Luckiest States

Reply #62

noise-gate — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:41:02 GMT

If l was a genie lulu- l would grant you your wish: ...However.

Reply #61

lulu1feather — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 22:38:11 GMT

Indeed it does! I had forgotten that one! Maybe the next big splash in the water we have, the money will actually stay here! right here... like... all around me..

Reply #60

noise-gate — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 21:05:41 GMT

It comes and goes in cycles lulu. You guys just had your turn, and what a turn it was! Least you foget an Iraqi gentleman from half way around the world claims a jackpot prize or part thereof in Oregon. Co incidental- l think not! You guys are hugging the ocean as well. It's clear as crystal.....water

Reply #59

lulu1feather — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:34:45 GMT

Wish some of that California Money Water would wash ashore up here in Oregon

Reply #58

noise-gate — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 19:17:16 GMT

l am just throwing it out there CT- l mean check the patterns, CA, FL, NY, NJ..and for crying out loud- Puerto Rico: it's got something to do with H2O.

*** It's in the water l tell you.

Reply #57

Coin Toss — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 17:02:47 GMT

noise-gate,

Wow...Hawaii should really have a lottery!

_________________________________

According to some people here at LP the 'luckiest state' is always where the latest jackpot winner is from.

If someone from Bottineau, ND hit a jackpot someone here would say, It's always North Dakota .

Reply #56

noise-gate — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 14:45:19 GMT

Why?....simple. You have to be close to a LARGE body of water.. Like say the Ocean

Reply #55

sirbrad — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 21:14:12 GMT

The fact that they even let you pick your own numbers should be proof enough that it is all random. The Robinson's won playing 4 QP's also. No way was that fixed . Also if you think it is fixed and you are still playing you are even more of a nut.

Reply #54

rcbbuckeye — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 15:01:40 GMT

LOL.

Very true

Reply #53

Coin Toss — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 14:59:21 GMT

rcbuckeye,

Very good! Can we also say, With paranoia you'll never have to dine alone

Reply #52

rcbbuckeye — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 14:51:27 GMT

There is a saying.....

Those who can't trust cannot be trusted .

Reply #51

dddwww — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 01:05:46 GMT

To compute the chance that a number in the range of 1-10 will show up among the 5 white balls (at LEAST once) we need to compute how what the percentage is that the range will NOT be among the 5 white balls.

For the first ball, the odds are 59/69 that it will not have 1-10

For the second ball, 58/68

For the third ball, 57/67

For the fourth ball, 56/66

For the fifth ball, 55/65

Multiple all five terms and you get (59*58*57*56*55)/(69*68*67*66*65) = 0.445467

So if there is a

Reply #50

crazyjaney — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 16:32:02 GMT

It all boils down to this- are you a conspiracy person or not. I

am. I am highly suspicious of everything. lol. The terminals can be tampered with. Always pick your own numbers. If you don't want to pick them use a random generator or the quick pick function on the web but don't wait until you get to the lottery terminal to do it

One could easily make the reverse argument that winners are engineered Many of us here were saying that a repeater even a repeat pair was OVERDUE and look a quic... [ More ]

Reply #49

Zebekyia — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 15:39:23 GMT

It was 889500. Also, 55% for a 1-10 number. Could you show me the math on that. If that were true every range would have a 55% chance and it doesn't add up.

Reply #48

dddwww — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 06:50:12 GMT

First of all, you are incorrectly computing the probability of a random selection of 5 numbers out of 69 having a number in the range of 1-10

The odds are 45% that it won't have a number 1-10 and therefore 55% that it will. You are incorrectly computing the odds for a single number but there are 5 numbers on a ticket.

