OK, this is on the Canadian Lotto 6/49 because there's a lot of historical data, it goes back to 1982 and for the time being I'm in Canada rather than Texas.
The minimum that you have to match in the 6/49 is three numbers so I took all 2,734 draws and parsed them into the three number combinations from each draw then I have a script running through all 13.98 million combinations scoring them on how many three number matches they would've had, if the combination was one that matched all six numbers of a draw exactly, I did not consider the numbers from that draw, I thought that would be too much of a bias towards numbers already drawn. The script looks for the combination with the highest scoring rating and generates a list of the combinations with the highest score that it's come across to date. Looks like the script could run for months on a single machine so it's set up to restart near where it left off if interrupted, it will back track a little but not much.
Does this seem like a reasonable way to rate the number combinations?
I also have a similar script running against the Lotto Max numbers which is a pick 7 game but that game is relatively new so there's very little in terms of historical data and with that game, you pick a set of seven numbers then the machine picks an additional two sets of 7 in order to give you the advertised odds. I don't like that because the machine picked numbers could overlap each other or the numbers you've picked resulting in fewer chances for a three number match. So far, I've won a couple of free plays and a $20 prize.
They have another game here called PayDay where the top prize is a grand a week for life (we're talking about your life not some 20 year annuity so the annuity is basically a life insurance policy betting that you'll die) or $675,000 (remember no taxes on lottery prizes here so that's actually more money than a million dollar win in the States but you would be taxed on the annuity payments). The lack of taxes on lotteries makes the cash value option a no brainer except for people like myself with dealings in the US where the IRS will still come after you but we'll cross that bridge if we ever get to it. The unfortunate thing about PayDay, which is a pick 4, is that you pick 4 and then the computer picks 14 sets of 4 for you in addition to the 4 that you picked in order to get the published odds. A real bummer cause if you had control over all 15 lines, you could almost guarantee the small prize. The other unfortunate bit is that they charge more for the draws, $2 for the Lotto 6/49, $2 for PayDay and $5 for the Lotto Max. When the Lotto Max jackpot hits $50 million, each additional million is given away in a separate draw called a Maxmillion draw so there are times when the lotto Max ticket is actually for 30 plus draws with one draw being the Jackpot and subsidiary prizes while the rest of the draws are for a million each. Of course only the main draw is mechanical, the rest are RNG. Seems like they've gone RNG crazy in Canada.
Side note: PayDay is phonetically a bad word in Brazil alluding to excrement. It'll be great to win that just to tell my Brazilian friends that I get my money from PayDay.
I really miss my MegaMillions, PowerBall and Texas Two Step fixes. Just not the same without the jackpot over $100 million.