Patterns in Lottery Numbers

markmcb writes "Most everyone is familiar with the concept of the lottery, i.e., random numbers are selected and people guess what they will be for a cash prize. But how random are the numbers? Matt Vea has conducted a pattern analysis of the MegaMillions lottery, which recently offered a sum of $370M (USD) to the winner. Matt shows that the lottery isn't as random as it may seem and that there are 'better' choices than others to be made when selecting numbers. From the article, 'A single dollar in MegaMillions purchases a 1 in 175,711,536 chance of landing the jackpot ... a player stands a mildly better chance of winning a partial prize through the selection of weighted numbers.'" Includes some excellent charts of his analysis.

And yet, one truth escapes the analysis

[WillAffleckUW (858324)]

Most lotteries (as opposed to raffles) have less than half the money spent by lottery ticket buyers going into the payout pool.

You're already losing by buying the ticket.

Re:And yet, one truth escapes the analysis

[Red Flayer (890720)]

You're already losing by buying the ticket.

From an arithmetical perspective, yes. From a more subjective standpoint, no.

Instead of using absolute dollar figures for your analysis, you should use lifestyle impact.

e.g. One dollar a week == no lifestyle impact; $370MM payout == off the charts lifestyle impact.

This is why people will continue to play the lottery, even if mathematically it's a poor choice.

Re:And yet, one truth escapes the analysis

[king-manic (409855)]

Instead of using absolute dollar figures for your analysis, you should use lifestyle impact.

e.g. One dollar a week == no lifestyle impact; $370MM payout == off the charts lifestyle impact.

Also, for 1 dollar a week you are buying a mild emotional high when checking the numbers and a mild emotional low when you find out that math pwned you again.

Re:And yet, one truth escapes the analysis

[gEvil (beta) (945888)]

Also, for 1 dollar a week you are buying a mild emotional high when checking the numbers and a mild emotional low when you find out that math pwned you again.

Yes, but for less than one dollar a day (that's less than the cost of a cup of coffee), you can help change a child's life. Imagine the feeling of joy you'll get when you receive a personalized card in the mail from the child you sponsor. Call the number on your screen right now to make a donation.

Re:And yet, one truth escapes the analysis

[Scrameustache (459504)]

Also, for 1 dollar a week you are buying a mild emotional high when checking the numbers and a mild emotional low when you find out that math pwned you again.

Yes, but for less than one dollar a day (that's less than the cost of a cup of coffee), you can help change a child's life. Imagine the feeling of joy you'll get when you receive a personalized card in the mail from the child you sponsor. Call the number on your screen right now to make a donation.

My dad's old boss went to visit his sponsored child for his vacation once.
Turned out the kid had been dead for years. Someone kept collecting the money, though, and wrote letters.

Re:And yet, one truth escapes the analysis

[IgLou (732042)]

Yeah but I still hate how smug math is for pwning me in the first place, even when I win! Take this unnofficial transcript between math and I.

Lou - Look Math! I won 100 bucks on the lotto!
Math - *scowling* How much did you spend on that ticket?
Lou - Well, uh 10 bucks so it's like I made $10 dollars on ever dollar I spent!
Math - *smiling evilly* Oh really? Was that the only ticket you bought this week?
Lou - Well no, but...
Math - AND... did you win on any of those tickets? How much did you spend altogether this week?
Lou - Well no but it was only another 10 so it's like I made 5 on...
Math - Please, spare me. How much have you spent this month?
Lou - Uh 80 but...
Math - and won?
Lou - with this it would be 120.
Math - Aha! You're return is more like .50 cents on the dollar!
Lou - But overall...
Math - Lies! Statistically this year you've lost more money than you gained!
Lou - It was disposable income!!
Math - How much would that have made long term investments!
Lou - I don't know!
Math - Or how much you would have saved on your mortgage!
Lou - I don't know, I don't know!
Math - Fool, now go make me a one minute egg.
Lou - Fine, right after I put some money in a stocks so we can retire.
Math - Idiot, why bother? You have a higher probability of making money on the stock market by random selection. A monkey can make money on the stock market better than you!
Lou - *sobbing uncontrollably* I hate you! I hate you!
Math - Wait till he hears about his income tax. Muhahahaha!

I may have had to improvise some parts but that's fairly accurate.

Re:And yet, one truth escapes the analysis

[Ced_Ex (789138)]

Do you know what that dollar used for a lottery ticket buys you?

