Fallacies, and two REAL ways of improving your chancesPrev TopicNext Topic

• yoho

  

  Toronto
  Canada
  Member #138,391
  January 26, 2013
  179 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 3:27 am

  ▲▼

  1 2 3 4 5 6

  4 13 21 35 43 47

  Can you guess which one is more likely to win the lottery? I think most of you "know" the answer - its the same. Yet how many of you would buy in with choice 1?

  I'm sure most players would be more comfortable with a sequence like choice 2 rather than choice 1. Most people "know" the answer, but don't "believe" in it.

   

  So that's my intro. For this post, I will address 3 common fallacies people tend to make here, and the only two LEGAL ways to improve your chances to win;

  although I do look forward to possible methods that I may have not thought of.

   

   

  Fallacy #1:

  This is commonly known as the "gambler's fallacy". If you flipped a coin 9 times, and it returned heads every time, what's the probability that the next flip will

  be heads?

  The answer is 1/2.

  Similarly, even if a number in a lottery has not appeared in the last 10 or 20 or 50 draws, it doesn't make it any less or more likely to appear the next draw. The

  same can be said of "hot" numbers. Even if a number appeared every time the past 10 draws, that doesn't mean it will also appear in the next draw. There's not

  much more to say about this fallacy, but it does bring us to

   

  Fallacy #2:

  It seems that a lot of people on this forum try to look for patterns from draws, and made various outrageous conclusions, for example saying that if the number

  1 appears, then the number 15 will also appear or something to that effect.

  This is an outrageous and silly claim. The fact is, draws don't affect each other, and drawing a certain ball will not affect the other balls. This fallacy is kind of like

  the gambler's fallacy. Let's flip a coin ten times. Theoretically you'll expect that you'll get heads 5 times, and tails 5 times. But what are the chances of getting

  HTHTHTHTHT or THTHTHTHTH? Actually it's 2/2^10, which is 1 in 512. Only once out of 512 tries will you get a perfectly alternating sequence of heads and

  tails. Every other time you'll have at least two heads or two tails in a row. In reality, it's very likely to have 3 or 4 heads in a row, or say 7 tails out of 10 flips.

  That doesn't make it more likely for you to flip tails, or to flip 4 heads in a row. It's simply statistics. With a small sample size, you're going to get some

  inconsistent data, you can't really deduce anything from them. A few hundred or few thousand draws may seem like a lot, but with millions of possiblities in a

  lottery draw you can't deduce anything from it. Having 1 and 15 appear multiple times together is just like having 3 or 4 heads in a row. Just because such

  things happen doesn't make it more likely to happen.

   

  Fallacy #3:

  This is the point I really wanted to talk about. Some members of this forum, especially this guy called ronnie something is basically using pseudo math to

  confuse others, but most importantly themselves. Honestly such obvious fallacies I'm sure many have addressed already, but seeing so many threads with

  similar confusion made by ronnie and others, I felt I really should address it.

  Apparently they think they can simply disregard some combinations of numbers, such as a sequence of all even numbers or all odd numbers, or all numbers

  under 10 etc. Ronnie said something like 2-4-6-8-10 is less likely to appear simply because they're all even numbers.

  This is simply untrue. The fact is, even numbers, odd numbers, prime numbers, pretty numbers, ugly numbers (ya, the last two aren't legit mathematical terms)

  are only something humans use to to make life easier. It's like calling a group of objects that people sit on "chair". It's really completely arbitrary. There's no

  significance in numbers all being even or odd by themselves.

  Sure, if you're picking 6 numbers from 59, its very unlikely that all of the numbers will be under 10 (i.e 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). That part is true. But the same can

  be said of ANY set of 9 numbers, i.e 4,12,14,15,20,35,37,43,51 for example. We put significance in a sequence like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 because its useful for us

  humans in every day life, but for the purpose of a lottery draw, any set of numbers are exactly the same. There's no significance in numbers being odd or even

  or pretty or ugly. Like I said in the beginning, 1,2,3,4,5,6 has the same chances of winning as 4,13,21,35,43,47. Don't try to group numbers, use some pseudo

  math and convince yourself wrongly that some combinations are less likely to appear than others because all the numbers are prime or start with a 1.

   

   

  ***

  So, with the fallacies addressed, I'll present two REAL ways to actually improve your chances of winning the jackpot, other than buying more tickets, of course.

   

  ...

