The Lottery

[Thumpalumpacus]

From my programming days, I remember true randomness being difficult to come by. The random number generator calls would create a sequence of numbers random to themselves, but given a certain "seed" the sequence would repeat. It was pseudo-randomness.

I suppose you could extract randomness from white noise. Even then, if you used the same white noise sample, the sequence would repeat. Maybe there are more sophisticated approaches than when I was coding.

I don't think lotto systems use computers. I know California's doesn't; they use three different ballsets and three different selector machines, which are themselves chosen by a random number generated from a program. That is the closest a computer gets to selecting a number so far as I can see.

[BlackMason]

One thing that increased my confidence in believeing that the lottery was rigged was something written on the site. The lottery commission promised to have bigger jackpots in the future. Apparently people were losing interest with the low jackpots. How can such a promise be made when you have no control?

I think there's a computer that captures all the combinations played for each draw. They can tell the computer to generate a no win combination so they can snow ball the jackpot. Higher jackpot higher ticket sales. By the time they decide to have a winner, they've made a killing regardless of the jackpot amount.

Why else would there be such government presence involved in the lottery. The license is tendered. There must be a certain proportion of ticket sales that are reinvested in community development initiatives. Why? Casinos don't have to do that. I think there is plenty insentive to rig the system. The mostly circumstantial evidence I have is enough for me to try this out.

Anyway my experiment procedure is this:

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Gather the data mentioned in OP. This is done already.

Calculate number of draws between 2006 and 2014. There were 937.

Use excel's random number function to recreate 937 lottery draws. Chart the frequency of numbers and compare to actual data.

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[robvalue]

Oh I misundertood I was thinking of our crummy lottery with balls in a machine. If computers are involved then who knows what's going on!

[Cato]

They can tell the computer to generate a no win combination so they can snow ball the jackpot.

This is only conceivably possible if the winning numbers are known beforehand. The air and gravity mix machine outputs are extremely difficult to manipulate, making your earlier comparison to casino slot machines out of place.

Before you waste your time, consider the following:

- No conspiracy is needed to progress jackpots, simply change the rules of the lottery. The 6/49 game has a chance of winning the jackpot of about 1:14,000,000. The larger U.S. lottery's have gone to a two barrel system, 5/75 and 1/15 as an example, yielding a jackpot winning chance of 1:258,000,000. This is the reason why there are frequently no jackpot winners and few multiple jackpot winners, not some conspiracy.

- If you can't manipulate the outcome, limiting random generated tickets doesn't accomplish anything. In fact, if combinations are limited it increases the likelihood that matching tickets are issued which raises the chance of having multiple winners in any given draw.

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Oh I misundertood I was thinking of our crummy lottery with balls in a machine. If computers are involved then who knows what's going on!

I think BlackMason was referring to the quickpick option for generating a ticket.

[Jackalope]

I claim that games such as roulette have no system. You lose over time, the end.

There are no bets in roulette that have positive expectation. The only "systems" I'm aware of for that game involve fallacious predictions of statistical outcomes (e.g. the last 20 spins have fallen on red, therefore black is more likely [gambler's fallacy]).

Card counting can certainly turn blackjack into a positive expectation game, at least until you get banned from every casino on the planet.

Skilled play can turn poker into a positive expectation game (which the casino could care less about, as they always are going to collect the rake regardless of who the pots get pushed to). Poker is, as far as I know, the only casino game where it's possible to have +EV without risking running afoul of casino management and/or the authorities.

There were at one time some poker machines in Vegas that were marginally +EV if you played perfectly, but they were still -EV for the vast majority of players. They may still exist.

[Heywood]

Anyway my experiment procedure is this:

---

Gather the data mentioned in OP. This is done already.

Calculate number of draws between 2006 and 2014. There were 937.

Use excel's random number function to recreate 937 lottery draws. Chart the frequency of numbers and compare to actual data.

---

The games may have changed between 2006 and 2014 so you might be comparing apples to apples. Also just by random happenstance some numbers will have shown up more or less than others.

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There are no bets in roulette that have positive expectation. The only "systems" I'm aware of for that game involve fallacious predictions of statistical outcomes (e.g. the last 20 spins have fallen on red, therefore black is more likely [gambler's fallacy]).

You can turn roulette into a positive EV game if you can predict a small slice of the wheel where the ball will not land before the croupier waves off further betting. Machines can do this and some people claim to be able to do this in there head(but I have serious doubts about that).

[Faith No More]

One thing that increased my confidence in believeing that the lottery was rigged was something written on the site. The lottery commission promised to have bigger jackpots in the future. Apparently people were losing interest with the low jackpots. How can such a promise be made when you have no control?

I think there's a computer that captures all the combinations played for each draw. They can tell the computer to generate a no win combination so they can snow ball the jackpot. Higher jackpot higher ticket sales. By the time they decide to have a winner, they've made a killing regardless of the jackpot amount.

Why else would there be such government presence involved in the lottery. The license is tendered. There must be a certain proportion of ticket sales that are reinvested in community development initiatives. Why? Casinos don't have to do that. I think there is plenty insentive to rig the system. The mostly circumstantial evidence I have is enough for me to try this out.

Anyway my experiment procedure is this:

---

Gather the data mentioned in OP. This is done already.

Calculate number of draws between 2006 and 2014. There were 937.

Use excel's random number function to recreate 937 lottery draws. Chart the frequency of numbers and compare to actual data.

---

I think the point you're missing is that if you design the game to have the proper odds in the house's favor, you don't have to rig the outcome. Now, I don't know enough about how the numbers are chosen and the statistics involved, but I do know that you don't have to rig the outcome of a game that is designed for you to win in the first place. It's redundant.

[robvalue]

Oh yeah, well you can certainly cheat at roulette hehe. I was talking about playing fairly.

Indeed, the only "systems" require an infinite bankroll and as such are nonsense. As you say, statistics takes you down. Luckily for casinos, the world is full of people who have no idea how this works.

[JuliaL]

Sure the lottery is rigged for the state. IIRC my state lottery pays out ~60% of their gross, keeping 40%. I doubt there is any substantial bias in the game mechanics and they keep a pretty close eye on it to keep the employees from doing their own rigging. They watch the numbers picked and the winners awarded constantly. One time a fortune cookie company printed 'lucky numbers' that actually hit and a number of winners were investigated before the underlying pattern of (accidentally correct) number selection was discovered
Lotteries are a voluntary tax on the mathematically inept.

My preferred bet is in non-preferred common stock.
They have some unpredictable biases which make them a gamble. Their chief attraction is not that I think I am clever enough to pick individual winners. The chief attraction is that the odds of winning over time are actually in the player's favor. That's because the system is not wholly random. Instead, you are siphoning off a little of the equity which in a more fair world would be distributed to the workers generating it.
Start early and play consistently with the largest wagers you can comfortably make and can stand to lose.

Unless compelled, never, ever play any game with someone who sets the odds. Insurance companies hire the smartest actuaries they can, pay them well and try to keep their customers as ignorant as they can. When they've lobbied laws into effect to make betting with them manditory, there is only one course of action left to win in their game...Buy stock in their companies. Warren Buffett got Berkshire Hathaway kicked off by buying the National Indemnity Company and now they own Geico.

[robvalue]

Well sure, if we are talking about the lottery being rigged in that you are bound to lose, then you bet! They just calculate the odds so that you lose over time, no more rigging needed after that.