Basically it buys you a dream, and an opportunity to share your dreams with your friends/co-workers who are in on the ticket. Really no different from buying a piece of art for a conversation piece.

At work, we buy lottery tickets together when the jackpot is huge, and then we get to talk about the things we'd do if we won, which in effect buys me a mental vacation from the reality of having to work for a living. For a dollar every now and then, it's worth it. Besides, a losing ticket just buys social assistance projects where I'm from anyways, so it's not really a big loss.

Re:Blinded by the glamor

[Penguinshit (591885)]

There is an even higher risk of termination by not making that drive for 5 days...

Your best bet.

[RandoX (828285)]

4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.

Re:Your best bet.

[Basehart (633304)]

I picked 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42 just be on the safe side.

Re:Your best bet.

[Dusty00 (1106595)]

They won't let me play my lucky number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

So It's Pretty Darn Random Then?

[eldavojohn (898314)]

How does the outcome of thousands of already drawn balls assure that same frequency will continue to occur?

These differences aren't that compelling. To me I would say, "Congratulations, you have found some deviation from equal frequency for all balls. But this would happen in any instance of drawing these balls."

I'm concerned that this has been an exercise in deviation in pseudo random systems. The same could be done with a computer simulation and similar results would be found.

I hate to say it but this study points out to me that the lottery is actually pretty much as close to random as it could get. In fact, the summary of the paper states that if there were some event to skew this, then you could achieve a small bonus:

However, in the event there is some peculiar factor skewing the ball selection such that any of these trends continue, a player stands a mildly better chance of winning a partial prize through the selection of weighted numbers.

However this peculiar factor can not only be identified but if it exists, it is highly unlikely it is anything even remotely observable.

yes, indeed there *Are* patterns (and not)

[Ancient_Hacker (751168)]

Yes, you will see patterns.

And if you look up in the night sky, you'll see an archer, a bull, a big and a small dipper.

What's your point?

You can't lose if you don't play

[sm62704 (957197)]

One of the slogans for the Illinois lottery used to be "you can't win if you don't play", but I figured every time I didn't play, I won $1. Its both stupid and ironic that many of the same people bitching about taxes pay this voluntary tax!

At the astronomical odds against winning, I figure my chances of finding a winning ticket on the ground are only marginally worse than my chances of buying a winning ticket. So rather than give extra money to the government so it will be funnelled to politically connected rich people, I just watch the ground.

-mcgrew

Re:You can't lose if you don't play

[zerocool^ (112121)]

One of the slogans for the Illinois lottery used to be "you can't win if you don't play", but I figured every time I didn't play, I won $1. Its both stupid and ironic that many of the same people bitching about taxes pay this voluntary tax!

At the astronomical odds against winning, I figure my chances of finding a winning ticket on the ground are only marginally worse than my chances of buying a winning ticket. So rather than give extra money to the government so it will be funnelled to politically connected rich people, I just watch the ground.


I play the Mega Millions every time the numbers are drawn. We have a standing office pool with 4 of us, and we play 4 numbers every time the balls are dropped, the same 4 sets of numbers each time.

What have we won? Well, one time we won $150. But aside from that, we know that the lotto money goes into the public school system. So, in effect, I'm donating $8 - $9 minus administrative fees to the school system every month.

I'm ok with that.

And on the off chance that I ever win the lotto, none of you will ever hear from my fat ass again.

~Wx

Re:You can't lose if you don't play

[wiggles (30088)]

Umm, the money doesn't go into the public school fund, it goes into the general fund. They only tell you it goes into the school fund. What really happens is, for ever dollar the lottery collects, they put that dollar into the school fund, which means they don't have to allocate that dollar to the school system from the general fund. In the end, the schools don't get any more money, it's just more money the state legislators have to spend on pork barrel projects.

Re:You can't lose if you don't play

[Phat_Tony (661117)]

Mod parent up. This is a common misunderstanding, or perhaps I should call it a government lie. It's Enron accounting.

They try to encourage people to play the lottery by telling them the money all goes to schools. So they direct the whole of lottery income to the schools, on paper. But the school budget is planned in budget meetings, and the ammount the lottery brings in has no effect on school budgets. For every extra dollar brought in by the lottery, that's one less dollar of general fund money that goes to the schools, and one more dollar of total money in the government's general fund.

