Lottery Monte Carlo Simulation Results. Shows likelyhood of winning the PB.Prev TopicNext Topic

• sthl129

  

  United States
  Member #171,713
  January 11, 2016
  19 Posts
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  Jan 11, 2016, 6:36 pm

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  I have been running a powerball simulation all day long on one set of numbers going through thousands of drawings a minute.

  Here are the results:

  My Numbers: 28-35-40-47-59 PB:15

  My simulation performed 47,850,356 completely random drawings. On the current PB schedule this many drawings would take 460,100 years. My total investment at $2.00 per drawing is $95,700,712.

  I have won $1,000,000 5 times by hitting all 5 white balls.

  The total I have won is 16,399,662 which is a -83% ROI.

  I have yet to win the Jackpot after running this simulation for over 6 hours.

  A simulation like this will make you think twice before spending 100's of dollars on powerball tickets. It just takes one ticket to win it though! Someone WILL eventually win. I am still going to play... Thoughts?
• savagegoose

  

  adelaide sa
  Australia
  Member #37,135
  April 11, 2006
  3,341 Posts
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  Jan 11, 2016, 6:41 pm

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  yeh i always think the best increase in odds is the1st ticket you buy. after that  the improvement only gets worse

  " 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

  :
• dddwww

  

  United States
  Member #171,727
  January 11, 2016
  127 Posts
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  Jan 11, 2016, 7:18 pm

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  My thought is that is what everyone who plays the lottery should expect, to lose money and lose money consistently.

  If the system is fair and nobody has gamed the mechanism or drawing then there is no system to pick winners.   The best way to win the lottery is to rig it, modify the mechanism, get everyone who is supposed to be verifying it for fairness in on it, but that's illegal. 

  The house edge is simply too high to game any minor imperfections in the mechanism or balls and the number of drawings is far to small to identify any small imperfections that might lead to a particular ball having a slightly higher or lower chance of being chosen.

   

  Some of the scratcher games were successfully gamed by people who figured out a pattern but scratcher games and a ball drawing game are different.  One deliberately introduces patterns (winning sequences) into the cards and the other randomly selects balls that have no memory or affinity to other balls.  The scratcher game signaled the hidden patterns, newer scratcher games don't signal.
• SergeM

  

  Economy class
  Belgium
  Member #123,694
  February 27, 2012
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  Jan 13, 2016, 12:15 pm

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  Simulations are bogus, you play or you don't. No simulation ever won a cent! - dixit

  
• lcoleman

  

  United States
  Member #170,882
  December 22, 2015
  29 Posts
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  Jan 13, 2016, 3:07 pm

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  In response to sthl129

  Quote: Originally posted by sthl129 on Jan 11, 2016

  I have been running a powerball simulation all day long on one set of numbers going through thousands of drawings a minute.

  Here are the results:

  My Numbers: 28-35-40-47-59 PB:15

  My simulation performed 47,850,356 completely random drawings. On the current PB schedule this many drawings would take 460,100 years. My total investment at $2.00 per drawing is $95,700,712.

  I have won $1,000,000 5 times by hitting all 5 white balls.

  The total I have won is 16,399,662 which is a -83% ROI.

  I have yet to win the Jackpot after running this simulation for over 6 hours.

  A simulation like this will make you think twice before spending 100's of dollars on powerball tickets. It just takes one ticket to win it though! Someone WILL eventually win. I am still going to play... Thoughts?

  First) Everyone knows the odds

  Second) You make some crazy assumptions... 70% of tickets are quickpick. So your assumption of using the same number throughout the simulation is invalid for most ticket purchasers. So you should try a new random number (for the quickpick with the similar RNG used by quickpick vending machines) to match another new random number (powerball with the same constraints).

   

  For instance there are 8 total sets of balls? 4 white 4 red. You need to run a random number for each of those sets and then generate a random number to choose which set's random number to compare to the quickpick random number.

   

  Another is they run each few sets a few times to check for randomness before they do the actual drawing. You'll probably have to modify the seed to lose randomness over time (or just show a pattern that reveals itself after a few times due to ball damage) and once it's lower than a particular threshold you have to replace it or reset it.