Indiana reports Powerball tickets in the first column at $2/ticket

Indiana reports the amount of money spent on Powerplay, that's $1 per ticket not $3. These are not addit... [ More ]

Reply #47

Zebekyia — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 06:07:08 GMT

Please do the statistics on Indiana for the last 5 draws. Consistently 5%-7% under statiscal average for the number of winning tickets there should be vs. what there actually is. You say they can't be programmed for bias, but you are wrong. There hadn't been a million dollar PB winner in 2 years in Indiana since they switched out the terminals. The new algorithim the machine uses will pick a number 1-10 or even two numbers 1-10 a way higher threshold than what it should be. Humans are very good... [ More ]

Reply #46

sirbrad — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 02:11:52 GMT

Also people are only focusing on CA and Florida not the fact that TN won TWICE now under the new matrix and have a much less population of about 6,600,299. CA has 39,144,818 and FL has 18,804,623. Also it is really easy to focus on the winner after the fact as hindsight is 20/20. But don't forget that for that one winner in CA there was also A LOT more losers. The WHOLE state didn't win one family did. I am sure when RI or VT wins someone will say they saw this thread and made them win to keep i... [ More ]

Reply #45

sirbrad — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 01:55:04 GMT

Not necessarily I would look at it like that state was due. Most younger people do not need to play the lottery they are in school and having fun or working to fund school. Many do play though I see college kids playing all the time here. But mostly older people do it as a hobby, and seniors who have nothing better to do and need something to spend their money on other than food and cable. States with higher populations get more draws but then you got less populated states like TN that got it TW... [ More ]

Reply #44

rcbbuckeye — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 01:49:43 GMT

The problem with making the odds better for smaller prizes is that the jackpot will suffer. Sales was falling off and the only way to fix it was to change the matrix so there would be larger jackpots to sell more tickets. It worked.

For those that want smaller prizes and a better chance to win them, there are many games such as Cash 5, All or Nothing, Lucky 4 Life, and the Pick3/Pick 4 games. Also scratch offs. There's something for everyone.

Reply #43

gavin256 — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 01:31:42 GMT

Any ticket in a higher population can win you mean, more combinations played=more chance to win, so yes you're right. And you can say what you like. My last points in my last post still stand.

Reply #42

sirbrad — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:20:22 GMT

Yeah people only focus on sequential combos because they are so easy to remember. But they ignore all the other millions of combo's that also have not come up that are also more spread out. I thought those little balls in the machine actually fought each other and was like Get down bitch you came up last time, it is my turn

Reply #41

sirbrad — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:16:38 GMT

Exactly. A lot of very far-fetched theories with no logical or factual foundation. The reality is most are just pissed they did not win. Even me, but I expect that most of the time that is how it is with big jackpots. But I also expect that one day I will will be te winner. Already came close matching 4 out of 5 and it was a QP and a bad combo . 05 07 08 09 30 Winning numbers were 07 08 09 14 30. If that 5 were a 14 I would have had $1.6 million.

Reply #40

sirbrad — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:12:06 GMT

But if those combinations do come up you will most likely be the sole winner. If more common ones come up you may be sharing it. You could always use a RNG for QP's which would still be QP's but you are deciding which ones to use which kinda makes them your own numbers. Every terminal individually picks random numbers, it is not one big house computer doing it. Any numbers have a chance though.

Reply #39

sirbrad — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 00:04:53 GMT

On the other hand I got a QP that I thought was crap for the Cash 5 and ended up matching 4 out of 5 and one number off from $1.6 million. I would have never played that combo though. Winning numbers were 07 08 09 14 30 QP was 05 07 08 09 30. So that QP got me at least $220. I normally would never play consecutives that many times under 10. I spread them out more like most would. But QP are usually just as crazy as the drawings are most of the time.

Reply #38

sirbrad — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 23:57:13 GMT

You won what? Smaller prizes? So have I, but I won more playing QP's on jackpot games then using my own numbers. I won more on smaller games playing my own numbers. But I also play more QP's on bigger games, and play my own numbers more on smaller games. So that is probability and odds for you. Any ticket can win yes, but when the bulk of the combinations are played in one state they have a much better chance. But it is not 100% still they just have more plays and better odds. Way more chances.... [ More ]

Reply #37

gavin256 — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 23:26:06 GMT

It doesn't matter what any sort of math or reasoning anyone comes up with. These drawings reek to high he1l and it will have ramifications on future play. That's all that needs to be said. Either give players more of a chance to win smaller to medium prizes or suffer the consequences. Why do you think so many young people are not interested in playing the lottery? Maybe they are smart enough and can do the math that you speak of and realize they have literally no chance of winning anything. If y... [ More ]

Reply #36

rcbbuckeye — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 19:38:46 GMT

Very well explained.

