PA United States
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Every number has the same chance, but that does not mean it has the same "probability." Statistics continue to prove this. However with the matrix's it is still hard to narrow it down, but usually a lot closer for me than just a QP. Not always though.
United States
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That's my theory too, Brad.
I cannot ever predict 'numbers', I just play tendencies: For example if the prior 3 games all had 2 or more numbers from between 20-29 hit, the 'probability' of that happening in a 4th game just isn't very good.
I CAN tell you most games have one grouping, and in a lot of cases two groupings, I may be able to tell you which grouping NOT to play, but I can't tell you which ones TO play.
RJ: That's what I've been saying also: different 'numbers' have different probabilities outside of the odds, this is why PB #40 hasn't hit in 2 years, and some numbers just hit a bit more often than others, which is why I won't play the 5 longest shots in one game, for example.
NY United States
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Quote: Originally posted by RJOh on Oct 28, 2006
FYI. Mathematician who do this type of figuring have said that the odds of the same combination hitting twice in not the same as it hitting once. So once a combination of numbers has hit the odds of them hitting again are different.
Being a mathematician may call for more education than being a ditch digger, but that doesn't mean no stupid people manage to become mathematicians. It just means that there are some stupid mathematicians. News reports about the lottery are full of (selected and/or edited) quotes from mathematicians saying all sorts of things, but you'll find far more that disagree with your claim than support it. That's because the good mathematicians, and even most of the bad ones, know and agree that the numbers have no memory, and simply follow the laws of probability, and the laws of probability don't change based on which numbers have been drawn previously. Before a given combination is drawn the odds that it will be drawn twice in any two drawings are the square of the odds that it will be drawn once. You can see that reported (poorly) in the recent story about the Canadian woman who "won the lottery twice" because she had two identical tickets for the same draw. Once a particular number has been drawn the odds that it will be drawn again are exactly the same as the odds for any other combination. Only the stupid mathematicians will tell you otherwise, and it won't even be all of the stupid ones.
The people who insist that it's extremely unlikely that all of the numbers from the previous drawing will repeat in the near future are completey right while completely missing the boat. *Every* combination is extremely unlikely to be drawn in the near future, but it's because of the odds, not whether or not they came up recently. If you're picking 5 numbers out of 55, then each number hasonly a 1 in 11 chnace of coming up in any given draw. Even the bad mathematicians know that's the reason it's unlikely for any number to repeat in the next drawing. The odds that the same 5 numbers will repeat in PB are 1 in 3,478,761. That qualifies as "extremely unlikely" but it'salso exactly the same as the odds for each of the other3,478,760 combinations. For some reason, it appears that a lot of the people here either don't understand that or don't want to believe it, but it's easy enough to look at the previous drawings and see that any given number will repeat in the next drawing about 1 out of 11 times. Anyone smart enough to flip a coin and look at the results can easily demonstrate that the previous flip does nothing to influence the following flip, and numbers aren't any different. The numbers are bigger, but the principles are the ones they used to teach in 8th grade.
NY United States
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Quote: Originally posted by guesser on Oct 28, 2006
That's my theory too, Brad.
I cannot ever predict 'numbers', I just play tendencies: For example if the prior 3 games all had 2 or more numbers from between 20-29 hit, the 'probability' of that happening in a 4th game just isn't very good.
I CAN tell you most games have one grouping, and in a lot of cases two groupings, I may be able to tell you which grouping NOT to play, but I can't tell you which ones TO play.
RJ: That's what I've been saying also: different 'numbers' have different probabilities outside of the odds, this is why PB #40 hasn't hit in 2 years, and some numbers just hit a bit more often than others, which is why I won't play the 5 longest shots in one game, for example.
In the last PB drawing none of the numbers from 1 to 10 were drawn and two of the numbers from 30 to 39 were drawn. Strictly out of curiosity, what are the chances of 2 of the numbers from 1 to 10 being drawn next time? How about the chance for two of the numbers from 30 to 39? I agree that it's unlikely that two numbers between 30 and 39 will be drawn next Wednesday, but *how* unlikely?
mid-Ohio United States
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Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on Oct 29, 2006
In the last PB drawing none of the numbers from 1 to 10 were drawn and two of the numbers from 30 to 39 were drawn. Strictly out of curiosity, what are the chances of 2 of the numbers from 1 to 10 being drawn next time? How about the chance for two of the numbers from 30 to 39? I agree that it's unlikely that two numbers between 30 and 39 will be drawn next Wednesday, but *how* unlikely?
