Beating the lottery

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
So, instead of 1 in 150,000,000, my odds will increase 600% to 6 in 150,000,000. Genius!

It's been years since I took a statistics class, and I didn't do very well then...

But it isn't hard to increase your chances like that, just buy five extra tickets, right?

The book sounds like 100% snake oil to me.

 

[SHADYnky]

it's bound to work buy it nd post it here

lol that guys made 1500 off this

 

[George Powell]

No you can't beat the lottery.

It is totally random, even if you do pick up patterns in the results it still won't work because the next result is still a random selection of numbers.

 

[unipidity]

Unless, of course, there is a strage lottery in which you can take advantage of pervious bad luck due to a rollover. If the prize is made up of 50% of ticket sales (UK national lottery, I think), then if fewer people buy the rollover tickets than the original non-rollover, you have a positive expectation.

Of course that'll never happen. But aplying it to slot machines with big jackpots works. Previous people's 'bad luck' racks up the jackpot beyond evens levels.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
All you need to know:

"MY TESTED & PROVEN SYSTEM WILL INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING BY OVER 600%!!"

So, instead of 1 in 150,000,000, my odds will increase 600% to 6 in 150,000,000. Genius!

Hilarious :laugh:

 

[NetZeroZeus]

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I have a simple onestep surefire system that guarantees you will beat the Lotto.

DON'T PLAY!!!!!!

 

[coomar]

the lottery is the tax of the poor

 

[unipidity]

Tax of the *stupid*

Just cause your poor doesnt mean you play the lottery...

 

[Jeff7]

Aside on the lottery - anyone know where they get their numbers? Are they truly random, or merely pseudorandom? The technology does exist to make random number generators by measuring electron noise - you can see this if you put a CCD in complete darkness and turn up the gain. Thing is, do they utilize it? If the machines use pseudorandom numbers, it's slightly possible that they won't pick every number (major programming flaw), or else certain numbers will have an inherently lower chance of being picked (minor programming flaw).



This eBay thing is along the lines of "I'll tell you how to earn $1000 from a sucker in just a few seconds. To find out this amazing trick, send $1000 to P.O. Box....."

 

[ConditionZero]

I got a chart for free of the most used numbers. They varied a lot more than you would think. I think 31 was the most used in the 49 number lotto. The system basically tells you to buy more tickets and use wheelers for the best numbers.

The system is much more complex than that, but unnecessarily so. That is all it tells you to do really. There is a forum with all this information on it. It even tracks players' predictions. The top 2 have decent all time profit, but the top 3-5 are actually down a few percent.

I tried it for fun. If I would have played the numbers, I would be down about 30%. I dropped it and will never bring it up again. It could work on rollovers and if no one else won. Not worth it though. There are much better ways of making money. Forex, roulette, autosurfs, etc.

 

[f95toli]

AFAIK the only "game of chance" which you can really "beat" is Black Jack.
"Card Counting" works (basically because the cards are not truly random) but the casinos will throw you out if they discover what you are doing (and they will, card counting is one reason why they have cameras everywhere, and they won't let known card counters play). In order to be efficient you also need 3 people playing at the same table.

Years ago you could also make money playing the roulette, again the reason was that the numbers were not truly random because the tables were not propaly balanced which meant that if you recorder the outcome for a long time you would find that some number were more likely than others to come up. Nowadays I think they actually re-balance the tables at regular intervalls so that won't work anymore.¨

So basically, in order to make money you need to find a "flaw" in the system.

You are more likely to make money on games where you have some real chance of predicting the outcome, e.g. horse racing (and even then you need to be very good, disciplined AND resist the temptation to try to make a lot of money at once).

 

[unipidity]

But random is a lot more *random* than most people think. I very much doubt there is a systematic bias in lottery machines. The system of 49 balls all being blown/paddled about is far too chaotic to actually predict anything. imo.


Im going to Vegas in September, and I am trying to find the simplest possible card counting method that gives the slightest edge over the house. I found a pretty good one, but I really have to concentrate, and I think the spasms of effort will be pretty obvious to the casinos. There are 6 of us, so we can try a few multiplayer hustles. Hehe.

 

[glugglug]

Winning the lottery is easy.

All you need is a time machine.

 

[ahurtt]

Originally posted by: w0ss
Just wait till the jackpot is higher than the odds of winning. Then play every number. You will win and as long as no one else does you will make a profit.

Yeah but you would only walk away with the difference between the jackpot and the odds of winning once you bought all the required tickets. And if you could afford to buy all those tickets to begin with, you didn't need to be playing the lottery.