Unfortunately there are those who will remain convinced lotteries are all rigged and no amount of math or reasoning will convince them otherwise.

Reply #35

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 19:16:50 GMT

Powerball reports that 70% of jackpot winners had quick pick tickets, feel free to go back and find something different.

What sort of bias could a quick pick ticket have? There are no better or worse sets of numbers. There could be an excess of duplicates but that only impacts the jackpot and could result in more jackpot rollovers than expected. But every ticket it generated would still have exactly the same 1 in 292 million chance of winning.

Think about this for a moment, what

Reply #34

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 19:05:28 GMT

States don't win jackpots, people do.

So it doesn't matter in the slightest to people in Vermont whether or not there has been a winner in Vermont before. They still have the same probability of winning as anyone who buys a ticket in California or Florida or West Virginia, 1 in 292 million.

You might be saying there is a perception problem and I don't disagree, as long as people incorrectly think you have a better chance of winning if you buy a ticket in California they might be... [ More ]

Reply #33

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 18:57:50 GMT

So they rig the lottery but don't do it in Kansas?

Look at the results from ANY state. You'll get the same answer just not the one you are looking for.

There are no states that do poorly , they all generate winning tickets at a rate of close to the expected 1 in 24.87

You are merely trying to claim something is wrong because Vermont hasn't had a Powerball jackpot winner because, apparently, you think that states should each have the same number of jackpot winners over tim... [ More ]

Reply #32

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 18:31:53 GMT

The government didn't invent probability theory

All combinations have an equal probability of winning, there are no good or bad combinations. All combinations are bad in the sense that they only have a 1 in 292 million chance of winning.

Intuition is a poor substitute for math and scientific principles.

70% of all jackpot winners had Quick Pick tickets, right in line with the percentage of Quick Pick tickets sold.

Let's try a thought exercise. There is a roulette wheel that has... [ More ]

Reply #31

jjtheprince — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 17:52:35 GMT

Obviously you've never played in Tennessee, you'd be a Powerball winner by now if you had been.

Reply #30

Coin Toss — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 15:50:47 GMT

So many 'experts'.

So many theories.

So few jackpot winners.

Reply #29

crazyjaney — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 15:48:36 GMT

I'm not convinced. I need to see a full analysis of jackpot winners via quick pick versus people that self picked numbers. And yeah I do think that the terminals can be programmed to have bias. The terminals do not need the ability to be linked state to state to program bias. It is the same reason why I don't play games where the computer picks the numbers- here in ga that would be all or nothing and keno. Ball drop games only. Much harder to be tampered with.

Reply #28

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 15:14:01 GMT

Look, with odds like these games, they don't need to do anything to hurt your chances. Because your chances are tiny already.

EXACTLY!!!!

Playing powerball is like playing roulette with the payout for hitting a number being even money and only number bets allowed.

Reply #27

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:54:06 GMT

A sequential series has never hit for the exact same reason that 11,238,000 other combinations haven't hit.

If you exclude the powerball then there are 11,238,513 possible combinations of 5 numbers out of 69

Of those there are 65 combinations that are sequential so you would expect a sequential set to be drawn, ON AVERAGE, once every 1662 years.

But a sequential series is just as likely to show up in the very next drawing as any other set of 65 combinations you can come up with.... [ More ]

Reply #26

rcbbuckeye — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:37:12 GMT

So crazy,

Are you saying that with PB and MM, EVERY lottery terminal in the US is programmed to give out so called bad numbers for people that buy QP's?

That means EVERY lottery terminal has to be able to sift through ALL the combinations ALL the other terminals around the country sold.

Except one little thing. The terminals aren't connected state to state.

Oh, and when the terminals are programmed, who decides what is going to be a winning combination, and a losing combination. Out... [ More ]

Reply #25

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:27:39 GMT

Everybody loses around your area because in Powerball only 1 combination out of every 25 wins anything and the odds that you'll win more than $7 are one in 15,000

It isn't that some combinations are suboptimal, it is that the game isn't designed to create lots of winners, it is designed to create monster jackpots that get people reaching for their wallets.

It really is just mathematics at work, factual, long known, well tested, mathematics.

If you buy 25 tickets a week y... [ More ]

Reply #24

crazyjaney — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 13:19:49 GMT

If there are no sub optimal

combinations, tell me why a sequential series has never hit? The only instance I can think of is the ff 5 in Florida a few years ago.

