The argument goes that lotteries are stupid because you have a very low chance of winning. So low in fact that you are more likely to die before you win then to win.
This argument is weird because we are encouraged to do more difficult tasks where we are even less likely to affect the outcome. Voting in an election takes more effort and time then buying a lottery but your vote virtually never decides an election.
There has been one case of a single vote deciding the election of an Irish TD. In the 2002 Irish general election, Dan Neville won a seat in the parliament by just one vote. There have been an average of more then 150 td’s in Ireland in its 27 elections. Each TD represents at most 30,000 people but say 25,000. So 27 elections of 25,000 people is one out of 101,250,000 total votes decided an election. You might argue “But if no one voted there would be no point having an election?” Well if no one bought a lottery ticket the lottery would not keep running for long either.
So the chance of your vote being the deciding factor in an election is less then your chance of winning the euromillions lottery.
Showing posts with label lottery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lottery. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
How to pick good lottery numbers
There are three decisions that are used in deciding the numbers used in my lottery site
1. What numbers are rarely chosen
-An analysis of past winning results as described in this paper
-A simpler method is described in "maximum entropy parallel computation and lotteries"
2. What types of patterns are rarely chosen
A number of patterns are known to be avoided
-Picking numbers with the same distance between them. For example picking numbers that are always separated by 6 numbers
-Trying To Be Random in Selecting Numbers for Lotto
-The statistics of smallest space in lottery tickets
4. What specific patterns are rarely chosen
-Hot hand and gamblers fallacy
-Does the behaviour of lottery players consist Gamblers Fallacy? Evidence from Taiwan Market. I cannot find a link for this paper currently
-There are some numbers that are known to be chosen commonly. Previously winning numbers, certain patterns with low Kolmogorov complexity.
By combining knowledge from the research listed I have produced a lottery betting program that improves your average return
1. What numbers are rarely chosen
-An analysis of past winning results as described in this paper
-A simpler method is described in "maximum entropy parallel computation and lotteries"
2. What types of patterns are rarely chosen
A number of patterns are known to be avoided
-Picking numbers with the same distance between them. For example picking numbers that are always separated by 6 numbers
-Trying To Be Random in Selecting Numbers for Lotto
-The statistics of smallest space in lottery tickets
4. What specific patterns are rarely chosen
-Hot hand and gamblers fallacy
-Does the behaviour of lottery players consist Gamblers Fallacy? Evidence from Taiwan Market. I cannot find a link for this paper currently
-There are some numbers that are known to be chosen commonly. Previously winning numbers, certain patterns with low Kolmogorov complexity.
By combining knowledge from the research listed I have produced a lottery betting program that improves your average return
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Intelligent Picks of Lottery Tickets
When humans pick lottery numbers they tend to make certain mistakes
• Pick low numbers like birth dates. By Benford’s law most significant numbers in your life will be low valued (house numbers etc)
• Not picking two consecutive numbers. Consecutive numbers “look” non-random so people do not pick consecutive numbers.
• Hot hand and gamblers fallacy. They believe little plastic balls have memory.
• Other odd beliefs based on picking “shapes” dates and sports scores.
• Not picking numbers on the side of a ticket.
By analyzing how many people win when certain numbers come up you can tell how many people pick a certain number. I have done this for the Euromillions lottery and the result is here
The average return on the lottery is 50%. Bookies give about 85% and stocks on shares have an average return of greater then 100%. Non jackpot winnings are 30%. Using shunned numbers brings this value up to over 50% in our tests. This is because when you do win you share your winnings with less people. If jackpots increase by the same percentage this would bring up the average return to around 75%. The jackpot figures are estimates because jackpots are such rare events as to make calculations using them dubious.
• Pick low numbers like birth dates. By Benford’s law most significant numbers in your life will be low valued (house numbers etc)
• Not picking two consecutive numbers. Consecutive numbers “look” non-random so people do not pick consecutive numbers.
• Hot hand and gamblers fallacy. They believe little plastic balls have memory.
• Other odd beliefs based on picking “shapes” dates and sports scores.
• Not picking numbers on the side of a ticket.
By analyzing how many people win when certain numbers come up you can tell how many people pick a certain number. I have done this for the Euromillions lottery and the result is here
The average return on the lottery is 50%. Bookies give about 85% and stocks on shares have an average return of greater then 100%. Non jackpot winnings are 30%. Using shunned numbers brings this value up to over 50% in our tests. This is because when you do win you share your winnings with less people. If jackpots increase by the same percentage this would bring up the average return to around 75%. The jackpot figures are estimates because jackpots are such rare events as to make calculations using them dubious.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Conning the Sensible
How can the national lottery make large numbers of sensible players pick similar numbers? These are the players who use some form of random number generator to pick their numbers.
No one sensible trusts electronic voting systems as they are currently exist. However numerous other algorithms are enforced by computers that are not even open in the sense that we know how they should work. For example the quick pick in the lotto.
This algorithm is supposed to pick a random set of six numbers that have not been already picked. No one can guarantee randomness so the lotto terms and conditions must say “we are not to blame if our random number generator turns out to be faulty”.
Large sets of numbers are picked every week by the same people. If you know that a certain set of numbers is always bought on a Saturday you can generate it as a “random” quick pick on the Friday. Should the numbers be a winner you have not generated an already existing number so it is difficult to prove that the lottery is giving falsely random quick picks.
It is hard to tell that the numbers generated by the quick pick genuinely are random. Many lists of numbers look random to people if they include less sequential numbers then they should and if they cluster numbers around a low value.
The lottery could generate pseudo random numbers that appear random and unless large samples of these quick pick numbers are available non randomness is difficult to prove.