In the last 119 PB drawings since the last matrix change 2 numbers from one of those groups have been drawn 23-24% of the time and 2 numbers from each of those groups were drawn at the same time less than 2% of the time. Since I think that is likely to happen in the future also, to get *how* unlikely those events are I would subtract their likely % from 100%. That's how I, a retired factory worker would figure it, a mathematician might do it differently.
* you don't need to buy every combination, just the winning ones *
United States
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This has evolved into a pretty good thread. I'm surprised that nobody bothered to rate it before now, so I just rated it as Excellent - 5 stars.
Nothing changes the odds of hitting a jackpot, but my own experience has shown me that employing some systematic methods can result in cashing more and bigger tickets for the secondary prizes.
As for the debate about whether or not the odds of a given combination being drawn again remain the same once they've been drawn, the answer is....
Yes, the odds remain the same for that single combination being drawn in a single event.
No, the odds of two consecutive drawings of the same combination are different because it is a compound event much like betting on a daily double at the racetrack versus just betting the two horses to win in independent wagers.
Basically, I'd say that both sides are right. You're just debating two different scenarios. But as a practical matter, I don't know of any lottery that offers a compound wager on the results of two consecutive jackpot drawings, so I guess the first answer is the correct one.
There's no way for a player to alter the odds of a jackpot game; however, there are many ways to approach a jackpot game. Given that, a player should:
Choose whatever approach he figures to be the best.
Play the game consistently with that approach.
Wait for the winning jackpot number combination to come to his approach.
Hope that he cashes lots of tickets on secondary prizes while he's waiting for that big jackpot hit.
United States
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At first glance, I would not bet AGAINST a grouping of 2 or more numbers hitting from the 01-10 Group, and/or also the 21-30 Group.
HOWEVER, the one thing I keep thinking is, we have not had a Grouping from the 51-55 in 'forever', and we used to get them a lot more often.
And there are a few other oddities I see with Groupings as well.
If I had a tag line, it would be this:
You can argue odds and probabilities forever, but in the end, you gotta play SOMETHING, so how one person chooses to play the game is up to them, and it's not better or worse than anybody else's thoughts.
AYE, I've NEVER counted on winning the Jackpot, all I play for is a Pick 5, and I play exactly the way you describe in your five bullet points, especially the first three.
Maryland United States
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July 30, 2006
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AYE, guesser, I agree. Chose a system and stick to it. It is not solely mathematical, because those little balls do not obey purely mathematical rules. Odds, statistics, probabilities and all that stuff is for numbers, abstract constructions, that are on paper and in our minds. Every draw has so many differing influences due to the human involvement in every draw, which affects the outcome. Also, not only people affect the outcomes but room temperature, humidity, dirt, an earthquake in North Korea. unobservable gravity shifts, etc. will affect the outcome. What I am getting at is that those numbers are on ping pong balls and they also follow the rules of physics in addition to the rules of math. Like you say guesser you gotta play something. I like calling my bets educated guesses. My system yesterday didn't pay a dime, so I played the same lines again, and had winners on all tickets, go figure. You can be sure I'll create new ones for tommorrow.
LOL jarasan
P.S. Back to Personal numbers a guy in D.C. played the same 6 numbers on 6 lines and hit 6 of 6 for 250K x 6 = 1.5M ! He got them from a fortune cookie. The game is DC Daily SIX a RNG game.
San Angelo, Texas United States
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January 31, 2003
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Situation:
A machine and a set of balls are selected. The machines is tested 4 times, producing 4 different combinations. The same machine and ball set is used a 5th time to obtain a winning combination.
Question: Does all the math, odds, etc, brought out in this thread, apply to the first test? All tests? Only the last combination?
How can one make a rational, mathmatical judgment without knowing what the 4th combination was?
It just seems to me that the best one can do is keep track of the winning combinations, develop some data streams that provide understandable and usable trends and lot of guess work.
Wandering Aimlessly United States
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Agree, Bobby. That's why I don't like pre-tests. I'm glad they don't publish them in Florida. I'd rather be ignorant and not know that one of the personal numbers I've been playing for years came up last week on the third test run.
United States
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Quote: Originally posted by justxploring on Oct 30, 2006
Agree, Bobby. That's why I don't like pre-tests. I'm glad they don't publish them in Florida. I'd rather be ignorant and not know that one of the personal numbers I've been playing for years came up last week on the third test run.
I would normally agree with you - IF they used the same ballset and same ball machine 'forever', but they generally switch them every draw night, so test games or not, the prior game is irrelevant, test or 'real'.
I look at the test games for one thing, but I don't look to see if my numbers hit in one of them, because if they did, life as I know it would be over......... I'd wander around in a drunken stupor all day long until the day I die.......... which doesn't sound too bad right about now.........