  Well, that's enough time for excitement, it's time to break your dreams and hopes again.

  What are the ways to improve your chances?

  1. Don't buy the same ticket more than once. Ya. That's my advice, haha. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? But well it works. you see news of people buying the same

  numbers and then winning, but really its not a good strategy. I don't understand why anyone would buy the same ticket twice, lol.

   

  2.This point is slightly more interesting. To maximize your chances of winning a jackpot, you should spend your whole lottery allowance on a single draw. Note,

  your whole LOTTERY ALLOWANCE, not all your money, lol. NEVER spend more money on the lottery than you can afford. With that said, its better if you bought

  52 tickets for a single draw than if you bought 1 ticket per week for a year.

   

  Why? Because first of all, we know the expected return is the same. The chances are always 1 in impossibly large number. However, if you buy 1 ticket per

  draw, there is a small chance, however small, that you'll win the lottery twice or three times or all 52 times. Ya, I know, dream on. But that chance exists.

  If you buy in a single draw, you give up the chance to win the jackpot multiple times in exchange for a slightly higher chance to win the jackpot once.  So if

  you're not greedy and only need to win once, then putting all your eggs in one basket might not be a horribly bad idea, although it might hurt more when you

  lose, which you probably will.

   

  Ya, so the fact is, there isn't a real mathematically sound way to really beat the system. I'm not going to pretend I'm god and that I know everything, because

  really, I don't. If god or an alien or your uncle bob told you the winning numbers for next week's draw, great, congratulations. I'm only saying that if you got

  your hopes up because of the kind of reasoning I mentioned above, then I'm sorry, they aren't logically sound. Perhaps there's a way to beat the system, but

  the kind of thinking above will not get you there.
• savagegoose

  

  adelaide sa
  Australia
  Member #37,135
  April 11, 2006
  3,341 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 9:22 am

  ▲▼

  if i flip a coin 10 times and 9 times it comes up heads, I will think its biased, and bet heads.

  " Still swinging, still missing "
  2014 = -1016; 2015= -1409; 2016  = -1171; 2017 = -1257 ; 2018 = - 1380 =  TOT =  - 6233

  keno historic = -2291 ; 2015= -603; 2016= -424; 2017 =-427; 2018= -223   TOT = -3968

  :
• Coin Toss

  

  Zeta Reticuli Star System
  United States
  Member #30,469
  January 17, 2006
  11,788 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 10:04 am

  ▲▼

  yoho,

  Ther are two factors with all gambling, knowledge of the game and money management.

  What you said,

  "To maximize your chances of winning a jackpot, you should spend your whole lottery allowance on a single draw."

  is not money management. It's called blowing  your wad (br, bankroll) on one decision.

  Also, you're assuming others have a bankroll to play like that.

  Good Luck.

  Those who run the lotteries love it when players look for consistency in something that's designed not to have any. So many systems, so many theories, so few jackpot winners. 

  

  There is one and only one 'proven' system, and that is to book the action. No matter the game, let the players pick their own losers.
• rdgrnr

  

  100

  The Hall Of The Mountain Kings Tennessee
  United States
  Member #73,902
  April 28, 2009
  15,378 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 10:26 am

  ▲▼
  In response to yoho

  Quote: Originally posted by yoho on Jan 27, 2013

  1 2 3 4 5 6

  4 13 21 35 43 47

  Can you guess which one is more likely to win the lottery? I think most of you "know" the answer - its the same. Yet how many of you would buy in with choice 1?

  I'm sure most players would be more comfortable with a sequence like choice 2 rather than choice 1. Most people "know" the answer, but don't "believe" in it.

   

  So that's my intro. For this post, I will address 3 common fallacies people tend to make here, and the only two LEGAL ways to improve your chances to win;

  although I do look forward to possible methods that I may have not thought of.

   

   

  Fallacy #1:

  This is commonly known as the "gambler's fallacy". If you flipped a coin 9 times, and it returned heads every time, what's the probability that the next flip will

  be heads?

  The answer is 1/2.

  Similarly, even if a number in a lottery has not appeared in the last 10 or 20 or 50 draws, it doesn't make it any less or more likely to appear the next draw. The

  same can be said of "hot" numbers. Even if a number appeared every time the past 10 draws, that doesn't mean it will also appear in the next draw. There's not

  much more to say about this fallacy, but it does bring us to

   

  Fallacy #2:

  It seems that a lot of people on this forum try to look for patterns from draws, and made various outrageous conclusions, for example saying that if the number

  1 appears, then the number 15 will also appear or something to that effect.