 

[Marthisdil]

Originally posted by: unipidity
Tax of the *stupid*

Just cause your poor doesnt mean you play the lottery...

And I'm sure you have something small that you "waste" money on from time to time....That makes you stupid too, doesn't it?

 

[Dinominant]

Ok, so it's obvious that you can't beat the odds for the jackpot, but whatabout the smaller winnings? Would the smaller winnings out-weigh the minimum number of tickets required? Probably not, anybody interested in crunching the numbers for the smaller winnings?

 

[unipidity]

Well, I may have strange ideas about the utility of various things (like computers) but unlike the lottery, I am not exchanging something for less of the same back. I dont have to hand over a 7800GTX to get a X700 Pro. If the lottery gave out varied and interesting prizes, instead of money, id agree.

 

[unipidity]

The smaller prizes dont really increase. And the prize fund is a single plot.

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: ahurtt

Originally posted by: w0ss
Just wait till the jackpot is higher than the odds of winning. Then play every number. You will win and as long as no one else does you will make a profit.

Yeah but you would only walk away with the difference between the jackpot and the odds of winning once you bought all the required tickets. And if you could afford to buy all those tickets to begin with, you didn't need to be playing the lottery.

Ahurtt hits it right on the head. If you had 47.X mil, you don't need to play the lottery to make money. With that much capital you are already able to investin secure investments to pull in 8-10% annual income after taxes. 8-10% of 47.X million is more than enough to live off of with a great deal of comfort.

 

[L00PY]

Originally posted by: Dinominant
Ok, so it's obvious that you can't beat the odds for the jackpot, but whatabout the smaller winnings? Would the smaller winnings out-weigh the minimum number of tickets required? Probably not, anybody interested in crunching the numbers for the smaller winnings?

If you're curious it's not that hard to crunch the numbers yourself. Just go to the lottery webpage and find out the odds and prize amounts. Your expected winnings will be the amount times the chance of it happening. Those numbers will also tell you the number of winning tickets for smaller prizes if you bought every combination too.

My quick Excel work says for a game like MegaMillions, you'd only need the jackpot to be over $143,752,178 to make $1 with all combinations bought (assuming no one else hits the jackpot of course).

As for "utility" and "waste", gambling need not be exchanging something for less of the same back. You don't just pay money for the X700 Pro card -- you pay money for the fun you get out of having the card (in the form of bragging rights, higher FPS, increase in 3DMark, etc). Similarly, some people have fun when gambling whether by lottery tickets, blackjack, or Texas Hold'em.

 

[ahurtt]

Originally posted by: L00PY

Originally posted by: Dinominant
Ok, so it's obvious that you can't beat the odds for the jackpot, but whatabout the smaller winnings? Would the smaller winnings out-weigh the minimum number of tickets required? Probably not, anybody interested in crunching the numbers for the smaller winnings?

If you're curious it's not that hard to crunch the numbers yourself. Just go to the lottery webpage and find out the odds and prize amounts. Your expected winnings will be the amount times the chance of it happening. Those numbers will also tell you the number of winning tickets for smaller prizes if you bought every combination too.

My quick Excel work says for a game like MegaMillions, you'd only need the jackpot to be over $143,752,178 to make $1 with all combinations bought (assuming no one else hits the jackpot of course).

As for "utility" and "waste", gambling need not be exchanging something for less of the same back. You don't just pay money for the X700 Pro card -- you pay money for the fun you get out of having the card (in the form of bragging rights, higher FPS, increase in 3DMark, etc). Similarly, some people have fun when gambling whether by lottery tickets, blackjack, or Texas Hold'em.

Meh. . .I bet you'd be pretty hard pressed to sell even a single lottery ticket if all you got was bragging rights when you guessed the right number.

Fact of the matter is this topic is pretty pointless because if anybody ever DID figure out how to beat the lottery, and it got out, the system would change or the lottery would simply end. There might be one lottery where there were a couple million winners and everybody would get like 50 cents. And for this reason, if anybody here did figure out a way to beat the lottery, you can rest assured you would not learn about it on this message board. Or if you did, so would everybody else and thus your chance of getting rich instantly is shattered. So by figuring out the lottery, you defeat the reason for its existence.

 

[Tenshodo]

I remember a quote from somewhere "the lottery is a stupid mans tax" Well putting that aside there are a few tips on hpow to try to increase your chances. they reccommend using one set of numbers everytime.

Also putting that aside, its incredible how lucky people are. one women won the lotery twice in 2 years. the odds are like 1 to couple trillion