NY United States
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Quote: Originally posted by bobby623 on Oct 30, 2006
Situation:
A machine and a set of balls are selected. The machines is tested 4 times, producing 4 different combinations. The same machine and ball set is used a 5th time to obtain a winning combination.
Question: Does all the math, odds, etc, brought out in this thread, apply to the first test? All tests? Only the last combination?
How can one make a rational, mathmatical judgment without knowing what the 4th combination was?
It just seems to me that the best one can do is keep track of the winning combinations, develop some data streams that provide understandable and usable trends and lot of guess work.
Bobby
"Does all the math, odds, etc, brought out in this thread, apply to the first test? All tests? Only the last combination?"
Yes. The laws of probability and physics apply to all of them. The balls don't know what's going on and the laws of probability and physics don't know what's going on either. The laws simply work and the balls just follow the rules, whether it's a test draw or a real drawing.
As far as making a rational judgement goes, you can only work with the data that's available. As jarasan points out (and the same idea has been brought up many other times elsewhere), there are all sorts of things that affect the drawing. Where the observers stand, and even how much change they have in their pockets has a gravitational effect. If the floor was waxed and the machine is 1/100th of a degree off of level because the wax is thicker under one corner it will have an effect. A slight breeze blowing through the drawing location can produce a minor vacuum that is bad the 7 ball a hair higher as it passes near the top of the machine, giving it a slight edge over the other balls. There are a million other things that we won't even think of that can affect the outcome. The bad news is that we'll never be able to account for all of the things that affect the outcome. The good news is that the cumulative effect of those things is both minor and mostly random, so accounting for them wouldn't give us much of an edge.
About the only thing in the whole process that isn't random is whatever bias exists in the balls and the machines, so that's the only thing that you can use to get an edge. If you could look at the results of a few million draws that were all done with the same set of balls and the same machine, and if the balls and machine weren't subject to wear and tear that might affect the results you'd probably have some pretty reliable information on what the bias is.To simplify things let's imagine that it was so significant that you could say that 5 of the balls literally had no chance at all of being drawn, but the other balls all had an equal chance. For PB that would give you a 1 in 2,118,760 chance of matching all 5 instead of the 1 in 3,478,761 that results from true randomness. If you could rule out 5 of the powerballs you'd have a 1 in 37 chance of getting that right, and your overall chance of hitting the jackpot would be 1 in 78,394,120. That's roughly twice as good as your chances with true randomness.
So what would twice the chance of winning really mean? For starters, if everyone had that edge the number of winners for lower tier prizes would go up significantly. Since PB would have the option of paying all of the prizes on a pari-mutuel basis, they'd still get to keep 50 cents for each dollar spent on tickets. With odds of "only" 78,394,120 to 1 against you, by spending $10,000 a year on PB tickets you could expect to win once every 7839 years. Of course if you were the only one with that edge and you had the ability to cover all of the possible combinations you could turn a guaranteed profit every time the cash value of the jackpot went over perhaps $70 million *IF* nobody else had the winning numbers. It wouldn't have to reach $78 million because you'd win the lower tier prizes in proportion to their probability. Of course at only $70 million your profit would be small and the overhead of buying and claiming tickets would be substantial.
The bottom line is that there's definitely some minor bias in each combination of machine and ball set, but we'll never have enough data for it to make a real difference. The best you can hope for is that your odds will improve by a small fraction of 1%. The one thing that's a sure bet is that eliminating numbers from consideration because they were drawn recently is actually counter-productive if they were drawn as a result of bias, because you'd be eliminating numbers that are *more* likely to be drawn. If the numbers were simply drawn as a result of randomness then the same randomness will apply to future drawings. If that's the case eliminating them is completely neutral.
NY United States
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That last post should refer to the 7 ball being sukked (sic) toward the top of the machine. I edited the post 3 times, so apparently the thought police have installed a program to change "is bad" to "is bad". Um, I guess you'll have to rely on context to figure out what word got changed
United States
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1) If there is a bias in the ballsets and ball machines, I don't see it, and I've spent time looking.
2) Unless a person plays a QP, then you gotta play something that is construed as a 'system'.
3) Would you play all 6 of the longest shots in one game ? NOBODY has affirmed that they do, so that leads me to believe folks DO NOT believe so much on the odds or probability that all things are equal when clearly, they are not.
4) Depending on how the floor is waxed, if the machine is tipped, if an air handler is turned on, etc., this affects ALL balls, not just 1 or 2 of them.
5) If all things were truly equal, then all numbers would have the same number of hits over a course of time, and that is clearly not the case, either.