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Geek Culture / The Lottery Algorithm?

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Matt Rock
19
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Joined: 5th Mar 2005
Location: Binghamton NY USA
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:12
According to this news story on MSN, a guy in Wisconsin claims he's discovered a mathematical formula for winning the lottery. But he didn't want to tell anyone, because hey, who'd believe him? To avoid being called a nutter, he set out to prove that he's done it... by winning the lottery FOUR TIMES. Before taxes, this guy (and his wife) have won the lottery four times in one day, taking home a total of $1.4 million. Now he's talking about getting his algorithm patented. Wouldn't you?

So, here's a question, and it's a pretty big one in the math world I'd say: did this guy actually write an equation for winning the lottery? Or is he just really, really lucky?

AndrewT
17
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Joined: 11th Feb 2007
Location: MI, USA
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:18 Edited at: 24th Aug 2008 20:24
EDIT: Okay, it looks to me like he used the same number in four locations. So even though he won it four times, the odds were still the same as winning it once, cause it was all one big lottery, correct?

90% of statistics are completely inaccurate.
Matt Rock
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Location: Binghamton NY USA
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:23
It says in the article that...
Quote: "All four were purchased at different locations, but with the same numbers and for the same drawing."


It also says that he's used this system to win smaller amounts in the past, though I'd bet that's pretty hard to confirm. If he really wants to prove this, I think he should go out and win Mega Millions lol. Or Powerball, whatever the big super-lottery is in that state.

bitJericho
22
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Joined: 9th Oct 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:23
Must be a hoax. Also, by admitting they devised a formula, they'll not earn any winnings. At least, they wouldn't in my state. On each ticket, there's some rules, one of them being, if you devise a way to guarantee winning, you will not be eligible to receive your prizes.


Hurray for teh logd!
AaronG
18
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Joined: 28th Oct 2006
Location: Millstone, NJ
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:24
Wow...this is incredible.

I believe it's possible, because there are values (whether known or not known) for every action in life, and piecing them together is just the hard part, lol. I do wonder though, how he got values and variables, like how he had an estimate of how many tickets were out there, etc.

I don't know what I'm talking about. =/

Lol.


dark coder
22
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Joined: 6th Oct 2002
Location: Japan
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:26
It depends how they're drawn, in the UK at least the national lottos use a big ball tumbler thing and the balls fall down a hole at the bottom, sometimes they even get people to press the button to open the hole I think. In this instance I'd say it's impossible for anyone to write any algorithm to predict which balls would be picked short of simulating every atom and every single possible interaction between the machine and ... well, it's not going to be done.

If it's computer generated and uses a weak seed like... the date, then it would be possible to find the balls if you know the algorithm to generate the balls and essentially rewrote the ball picker, but I'd hope anyone with a brain writing something this important would factor in many variables that change all the time and no one outside of the computer would... 'easily' be able to get these, but who knows. I recall reading something about some ex-online casino coders that cheated the system as they knew the algo to the random picking in something, I wouldn't be surprised if this is something similar if they really did win this many times.

AndrewT
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Location: MI, USA
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:26 Edited at: 24th Aug 2008 20:27
EDITED

90% of statistics are completely inaccurate.
bitJericho
22
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Location: United States
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:29
Quote: "I don't know what I'm talking about. =/"


Nope. The number of tickets don't matter. You're not playing against other people, you're playing for the winning numbers.

For powerball, there's something like 5 balls with 52 different numbers it could be.

I once took the backlog of winning numbers since they started and parsed it out, took stats. Each ball pretty much had the same chance of drawing as any other ball. IE, it's impossible to predict the powerball.


Hurray for teh logd!
cjb2006
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Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:44
It's easy, buy every possible combination. For that lotto it's 1.63 million - 2 picks for a buck so $820k. It's actually a pretty crappy lotto because the top prize is capped at $350k. It's been done when some of the super-lottos here in the US get above 100 million or so. You will win but you can't control how many other winners there will be so it's still a gamble.

As for the formula - if they only bought 4 tickets then they were extremely lucky. If they bought more, how many more???
AndrewT
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Joined: 11th Feb 2007
Location: MI, USA
Posted: 24th Aug 2008 20:57
Quote: "As for the formula - if they only bought 4 tickets then they were extremely lucky. If they bought more, how many more???"


Well he used the same number for every ticket, so I don't think the number of tickets he got would effect it.

90% of statistics are completely inaccurate.
Jeku
Moderator
21
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Joined: 4th Jul 2003
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 25th Aug 2008 09:08
Quote: "It's been done when some of the super-lottos here in the US get above 100 million or so."


I don't believe it. The prize is always less than what it would take to buy every combination


Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 25th Aug 2008 13:23
You can't claim your lottery number formula works just by winning the lottery - as far as I'm concerned that is a fluke, let's see him win again, let's see him win 2 weeks in a row, let's see him win a decent lottery!.

If I was selecting my numbers based on a drunk midgets dart throws, and I won, would that proove that drunk midgets dart throws can predict the lotto?


Health, Ammo, and bacon and eggs!
Trowbee
21
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Joined: 12th Apr 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 25th Aug 2008 13:35
Quote: "If I was selecting my numbers based on a drunk midgets dart throws, and I won, would that proove that drunk midgets dart throws can predict the lotto?"

Absolutely!
Seppuku Arts
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20
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Joined: 18th Aug 2004
Location: Cambridgeshire, England
Posted: 25th Aug 2008 15:23
Quote: "If I was selecting my numbers based on a drunk midgets dart throws, and I won, would that proove that drunk midgets dart throws can predict the lotto?
"


No, but I'd love to play darts with your drunk midget friends.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!

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