMT

Rip wrote:

A person who wants to argue the numbers are random would need to explain, Here's how the same people manage to end up at the top of the LP predictions statistics through thousands of draws.

Seems to me you've hit on the key element for a practical definition of randomness:

Rip yes I read that post and didn't want to comment but I will now the stats you showed for those predictors were for all game types. Not match 5's And in looking at those stats you posted Rick G is t... [ More ]

Reply #15

RJOh — Wed, 17 May 2006 18:47:42 GMT

The dictionary definitions of randomness emphasize the notion of apparent absence of cause, planning, or design, a lack of method or system, or accidental, haphazard. Statistical definitions involve the inability to predict outcomes or to find any pattern in a series of outcomes.

However, all lotteries have a fixed (planned and designed) number of possible outcomes so the results of their drawings are not accidental or haphazard but simply hard to predict because of the number of possible out... [ More ]

Reply #14

Rip Snorter — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:20:39 GMT

It's random. No matter how many times I do it will always be random. Unless I peek or somehow am able to feel the raised portion of the numbers through my finger tips. I have no way of knowing what cap has what number nor am I able to influence which cap will be drawn. They designed the ball machines to act in a random way.

Yesterday I posted on this thread:

A person who wants to argue the numbers are random would need to explain, Here's how the same people manage to end up at the top of... [ More ]

Reply #13

justxploring — Wed, 17 May 2006 09:33:38 GMT

four4me: there is another thread on this ballset subject where I just posted, but after reading your post, I do agree that your example of the bottle caps is true. Every time you pick them out of a bag, it is a random drawing. However, if a lottery has 6 or more pre-tests, even if every draw is random, the 6 sets of numbers picked will be discarded. So let's say the odds are 1 in 50 million you are going to win and your 6 numbers come up in the pre-test. What are the odds it will be chosen agai... [ More ]

Reply #12

four4me — Wed, 17 May 2006 05:54:22 GMT

Random or not... If I get a sandwich bag and 10 soda bottle caps I write the numbers 1 thru 0 on each cap. place all ten caps in a bag shake it up close my eyes put my hand in and pull out one cap write the number down. Place that cap back in the bag and shake it up again. Pull out another cap write that number down. I do this X amount of times isn't that basically the same thing as a lottery ball machine where in every ball is being shaken up and drawn. It's random. No matter how many times I d... [ More ]

Reply #11

pumpi76 — Wed, 17 May 2006 04:48:34 GMT

I made a mistake: this is what i said:

"Because if something was random, the odds that a number will appear 7 times in a row on the same draw is big."

what i meant to say:

"Because if something was trully random, the odds that a number will appear 7 times in a row on the following draws should be very small."

pumpi76

Reply #10

Thoth — Wed, 17 May 2006 01:25:30 GMT

I voted All numbers are truly randomly selected .

I think in most states that the lotteries takes great steps to ensure that each drawing is an unpridictable or random event. To me, this means that each combination selected is one of a random origin and that there was no specific reason that the number was drawn. This also implies that the selected number was not previously known to anyone at the lottery office or was not hand-picked as a specific or intended number to be drawn to begin

Reply #9

Rip Snorter — Wed, 17 May 2006 00:41:49 GMT

That's an interesting viewpoint, pumpi. I hope you'll elaborate.

I believe that as long as you have pre-testing, you are not going to have a trully random game. Because pre-testing interferes with the game's history and trends.

Are you postulating that the game history of each game acts as a hmmm sort of sea-anchor to influence future draws?

Also, RNG developers talk about degrees of randomness on the RNG but really the degrees of randomness are subtle, on small scale and visible on... [ More ]

Reply #8

pumpi76 — Tue, 16 May 2006 23:51:12 GMT

I believe that as long as you have pre-testing, you are not going to have a trully random game. Because pre-testing interferes with the game's history and trends.

Also, RNG developers talk about degrees of randomness on the RNG but really the degrees of randomness are subtle, on small scale and visible on a not large, but very large scale. And again i believe that it doesn't matter how high the degrees of randomness of a machine or Rng are, what matters is how high you set the odds in a game... [ More ]

Reply #7

Rip Snorter — Tue, 16 May 2006 21:01:04 GMT

Seems to me the question of whether the lotteries succeed in achieving random outcomes in their draws is a matter that's easily decided:

LOTTOMIKE: Statistics Summary

Summary

Statistic

Current Month

Last Month

Current Year

Last Year

Lifetime

Picks

91,485

138,398

483,905

53,586

537,955

Hits

391

833

2,805

289

3,094

Hit Ratio

0.43%

0.60%

0.58%

0.54%

0.58%

Winnings

$22,641

$72,... [ More ]

Reply #6

konane — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:37:07 GMT

What if the mass mind of players actually controls the numbers drawn? That might shoot the whole lottery pre and post test theory out the window.

I read somewhere that RNG's were used to test mind over matter and that there was a slight enough variance in testing to determine that it could. That doesn't even get into someone tweaking their controlling software which is why I'm four squarely against using RNG's..

However, I believe those tests are done to satisfy the government as w... [ More ]

Reply #5

four4me — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:09:11 GMT

Number 1 it's as random as it can be. Each ball has exactly the same chance of being drawn as every other ball. No one knows beforehand what those numbers will be. Some ball sets might favor certain numbers be it because they have slight differences in weight or size. However with the machine spinning the balls and a paddle working against the spinning balls and each one bouncing off one another, the ball that is closest to the opening when the timer selects the pull will be the ball that drops.... [ More ]

Reply #4

justxploring — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:06:29 GMT

This is a good question, Shane. This subject was brought up before, but I'm not sure it was a poll. I remember when I first got onto this board another member posted that something random cannot be defined. I thought that was an interesting statement. At first I always thought that each number has an equal chance of being picked. This should hold true for every lottery pick that isn't computerized, which is why I am against any computerized drawing. But obviously if they keep changing ballsets... [ More ]

Reply #3

Rip Snorter — Tue, 16 May 2006 17:48:59 GMT

I voted for the first option, even though it doesn't describe what I believe is actually happening.

My general thought is the lotteries do the best they can to impose randomness on the numbers. They just don't have the means of doing it successfully.

Getting those numbers to behave in a way that simulates randomness is a job of work they ain't up to, thinks I.

Jack

Reply #2

konane — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:38:00 GMT

Random = (1) when state lotteries use machines that can be tweaked and adjusted while still delivering X amount of balls per draw as flawlessly as possible + (2) state lotteries rotate as many ballsets as they can justify using which do not escape number behaviors such as skips and number affinities + (3) conducting pre and post draw ballset tests for X amount of times before each draw + (4) retiring one or more of those ballsets periodically = Random.

The most random draw seems... [ More ]

Reply #1

bambini — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:10:07 GMT

Its hard to say if its random or not, sometimes you see the same numbers over and over again. 8, 7, 27, 50 seem to be coming up a lot. The mega ball, 4, 36, come up more than 47 or 5.

The Meaning of Random Drawing

Shane3 — Tue, 16 May 2006 14:23:54 GMT

I e-mailed this question to Mega Millions last week and i am now waiting for a response. In the meantime I am curious to see what do most of you think.

If you think about it....the odds get significantly greater than 175 mil to 1...if the numbers are selected based on what combo will pay out the least amount of winnings. Then it truly boils down to pure chance that you selected a combo that pays out the least.

By the way....I got $18 on two tickets from this drawing. One combo had two numb... [ More ]