I followed my own suggestion the other night and created a random number generating spreadsheet, setting it up for six players playing 8, 16, 24 & 32 three-digit combinations in the Missouri Pick-3 game. $1 was spent on each number. If all three digits were different, it bought a six-way box ($100 prize); if two of the digits were the same, it bought a three-way box ($200 prize); and if all the digits were the same it bought a straight ticket ($598 prize). Then, using the draws for the month of August, I examined the outcome.
The average number of wins per player per month per set of eight tickets bought was 1.1666... The average win was $125. Thus, these results show an average $145.8333... won for every $248 spent (or lost): a net loss of $102.16... per player per month.
Only one of the six players ("Alyssa") came out a winner, averaging two wins per set of eight tickets bought. At first, because of what I've read by some successful systems players here, this made me doubt what I know of statistics. My random number players seemed much less successful. But then I realized that, in real life, it's the players who win, the "Alyssas," that you hear from, not the "Bonnies," "Catherines," "Donnas," "Elizabeths" and "Fannies." In real life, those who lose quit playing, and quit talking about it even before they do that. It's the winners you hear from.
If enough people play lottery systems, some of them will come out ahead. That doesn't prove that a system works. If a million chimpanzees were chained to a million typewriters for a million years, one of them would produce a work of literary genius. But it's just random chance.
