Quote: Originally posted by letitride$ on Apr 8, 2007
Perhaps I should have called the thread WHY SELF PICKS DO NOT WIN instead of a positive based assumption regarding QPs. But in theory, as KY Floyd points out, or seems to, each combo has an equal theoretical chance of winning. Most of gambling geeks who read that a majority of winning combos are 2/3 odd even or vice versa pick from those sets, while QPs will "choose" at random between ALL possible combo sets, whih in the end, gives them their subtle micro edge in real world terms, capish?
Nevertheless, it also true that with 176 million combos, something like Mega Millions will not exhaust the possible total combinations in many of our lifetimes, or even come close. The difficulty in winning a JP is that it is like saying "pick a number between 1 and 176 million, any number, I am thinking of one, and if you guess right you win the loot" when obviously if it was like picking the Ace of spades of deck of cards, 1 in 52, it would happen soon enough, but not here, unless lightning strikes. You can expect to win once in something like 435,000 years, in MM, supposedly, for example, the techie boys tell us. So, you simply cannot achieve it realistically, no matter what method of picking numbers you use, in your lifetime, or ten lifetimes.
As KY Floyd suggests, picking the 2/3 odd even, low high, etc. does not help much because in odds that steep, even if you pick from those "high percentage" pick zones, where MOST draw wins "come from" it does NOT aid you in finding the SPECIFIC combo needed to win on that given day. True. There are TONS of those possible combos that follow the even/odd, low/high, number sums, to pick from, and even though DRAWS in a majority of cases might be shown, despite their randomness, to fit in those zones, you are helping yourself in a nominal way with regard to actually selecting the winning combo, at best.
My point was the randomness of the QP IS its strength, due to its less biased nature, all possible tries are going be covered by the prospective picker, who cannot apply HIS bias over "likely combos" to the pick. He cannot "overthink" the selection. Sheer short term freak luck carries the day in most of these lotto games, with any significant odds in the odds of winning, such as lotto TX. No matter how much work you do, you cannot increase your odds in any significant way with either QPS OR self picks. Neither is scientifically better than the other.
Since each draw is a fresh trial, the draws are re-using all balls, and the law of independent trials applies, the Math profs will argue, and that applies each time no matter which picking method you use, which is also an unrelated event.
KY Floyd, we cannot test the theory regards QPS vs non, in these games, because we all know most WILL buy QPS. As I said, I suspect the QP WOULD win in head to head, not because the odds were better using them but that the users who relied on their draw histories and such would pinhead themselves out the odd JP ot 2 by their very pickiness of making sure they only submitted "balanced" low/high, sums, odd/evens, etc. while QPS cover the gamut in an unbiased way, allowing them in the end to potentially cover a wider field as a net for any given draw. I understand all of YOUR arguments, (except your *comparison* points about QP ratios vs the non, etc. this might need a bit more explanation) have heard them by several analyzers many times and am the biggest skeptic on this board, regards odds, FYI... :)