  This is an outrageous and silly claim. The fact is, draws don't affect each other, and drawing a certain ball will not affect the other balls. This fallacy is kind of like

  the gambler's fallacy. Let's flip a coin ten times. Theoretically you'll expect that you'll get heads 5 times, and tails 5 times. But what are the chances of getting

  HTHTHTHTHT or THTHTHTHTH? Actually it's 2/2^10, which is 1 in 512. Only once out of 512 tries will you get a perfectly alternating sequence of heads and

  tails. Every other time you'll have at least two heads or two tails in a row. In reality, it's very likely to have 3 or 4 heads in a row, or say 7 tails out of 10 flips.

  That doesn't make it more likely for you to flip tails, or to flip 4 heads in a row. It's simply statistics. With a small sample size, you're going to get some

  inconsistent data, you can't really deduce anything from them. A few hundred or few thousand draws may seem like a lot, but with millions of possiblities in a

  lottery draw you can't deduce anything from it. Having 1 and 15 appear multiple times together is just like having 3 or 4 heads in a row. Just because such

  things happen doesn't make it more likely to happen.

   

  Fallacy #3:

  This is the point I really wanted to talk about. Some members of this forum, especially this guy called ronnie something is basically using pseudo math to

  confuse others, but most importantly themselves. Honestly such obvious fallacies I'm sure many have addressed already, but seeing so many threads with

  similar confusion made by ronnie and others, I felt I really should address it.

  Apparently they think they can simply disregard some combinations of numbers, such as a sequence of all even numbers or all odd numbers, or all numbers

  under 10 etc. Ronnie said something like 2-4-6-8-10 is less likely to appear simply because they're all even numbers.

  This is simply untrue. The fact is, even numbers, odd numbers, prime numbers, pretty numbers, ugly numbers (ya, the last two aren't legit mathematical terms)

  are only something humans use to to make life easier. It's like calling a group of objects that people sit on "chair". It's really completely arbitrary. There's no

  significance in numbers all being even or odd by themselves.

  Sure, if you're picking 6 numbers from 59, its very unlikely that all of the numbers will be under 10 (i.e 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). That part is true. But the same can

  be said of ANY set of 9 numbers, i.e 4,12,14,15,20,35,37,43,51 for example. We put significance in a sequence like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 because its useful for us

  humans in every day life, but for the purpose of a lottery draw, any set of numbers are exactly the same. There's no significance in numbers being odd or even

  or pretty or ugly. Like I said in the beginning, 1,2,3,4,5,6 has the same chances of winning as 4,13,21,35,43,47. Don't try to group numbers, use some pseudo

  math and convince yourself wrongly that some combinations are less likely to appear than others because all the numbers are prime or start with a 1.

   

   

  ***

  So, with the fallacies addressed, I'll present two REAL ways to actually improve your chances of winning the jackpot, other than buying more tickets, of course.

   

  ...

  Well, that's enough time for excitement, it's time to break your dreams and hopes again.

  What are the ways to improve your chances?

  1. Don't buy the same ticket more than once. Ya. That's my advice, haha. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? But well it works. you see news of people buying the same

  numbers and then winning, but really its not a good strategy. I don't understand why anyone would buy the same ticket twice, lol.

   

  2.This point is slightly more interesting. To maximize your chances of winning a jackpot, you should spend your whole lottery allowance on a single draw. Note,

  your whole LOTTERY ALLOWANCE, not all your money, lol. NEVER spend more money on the lottery than you can afford. With that said, its better if you bought

  52 tickets for a single draw than if you bought 1 ticket per week for a year.

   

  Why? Because first of all, we know the expected return is the same. The chances are always 1 in impossibly large number. However, if you buy 1 ticket per

  draw, there is a small chance, however small, that you'll win the lottery twice or three times or all 52 times. Ya, I know, dream on. But that chance exists.

  If you buy in a single draw, you give up the chance to win the jackpot multiple times in exchange for a slightly higher chance to win the jackpot once.  So if

  you're not greedy and only need to win once, then putting all your eggs in one basket might not be a horribly bad idea, although it might hurt more when you

  lose, which you probably will.

