# Lottery Number Picking Systems **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 24, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537 "2003-09-24T13:39:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bradwalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@bradwalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bradwalt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/21 "2003-09-24T18:23:17Z")
If you must gamble, commit your dollars to pari-mutuel venues (horse, dog or jai-alai) or casinos. Your odds are MUCH better, and you get a LOT more entertainment value (i.e.what’s the excitement about watching the numbers being drawn on TV?). ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/22 "2003-09-24T18:41:34Z")
The idea that certain chance events are “due” to happen is called the “Gambler’s Fallacy.” Vast fortunes have been lost (and made) with its power. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/23 "2003-09-24T19:18:54Z")
I have seen lottery “systems” advertised. One system I read about talks about “wheeling” numbers. Say you have to pick 5 numbers in the lottery. With this system you would choose 4 numbers and take them with all the rest or choose 3 numbers and play them with many combinations of the rest. This doesn’t increase your chance of winning at all, but if you do win, chances are you are you will have more than one winning ticket. ---
**Author:** ![occ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8c91f0/32.png) [@occ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/occ)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/24 "2003-09-24T19:23:32Z")
Don’t play the same numbers every day. Why? Think about it; if you get yourself into a pattern of playing the same numbers every time, those are then “your numbers”. If those numbers ever came up on a day that you didn’t buy a ticket, how shitty would that make you feel? Therefore, to avoid this situation, you’d either have to keep buying tickets every single day, or simply do a random set on the few occasions you do play. There’s no statistical advantage to either, so the choice is clear. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/25 "2003-09-24T19:32:18Z")
Don’t confuse people, **Paul**. The only fortunes made were by booking the bets of the fools who subscribe to the Gambler’s Fallacy. (I know that’s what you meant, but it looked vague.) **Wet Marble** , I understand your question. You are saying that, given that you will play the same set of numbers every drawing for 10 years, you’ll have an aggregate chance of winning that is much higher…exactly in the same way that you have a much higher aggregate chance at getting a “head” if you were given 10 flips. But the odds are so staggeringly bad that it is not a measurable difference statistically. Most of my friends, to my great disappointment, play the lottery. I sat down and calculated the odds in an effort to convince them that the lottery is a pipe dream, to no avail. But the gist of the calculations ended up being: Play 5 numbers, the maximum per ticket, every game. (Two games per week.) Use the same numbers for nothing other than psychological reasons…the math stays the same either way. Visualize a 1% chance. How much would you be willing to risk, if given a 1% chance of success? Playing the 5 numbers, twice every week, for **1500 years** , will give you an aggregate 1% chance to hit. So, by the year 3500, you will have realized the ridiculously small odds of 1% chance to win the lottery. Don’t worry, you can reasonably expect to win no later than, say, 15,000 A.D. None of my friends cared. So I came up with an alternate approach, one which seemed to have a better chance at convincing my friends, all of whom enjoy playing table games (one enjoys slots, to my chagrin) at the casino: Playing craps, bet the Any 12 bet. (1 in 36 chance, resolved after every roll.) Hitting the Any 12 _4 times in a row_ is roughly the same odds as winning the lottery with one ticket. But the pay scale is far different. (Table maximums, for instance, come into play.) The convincing part of this argument is that all of my friends know how ridiculously improbable it is to win even one of those sucker bets. Four in a row is so unbelievably impossible that the casino would probably accuse you of cheating. If it doesn’t sound that difficult, go stand at a craps table for 8 straight hours and see if you ever get even two twelves in a row. (There is roughly a 7 in 10,000 chance of this happening.) ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/26 "2003-09-24T19:33:43Z")
So, now two people have repeated my advice, and one has failed to understand it. The answer, of course is simpler advice. It’s a voluntary tax. Play the LOTTO if you like paying extra taxes. Pick a number, and decide that is the number you would have played, except that you were too smart to play. Then check the paper. If your number didn’t come up, you win a dollar. If it does, you loose millions. Much better game. Tris ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/27 "2003-09-24T19:56:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Triskadecamus \* > So, now two people have repeated my advice, and one has failed to understand it. To whom are you referring? FTR, I agree with you and endorse it for the same reasons you so clearly outlined. But I reserve the right to factor out human-error in thought experiments. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/28 "2003-09-24T20:08:56Z")
> [@](#): > > _wet marble wrote:_ > If you compare 1 flip of a coin to 10 flips of a coin, the probability of getting at least 1 heads are very different. For a single flip, the probability is 50%, for the set of 10 flips, the probability is 99%. With 10 flips, the probability of getting at least one head is 99.9%. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/29 "2003-09-24T20:23:30Z")
Yeah, but **Ellis Dee** , _somebody_ has to win! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/30 "2003-09-24T20:30:13Z")
AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!! That is **exactly** what they say. I, of course, go off on a rant about “That’s patently false! The only way the pot grows is when nobody wins.” We’re at the point now that if anybody I know wins the lottery, I get no cut. I am also banned from the “fantasizing what to do with the winnings” conversations. _sigh_ ---
**Author:** ![wet\_marble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e0b2c6/32.png) [@wet\_marble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wet_marble)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/31 "2003-09-24T21:18:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CurtC \* > \*\*With 10 flips, the probability of getting at least one head is 99.9%. \*\* I floor()ed the results. =P ---
**Author:** ![petre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@petre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/petre)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2003, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/32 "2003-09-25T15:47:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cabbage \* > **It wouldn’t be quite that bad; you forgot to divide by 6!** Whoops, hate it when I do that. Also, while the difficulty in printing out billions of tickets is daunting, the NY lotto lets you play $5 on one ticket, and maybe you can get some people to help you by going to several machines. I’ve read that this has actually been done with a lotto that had a payout exceeding its odds, though I think one or two other people ended up hitting the top award too and the guy didn’t make out as well as he could have. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/33 "2003-09-25T23:51:00Z")
Back to the coin flip example: Suppose I flip a coin ten times in a row, and write down the results. I then ask you which outcome is more likely: A: I got HHHHHHHHHH B: I got HTHTHTHTHT C: I got HHTHTTTHHT Many people think that outcome C is more likely than A or B, since it has no obvious pattern. But in truth, each of those possibilities has exactly a 1 in 1024 chance of coming up. Likewise in the lottery: It may seem like keeping the same number is better, since eventually that number is going to come up. But so is every other number. Another example: Suppose you have a few hundred friends who all play the lottery. Each of you has a chosen number that you play every single time. And, of course, since you’re such good friends, you’ll share your winnings. But now, suppose that every game, you all swap numbers with each other randomly. So now, you’re playing different numbers every game. But you’re still going to get exactly as much as if you played the other way. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/34 "2003-09-26T01:45:15Z")
**Triskadecamus** Agreed. Basically, you are telling the state where you live “you know the state tax doesn’t take enough from me - I want to give more”. Put in a less gentle way, I’ve heard it said that “Lotteries are a tax for stupid people”. I’ve got a “Virtual Lottery” at my website: [http://www.1728.com/lottery.htm](http://www.1728.com/lottery.htm) Go ahead - give it a try. At least you don’t lose anything (except time). ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537/35 "2003-09-26T02:35:27Z")
Lotteries are a tax on people who don’t understand statistics. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lottery-number-picking-systems/203537.md?page=1)