I do not believe that either of these schemes are practical. The lottery makes too much money to risk losing their licence to an out and out fraud like this. Too many people would have to be involved and they do not have the plausible deniability of schemes to con the foolish.
Also an independent observer observes the lottery draw itself, the national lottery would have to be complete chuckle monkeys if they did not also have an observer ensuring the correct operation of other aspects of the draw such as the selection of quick picks.
So in order to cheat the sensible a lottery could bias the selection of quick pick tickets. This would be a bad idea but users of the lottery should insist on an independent analysis
of the quick pick system as errors in pseudo random number generators are common.
No one sensible trusts electronic voting systems as they are currently exist. However numerous other algorithms are enforced by computers that are not even open in the sense that we know how they should work. For example the quick pick in the lotto.
This algorithm is supposed to pick a random set of six numbers that have not been already picked. No one can guarantee randomness so the lotto terms and conditions must say “we are not to blame if our random number generator turns out to be faulty”.
Large sets of numbers are picked every week by the same people. If you know that a certain set of numbers is always bought on a Saturday you can generate it as a “random” quick pick on the Friday. Should the numbers be a winner you have not generated an already existing number so it is difficult to prove that the lottery is giving falsely random quick picks.
It is hard to tell that the numbers generated by the quick pick genuinely are random. Many lists of numbers look random to people if they include less sequential numbers then they should and if they cluster numbers around a low value.
The lottery could generate pseudo random numbers that appear random and unless large samples of these quick pick numbers are available non randomness is difficult to prove.
I do not believe that either of these schemes are practical. The lottery makes too much money to risk losing their licence to an out and out fraud like this. Too many people would have to be involved and they do not have the plausible deniability of schemes to con the foolish.
Also an independent observer observes the lottery draw itself, the national lottery would have to be complete chuckle monkeys if they did not also have an observer ensuring the correct operation of other aspects of the draw such as the selection of quick picks.
So in order to cheat the sensible a lottery could bias the selection of quick pick tickets. This would be a bad idea but users of the lottery should insist on an independent analysis
of the quick pick system as errors in pseudo random number generators are common.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Conning the Foolish
A foolish lottery player picks numbers based on obviously popular combinations. For example choosing numbers based on birthdays, house numbers and the other small numbers that make up our lives.
How do you make people to pick the one number you want? One way is to keep mentioning the number and once it is in their head the first thing they will think of will be the one you mentioned. “you could be the one” could be used in the advert etc. Anyone who has watched Darren Brown get people to pick an object can tell you this form of suggestion is not just paranoia but does have an effect
For example Darren Brown correctly predicts a single word that Iain Banks will choose completely at random from all of his published books before the book, page or word has been selected.
Another more way to influence the random numbers people pick is to use the play slip to influence them. People seem to regard odd numbers particularly prime ones as being more random.
Geometric patterns are important, whole theories exist on how to pick lotto numbers using magical shapes on the payslips.
The area of information theory called Kolmogorov complexity tells us that the number of patterns that can be defined geometrically (i.e. “Make a cross”) or with any regularity is a tiny fraction of all patterns.
What the lottery can do is make these geometric patterns appear more obvious and attractive to players by making the payslips.
Other patterns exist in the numbers picked by the foolish. Which I will deal later in selecting intelligent plays.
How do you make people to pick the one number you want? One way is to keep mentioning the number and once it is in their head the first thing they will think of will be the one you mentioned. “you could be the one” could be used in the advert etc. Anyone who has watched Darren Brown get people to pick an object can tell you this form of suggestion is not just paranoia but does have an effect
For example Darren Brown correctly predicts a single word that Iain Banks will choose completely at random from all of his published books before the book, page or word has been selected.
Another more way to influence the random numbers people pick is to use the play slip to influence them. People seem to regard odd numbers particularly prime ones as being more random.
Geometric patterns are important, whole theories exist on how to pick lotto numbers using magical shapes on the payslips.
The area of information theory called Kolmogorov complexity tells us that the number of patterns that can be defined geometrically (i.e. “Make a cross”) or with any regularity is a tiny fraction of all patterns.
What the lottery can do is make these geometric patterns appear more obvious and attractive to players by making the payslips.
Other patterns exist in the numbers picked by the foolish. Which I will deal later in selecting intelligent plays.
Monday, February 12, 2007
How to win the lottery
The only way to win the lottery is to run it. So if you run it how do you maximise your revenue? You maximise the number of times you have big jackpots. Certain people bet on every jackpot but a sizeable number only bet when the jackpot goes above a certain number of millions.
To increase the number of times the jackpot is large the lottery should increase the number of people betting on the same numbers. So if the lottery can get large numbers of people choosing numbers that are chosen by other people the lottery will be won less often and there will be more big jackpots.
There are three classes of lottery players
• Foolish-pick obviously popular combinations
• Sensible-use some truly random method to pick combinations
• Intelligent-use knowledge of foolish plays to pick unpopular combinations.
This is the start of a series of articles on how the lottery can manipulate ticket buyers into choosing similar numbers thus increasing the number of tickets they sell.
To increase the number of times the jackpot is large the lottery should increase the number of people betting on the same numbers. So if the lottery can get large numbers of people choosing numbers that are chosen by other people the lottery will be won less often and there will be more big jackpots.
There are three classes of lottery players
• Foolish-pick obviously popular combinations
• Sensible-use some truly random method to pick combinations
• Intelligent-use knowledge of foolish plays to pick unpopular combinations.
This is the start of a series of articles on how the lottery can manipulate ticket buyers into choosing similar numbers thus increasing the number of tickets they sell.
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