There absolutely are sub optimal combinations. And those quick pick terminals are programmed to pick them.

Reply #23

gavin256 — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:18:44 GMT

The point is, this jackpot will have ramifications on Powerball. There will be repercussions in the future for lower population states never winning any jackpots in years. You will see. I'm not saying there's anything the lottery can do to improve this other than to take a look at how these Quick Pick's combinations are printed but they could make more smaller to medium size prizes. I think they are doing fairly well enough for that.

Reply #22

gavin256 — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:01:59 GMT

You gave an example of just ONE state, LOL. One out of many many states that do very poorly. One state doesn't prove anything. Thanks.

Reply #21

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:35:28 GMT

In fact, on average, one out of every 12 million QP tickets sold results in a $1M winner over the long term.

That is true in every state and every city.

Poor little Kansas with only 4.7m tickets sold did better than average on the last drawing with 2 $1m winners.

Let's look at specific Kansas statistic for the last drawing:

They sold 4,676,236 tickets

190,346 of those tickets won money

Total money won from those tickets was $3,274,686

The odds of any ticket wi... [ More ]

Reply #20

gavin256 — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:24:52 GMT

Like she said

Think about a quick pick for a minute... When you use a quick pick you are letting the house pick your bet for you. Do you think they are going to give you an optimal combination or a sub optimal piece of crap which furthers their house edge? This a business after all lol.

When everybody loses around my area, saying there are no sub optimal combinations doesn't compute. Besides, never winning off a ticket even once until playing my own numbers and winning all the time says... [ More ]

Reply #19

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:01:51 GMT

There are no optimal or sub optimal combinations. Every single combination has exactly the same 1 in 292 million chance of winning.

The reason you keep losing money is because the house edge is monstrously big. They return 35 cents of every $2 ticket on the non jackpot prizes. The same is true whether you pick your super special numbers or the quick pick random number generator picks your numbers.

The odds of you picking the red ball are 1 in 26 and that is true whether you look for patt... [ More ]

Reply #18

ArizonaDream — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 04:59:13 GMT

If I'd gotten a QP with 34 as the highest number this past Tuesday, I'd have thought they were bad numbers. But look at what happened Wed.

The odds of winning are bad everywhere. But get enough people playing and sooner or later, someone will win. It's not the state, it's the huge number of players that some areas have which puts the state in the list of winners.

Reply #17

gavin256 — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 03:08:03 GMT

That's what I've been saying the whole time. There is not an even chance when buying every ticket. Quick pick tickets are a different beast. Especially in lower powerball sales states. What about the stats of non jackpot/2nd place prizes. If everything is equal as this idiot keeps saying, then I'd expect the same dollar amount per capita won in all these other states. Which I haven't seen proof of, because it doesn't exist.

Reply #16

crazyjaney — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 02:49:52 GMT

Think about a quick pick for a minute... When you use a quick pick you are letting the house pick your bet for you. Do you think they are going to give you an optimal combination or a sub optimal piece of crap which furthers their house edge? This a business after all lol.

Reply #15

crazyjaney — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 02:46:02 GMT

I agree with your assessment on quick picks. I think the mechanism and or algorithm used could easily be tampered to favor bad combinations. That is why I always pick my numbers. If you fill out a play slip it doesn't matter where you bought the ticket from.

The same argument holds true for scratchers here in ga. It Seems like a high proportion of the winning tickets are from lower income areas. Is this a case of correlation not causation? It could be those areas have heavier players or it c... [ More ]

Reply #14

gavin256 — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 01:27:59 GMT

For all those saying the chance's are the same for every single ticket that is bought, you need help. I'm guessing you believe everything that the government tells you too? I thought so. I'm also guessing you are either a liberal and/or from a liberal state? Pretty typical. The fact is that not every ticket has the same chances to win. Think about the number generators at the terminals. Do you think enough bad combinations get cycled through in very low powerball sales states to even get close t... [ More ]

Reply #13

Coin Toss — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:38:38 GMT

Just go to the Mega Millions and Powerball websites and look at the winners galleries. It shows winners and states year by year.