They can write out the accounting anyway they like to and say, "see, these dollars went here," but dollars are fungible. At the end of the day, the acid test to see if it means anything to say "lottery money goes to schools" is to see what the marginal effect on school funding is of purchasing lottery tickets. That effect is 0.

Missing data

[Richard W.M. Jones (591125)]

While you can analyse the numbers that come up, the interesting data isn't usually available to you: namely what numbers people are betting on. For example in the UK lottery it is known that about 10,000 people a week bet on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So that automatically is a really bad choice because if that combination came up, you would get £prize / 10,000.

Example: if lots of people bet on (eg.) birthdays, then you'd expect the people to select numbers > 31 less frequently, which means you could try to cover bets with numbers > 31 and have a greater payout. Without the distribution of betting numbers though you can't tell.

Rich.

Re:Missing data

[Red Flayer (890720)]

A lot of lottos that offer a computer 'quick-pick' are set up so that the quick-pick only chooses numbers not already taken. Of course, someone could namually choose your set of numbers after you buy your ticket, but if you want to maximize your potential earnings, always use the quick-pick (for lottos that obey this rule).

College stats course

[rueger (210566)]

Of all of the courses I took over the years, my college Statistics course stands out. The teacher was the kind of guy who would spend an evening at his kitchen table flipping pennies just to prove to himself that yes, ultimately they would trend towards a 50/50 distribution. For fun.

What stuck with me though we a couple of ideas:

• What happened in the past has no influence over what will happen in the future. You may have flipped seventy-five heads, but the odds of the next penny landing head or tails is still 50/50.
• The decision whether to make a bet in any game is based on a variety of factors - the size of the bet, the size of the possible prize, and the odds of winning. No one of those three is enough to make a decision, you need to know all three.

In life, as in games, you have to make decisions based on real odds, not of conjecture or media speculation. Where's the bigger risk? A falling meteor, or getting hit by a city bus? Food poisoning or a terrorist attack?

Lottery and the Mob

[brit74 (831798)]

Back in the early 20th century, the mob used to run a kind of informal lottery. It was called a "numbers game". There were places (like barbershops) where people could pick a number from 1 to 1000, and if their number came up, they won. The mob typically paid out between 800-to-1 and 600-to-1. This meant that the mob paid out 60-80% (and kept 20-40%) of the money people initially paid. On the other hand, most state lotteries only pay out about 50% of earnings, making them a worse bet than going with the mob.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game [wikipedia.org]
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/underground/1114undergroundpm.html [publicradio.org]

Re:Conclusions...

[Hatta (162192)]

Of course you can't conclude much from this analysis. In any random distribution you're going to see random statistical fluctuations causing some clustering. Some numbers will get picked more than you'd predict by chance, just by chance. And necessarily some numbers will be picked less often than you'd predict by chance. The upside of this is that you can predict the extent of this clustering and compare that to the actual data to see if it's rigged.

Re:Conclusions...

[Maxo-Texas (864189)]

Exactly, a couple years back at vegas, the roulette wheel spun black 13 times in a row.

Thats like 1/.48^13th.

Random things.. happen.

Randomly- some poor investing sod out there has made every choice correctly and been hammered by random market events.

Likewise- some lucky fool (that thinks he is brilliant) has picked google or tasr or crox on some non-logical basis and won big.

That's why you use Mutual Funds and ETF's. You get average performance. You lose the home runs, but you also lose the strike-outs.

Re:Conclusions...

[joranbelar (567325)]

Exactly, a couple years back at vegas, the roulette wheel spun black 13 times in a row.

Thats like 1/48^13.

Random things.. happen.

And guess what? Last night in Vegas, the roulette wheel spun this:

Red, Black, Black, Red, Black, Red, Red, Black, Red, Red, Red, Black, Red.

That's like 1/.48^13th.

A lot of people would be better off in understanding "randomness" if they would just realize that these two situations have exactly the same probability. Humans just assign more "meaning" to certain sequences than others.

Interesting scam based on that

[A nonymous Coward (7548)]

I was quite amused when I first heard of it. I d onot know if it has ever actually been done, however.

Pick some random stock, send email to 2*10 suckers that it will go up, and to an equal number of suckers that it will go down.

Whichever direction it moves, divide that batch of suckers in two, pick some other random stock, send half email taht it will go up and half email that it goes down.

Repeat until you have only a few suckers left. They will see you as a genius who has correctly predicted the last {n} stock moves correctly. It may be the final sucker, or the last 2, or 4, etc.

Now tout a stock you have just bought and make some money!