   

  Ya, so the fact is, there isn't a real mathematically sound way to really beat the system. I'm not going to pretend I'm god and that I know everything, because

  really, I don't. If god or an alien or your uncle bob told you the winning numbers for next week's draw, great, congratulations. I'm only saying that if you got

  your hopes up because of the kind of reasoning I mentioned above, then I'm sorry, they aren't logically sound. Perhaps there's a way to beat the system, but

  the kind of thinking above will not get you there.

  Could you post a few of your winning tickets so we can see how well your system works?

  Thanks!
• helpmewin

  

  100

  u$a
  United States
  Member #106,660
  February 22, 2011
  19,960 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 10:49 am

  ▲▼

  can you try the Mix & Match

  
• olplugger

  

  Mechanicsville, VA
  United States
  Member #84,142
  December 23, 2009
  1,523 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 10:54 am

  ▲▼
  In response to rdgrnr

  Quote: Originally posted by rdgrnr on Jan 27, 2013

  Could you post a few of your winning tickets so we can see how well your system works?

  Thanks!

  

  "Whatever the human mind can conceive and believe it can achieve."

  Napoleon Hill, Author of "Think & Grow Rich"

                                                                                                                                         
• RJOh

  

  100

  mid-Ohio
  United States
  Member #9
  March 24, 2001
  20,272 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 11:41 am

  ▲▼

  "...its better if you bought 52 tickets for a single draw than if you bought 1 ticket per week for a year."

  That's probably true if you're going for a prize with odds of 1:52 of winning, but if you're going for the jackpot 52 tickets don't give you much more of an edge than buying one ticket.  Besides, buying one ticket a week will give you a whole year of dreaming even if you don't win anything.

   * you don't need to buy every combination, just the winning ones * 

         
  
• Toronto

  

  United States
  Member #135,798
  November 29, 2012
  419 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 1:56 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to savagegoose

  Quote: Originally posted by savagegoose on Jan 27, 2013

  if i flip a coin 10 times and 9 times it comes up heads, I will think its biased, and bet heads.

  Hasty generalization: too small a sample size
• Coin Toss

  

  Zeta Reticuli Star System
  United States
  Member #30,469
  January 17, 2006
  11,788 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 1:57 pm

  ▲▼

  yoho,

  Granted the

  1  2  3  4  5  6

  and

  4 13 21 35 43 47

  have the same chance of hitting but by no means do they have the same chance of how many ways the jackpot would be split if they did hit.

  Those who run the lotteries love it when players look for consistency in something that's designed not to have any. So many systems, so many theories, so few jackpot winners. 

  

  There is one and only one 'proven' system, and that is to book the action. No matter the game, let the players pick their own losers.
• yoho

  

  Toronto
  Canada
  Member #138,391
  January 26, 2013
  179 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 3:39 pm

  ▲▼

  To address some of the questions you guys arised:

   

  #1:

  If you flipped a coin, and it returned heads, would you say the coin is biased? It's 100% heads! What if you flipped it two times and they both returned heads? 3?

   

  What you said is absolutely valid, and you may assume that if you wish. But if you had knowledge that the coin was at least intended to be made as fair as possible, 

  like the weight on each side is exactly the same, and the flip is completely randomized etc, then at what point does that assumption hold its reasonableness?

  1 throw? 2 throws? 10 throws? 100 throws? 

   

  Actually there is statistics theories that deal with this, but it is, I believe, slightly higher level of mathematics than most can handle. But the basic idea, is that obviously

  the more trials you had, the more accurate your predictions. But as I said, for lotteries with tens of millions of possibilities, a few hundred trials is not nearly enough.

   

  #2, #3:

  You misinterpreted my point. I'm not telling you to go blow all your money on a single lottery. I even pointed out that it would probably bring more sadness than

  if you rationed it out. I'm simply saying that if you wanted to maximize your chances for winning the lottery ONCE, playing it at one time would be the most 

  optimal way. As soon as you buy tickets the second time, you're not playing optimally (again, assuming you don't care for winning the jackpot multiple times). 

  This is not to say that its the most optimal choice for EVERY SITUATION/CONSIDERATION. Indeed, I also mentioned that you cannot beat the lottery, and that no

  matter how you play, the total expected outcome is the same.

   

  Furthermore, I pointed out that you should only spend what you can afford on the lottery, so I don't think I'm telling people to mismanage money.

   

  If you really asked me for a "system", I'd tell you to save your money for the occasional draw that you'll be happy with. 