One of the sites that was giving out lotto advice yesterday said that Pennsylvania has won 16 jackpots in the last 13 years.

Reply #12

dddwww — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:24:42 GMT

Incorrect, every ticket does have exactly the same chance of winning.

One in 292 million

States don't have an unfair advantage as there is no advantage to a particular state winning, they don't have a stake in the outcome.

Places don't win, people do. And each person's ticket has the same chance of winning no matter where it was purchased.

Let me try another example, let's say people couldn't buy unlimited tickets and instead there were 292 million tickets for sale (1 for every... [ More ]

Reply #11

pickone4me — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 23:21:39 GMT

When you talk about probabilities, the every ticket has the same chance of winning goes up in smoke.

What is really the issue, is that certain states have is an unfair advantage. It also tells me democrat states have a lot of desperate people looking for easy money.

Until people boycott these lottery games, the same places will continue win.

Reply #10

dddwww — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 22:39:05 GMT

Every individual ticket as the same chance of winning

Let's take an example, we have a new lottery and two type of people buy lottery tickets, Blue people and Red people.

If Blue people consistently buy 1 billion lottery tickets and Red people consistently buy 1 lottery ticket would you be surprised to learn that Blue people always win?

Not that I agree that there is anything consistent in which state winners come from. They just tend to come from the states that sell the most tickets,... [ More ]

Reply #9

pickone4me — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:24:55 GMT

There goes every ticket has the same chance of winning argument. If these lottery's were really honest, you wouldn't consistently see wins happening in the same ol' same ol' states ( or puerto rico ).

Again, if the lottery were really random, you wouldn't consistently see wins happening in the same states ( or puerto rico ).

Some people here need to think beyond what the lottery FAQ page says for excuses, pay attention to their contradictions too.

Reply #8

dddwww — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:18:37 GMT

Ignoring Conn. and Tenn. who don't report sales, for the 1/13 drawing the following states had the most sales (there were a total of 614M tickets sold, ignoring Conn and Tenn)

(State, $ amount of sales, number of tickets sold, % of all tickets sold)

CA $179,007,492 89,503,746 15%

TX $109,104,074 54,552,037 9%

NY $101,203,618 50,601,809 8%

FL $100,310,028 50,155,014 8%

PA $57,403,344 28,701,672 5%

NJ $55,573,768 27,786,884 5%

The probability of a particular state havi... [ More ]

Reply #7

MotoX2 — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 19:38:18 GMT

It's mainly because they have more sales and also luck of coarse.

Reply #6

rcbbuckeye — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:56:54 GMT

While you do not need to be a genius, you do need to have a basic understanding of math to grasp why states with higher populations will have a higher number of winners in PB and MM. And then every once in a while you will see Puerto Rico, or a smaller populated state produce a winner.

That's random at work. Because....with 1 in 292+ million odds, all that's left is random. And a lot of luck.

Reply #5

Candy-Lane — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:56:22 GMT

I am never surprised when someone wins from one of the more heavily populated states such as CA, Fl, TX etc...

However, I did notice that 3 out 21 of the top largest jackpot winners came out of Maryland, not a particularly large state.

If one is looking to label a state lucky, then Maryland would get my vote

Reply #4

bigbear29 — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:49:54 GMT

This is why I did not get excited about the high jackpot, yes be in the game. Wait for the next billion dollar jackpot, it will be the same places hitting the jackpots.

( Florida, Ca, New York, PA., and maybe Ga.) Go back to regular jackpots where you don't have the max people buying tickets.

Reply #3

gavin256 — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:48:09 GMT

That's what they keep telling us....

Reply #2

Deo-nonfortuna — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:33:27 GMT

There's only 1 stat u need to know. Biggest population

Reply #1

gavin256 — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:29:32 GMT

I have been wondering the same thing. Seems pretty strange to me. Why does more quick picks/easy picks sold mean higher chance to win the jackpot? More combinations? What are the stats for dollars/wins per capita? Those are the stats that I would like to see. Doesn't seem to add up sometimes. Also, with 2 repeating numbers from the last draw, seems even more strange.

Luckiest States

DoodleBug — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:13:59 GMT

Why do some states seem to produce more lottery jackpot winners? California, Florida, and New York seem to ALWAYS have a winner. Are there any stats available regarding lottery wins per state