  For example, if you had determined that you wanted to spend 5 bucks on the lottery per week, instead of spending it every week, save it up until you see a draw

  you like. Let's say you think a 15 million jackpot would set you for life. Then perhaps enter when the jackpot is 30 million, so that even if you share with 1 other

  person you can still get a satisfactory amount. This way you're ever so slightly more optimized to win, but you aren't completely blowing it all in one shot.

   

  In addition you're learning to save money to boot. NEVER NEVER NEVER "borrow money used for future draws; i.e don't overspend. Ever.

   

  In the end, I'm trying to tell you that there is no system that will allow you to win, clearly you didn't even read what I wrote if you're asking me for my winning 

  tickets. 

   

  So that addressed most of the concerns.

   

  In regards to coin's most recent point, there's not much I can say. I'm not a psychic, I have no idea what other players/quick picks choose for their numbers.

  Is 1 2 3 4 5 6 used more or less? I'm not sure. I don't think many people would want to play that, but it does make more sense it's played more than a completely

  random sequence. Did you read that article on wikipedia where the second prize for some lottery was won like 200 times because the numbers appeared on a

  future cookie? I simply cannot guess what others would play, and I can do nothing to influence it. I only know that even if I knew some others would share the

  jackpot with me, that I'd rather share it than win nothing at all.
• helpmewin

  

  100

  u$a
  United States
  Member #106,660
  February 22, 2011
  19,960 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 5:51 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to yoho

  Quote: Originally posted by yoho on Jan 27, 2013

  To address some of the questions you guys arised:

   

  #1:

  If you flipped a coin, and it returned heads, would you say the coin is biased? It's 100% heads! What if you flipped it two times and they both returned heads? 3?

   

  What you said is absolutely valid, and you may assume that if you wish. But if you had knowledge that the coin was at least intended to be made as fair as possible, 

  like the weight on each side is exactly the same, and the flip is completely randomized etc, then at what point does that assumption hold its reasonableness?

  1 throw? 2 throws? 10 throws? 100 throws? 

   

  Actually there is statistics theories that deal with this, but it is, I believe, slightly higher level of mathematics than most can handle. But the basic idea, is that obviously

  the more trials you had, the more accurate your predictions. But as I said, for lotteries with tens of millions of possibilities, a few hundred trials is not nearly enough.

   

  #2, #3:

  You misinterpreted my point. I'm not telling you to go blow all your money on a single lottery. I even pointed out that it would probably bring more sadness than

  if you rationed it out. I'm simply saying that if you wanted to maximize your chances for winning the lottery ONCE, playing it at one time would be the most 

  optimal way. As soon as you buy tickets the second time, you're not playing optimally (again, assuming you don't care for winning the jackpot multiple times). 

  This is not to say that its the most optimal choice for EVERY SITUATION/CONSIDERATION. Indeed, I also mentioned that you cannot beat the lottery, and that no

  matter how you play, the total expected outcome is the same.

   

  Furthermore, I pointed out that you should only spend what you can afford on the lottery, so I don't think I'm telling people to mismanage money.

   

  If you really asked me for a "system", I'd tell you to save your money for the occasional draw that you'll be happy with. 

  For example, if you had determined that you wanted to spend 5 bucks on the lottery per week, instead of spending it every week, save it up until you see a draw

  you like. Let's say you think a 15 million jackpot would set you for life. Then perhaps enter when the jackpot is 30 million, so that even if you share with 1 other

  person you can still get a satisfactory amount. This way you're ever so slightly more optimized to win, but you aren't completely blowing it all in one shot.

   

  In addition you're learning to save money to boot. NEVER NEVER NEVER "borrow money used for future draws; i.e don't overspend. Ever.

   

  In the end, I'm trying to tell you that there is no system that will allow you to win, clearly you didn't even read what I wrote if you're asking me for my winning 

  tickets. 

   

  So that addressed most of the concerns.

   

  In regards to coin's most recent point, there's not much I can say. I'm not a psychic, I have no idea what other players/quick picks choose for their numbers.

  Is 1 2 3 4 5 6 used more or less? I'm not sure. I don't think many people would want to play that, but it does make more sense it's played more than a completely

  random sequence. Did you read that article on wikipedia where the second prize for some lottery was won like 200 times because the numbers appeared on a

  future cookie? I simply cannot guess what others would play, and I can do nothing to influence it. I only know that even if I knew some others would share the

  jackpot with me, that I'd rather share it than win nothing at all.

   Sorry but if you believe this then your wrong.

  
• Coin Toss

  

  Zeta Reticuli Star System
  United States
  Member #30,469
  January 17, 2006
  11,788 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 6:07 pm

  ▲▼

  yoho,

  It was mentioned here once on LP (or more perhaps) that one of the state lotteries had released information on how many people do in fact play 1  2  3  4  5  6.

  You would be amazed.

  Those who run the lotteries love it when players look for consistency in something that's designed not to have any. So many systems, so many theories, so few jackpot winners. 

  

  There is one and only one 'proven' system, and that is to book the action. No matter the game, let the players pick their own losers.
• yoho

  

  Toronto
  Canada
  Member #138,391
  January 26, 2013
  179 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 6:32 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to helpmewin

  Quote: Originally posted by helpmewin on Jan 27, 2013

   Sorry but if you believe this then your wrong.

  If I believe that I'm not a psychic and can't read minds, then I'm wrong?

   

  Well, thanks for having so much faith in my abilities 

   

  @ cointoss: I probably will be, actually I'd be amazed whether it's 0 or 10000000, but do you remember approximately how many it was? I'm quite interested
• onlymoney

  United States
  Member #128,784
  June 2, 2012
  5,427 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 6:50 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to yoho

  Quote: Originally posted by yoho on Jan 27, 2013

  If I believe that I'm not a psychic and can't read minds, then I'm wrong?

   

  Well, thanks for having so much faith in my abilities 

   

  @ cointoss: I probably will be, actually I'd be amazed whether it's 0 or 10000000, but do you remember approximately how many it was? I'm quite interested

  I don't remember where i saw this, but in just about every state, there are hundreds or even thousands of people playing 1-2-3-4-5-6. Only if they knew they'd get like a few hundred or a few thousand bucks if they hit the JP. Dumba$$es. At least do some homework on the game you play..DUH !
• Stack47

  

  Kentucky
  United States
  Member #32,651
  February 14, 2006
  10,302 Posts
  Offline
  Jan 27, 2013, 8:39 pm

  ▲▼
  In response to yoho

  Quote: Originally posted by yoho on Jan 27, 2013

  1 2 3 4 5 6

  4 13 21 35 43 47

  Can you guess which one is more likely to win the lottery? I think most of you "know" the answer - its the same. Yet how many of you would buy in with choice 1?

  I'm sure most players would be more comfortable with a sequence like choice 2 rather than choice 1. Most people "know" the answer, but don't "believe" in it.

   

  So that's my intro. For this post, I will address 3 common fallacies people tend to make here, and the only two LEGAL ways to improve your chances to win;

  although I do look forward to possible methods that I may have not thought of.

   

   

  Fallacy #1:

  This is commonly known as the "gambler's fallacy". If you flipped a coin 9 times, and it returned heads every time, what's the probability that the next flip will

  be heads?

  The answer is 1/2.

  Similarly, even if a number in a lottery has not appeared in the last 10 or 20 or 50 draws, it doesn't make it any less or more likely to appear the next draw. The

  same can be said of "hot" numbers. Even if a number appeared every time the past 10 draws, that doesn't mean it will also appear in the next draw. There's not

  much more to say about this fallacy, but it does bring us to

   

  Fallacy #2:

  It seems that a lot of people on this forum try to look for patterns from draws, and made various outrageous conclusions, for example saying that if the number

  1 appears, then the number 15 will also appear or something to that effect.

  This is an outrageous and silly claim. The fact is, draws don't affect each other, and drawing a certain ball will not affect the other balls. This fallacy is kind of like

  the gambler's fallacy. Let's flip a coin ten times. Theoretically you'll expect that you'll get heads 5 times, and tails 5 times. But what are the chances of getting

  HTHTHTHTHT or THTHTHTHTH? Actually it's 2/2^10, which is 1 in 512. Only once out of 512 tries will you get a perfectly alternating sequence of heads and

  tails. Every other time you'll have at least two heads or two tails in a row. In reality, it's very likely to have 3 or 4 heads in a row, or say 7 tails out of 10 flips.

  That doesn't make it more likely for you to flip tails, or to flip 4 heads in a row. It's simply statistics. With a small sample size, you're going to get some

  inconsistent data, you can't really deduce anything from them. A few hundred or few thousand draws may seem like a lot, but with millions of possiblities in a

  lottery draw you can't deduce anything from it. Having 1 and 15 appear multiple times together is just like having 3 or 4 heads in a row. Just because such

  things happen doesn't make it more likely to happen.

   

  Fallacy #3:

  This is the point I really wanted to talk about. Some members of this forum, especially this guy called ronnie something is basically using pseudo math to

  confuse others, but most importantly themselves. Honestly such obvious fallacies I'm sure many have addressed already, but seeing so many threads with

  similar confusion made by ronnie and others, I felt I really should address it.

  Apparently they think they can simply disregard some combinations of numbers, such as a sequence of all even numbers or all odd numbers, or all numbers

  under 10 etc. Ronnie said something like 2-4-6-8-10 is less likely to appear simply because they're all even numbers.

  This is simply untrue. The fact is, even numbers, odd numbers, prime numbers, pretty numbers, ugly numbers (ya, the last two aren't legit mathematical terms)

  are only something humans use to to make life easier. It's like calling a group of objects that people sit on "chair". It's really completely arbitrary. There's no

  significance in numbers all being even or odd by themselves.

  Sure, if you're picking 6 numbers from 59, its very unlikely that all of the numbers will be under 10 (i.e 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). That part is true. But the same can

  be said of ANY set of 9 numbers, i.e 4,12,14,15,20,35,37,43,51 for example. We put significance in a sequence like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 because its useful for us

  humans in every day life, but for the purpose of a lottery draw, any set of numbers are exactly the same. There's no significance in numbers being odd or even

  or pretty or ugly. Like I said in the beginning, 1,2,3,4,5,6 has the same chances of winning as 4,13,21,35,43,47. Don't try to group numbers, use some pseudo

  math and convince yourself wrongly that some combinations are less likely to appear than others because all the numbers are prime or start with a 1.

   

   

  ***

  So, with the fallacies addressed, I'll present two REAL ways to actually improve your chances of winning the jackpot, other than buying more tickets, of course.

   

  ...

  Well, that's enough time for excitement, it's time to break your dreams and hopes again.

  What are the ways to improve your chances?

  1. Don't buy the same ticket more than once. Ya. That's my advice, haha. Sounds stupid, doesn't it? But well it works. you see news of people buying the same

  numbers and then winning, but really its not a good strategy. I don't understand why anyone would buy the same ticket twice, lol.

   

  2.This point is slightly more interesting. To maximize your chances of winning a jackpot, you should spend your whole lottery allowance on a single draw. Note,

  your whole LOTTERY ALLOWANCE, not all your money, lol. NEVER spend more money on the lottery than you can afford. With that said, its better if you bought

  52 tickets for a single draw than if you bought 1 ticket per week for a year.

   

  Why? Because first of all, we know the expected return is the same. The chances are always 1 in impossibly large number. However, if you buy 1 ticket per

  draw, there is a small chance, however small, that you'll win the lottery twice or three times or all 52 times. Ya, I know, dream on. But that chance exists.

  If you buy in a single draw, you give up the chance to win the jackpot multiple times in exchange for a slightly higher chance to win the jackpot once.  So if

  you're not greedy and only need to win once, then putting all your eggs in one basket might not be a horribly bad idea, although it might hurt more when you

  lose, which you probably will.

   

  Ya, so the fact is, there isn't a real mathematically sound way to really beat the system. I'm not going to pretend I'm god and that I know everything, because

  really, I don't. If god or an alien or your uncle bob told you the winning numbers for next week's draw, great, congratulations. I'm only saying that if you got

  your hopes up because of the kind of reasoning I mentioned above, then I'm sorry, they aren't logically sound. Perhaps there's a way to beat the system, but

  the kind of thinking above will not get you there.

  "It seems that a lot of people on this forum try to look for patterns from draws, and made various outrageous conclusions, for example saying that if the number"

  All forms of gambling are based on "if". If I put a green chip in the betting circle on a Blackjack layout and beat the dealer, I'll win $25. Looking for patterns and trends is no different than saying "if my calculations are correct". It's called conditional betting and the player wins IF their conditions are met. 

  Your once a year QP bet will give you a 1 in 6 chance of having a three number match. A conditional player can guarantee having a three number match if 3 of his 15 numbers match for about the same amount wagered.

  "Don't buy the same ticket more than once. Ya. That's my advice, haha. Sounds stupid, doesn't it?"