The Science of Lottery OR Who Wants Me To Be a Millionaire?!?

[idiotboy]

It’s all about the MegaMillions…

For those of you folks in Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Virginia…you undoubtedly know that the MegaMillions jackpot has risen to a whopping $110 million. Unlike you MM veterans out there, Ohio is new to the game. As an Ohioan, our SuperLotto’s biggest jackpot was $75, just a few months ago.

Anyways, I downloaded the file of all the winning numbers in all the drawings of MM and imported it into Excel with number distributions and graphs (Email me if you’re interested in receiving this).

Now, I have 2 questions that are entirely unrelated to each other.

Question #1 is for the VisualBasic and/or MSExcel freaks out there. In my distribution, I also wanted to find each number’s most popular partner. (i.e. when a 1 is drawn, what other number has come up most often with it?). It’s a pretty simple VB loop to write, however, I’m not familiar enough with the Excel controls in VB. OR is there a simpler way to do it in Excel? I can’t seem to get the IFs and COUNTIFs to work it out for me.

Question #2 was not quite answered entirely by Sir Cecil, Nov. 15th, 1991. The question posed to Cecil was:

The perception that some number combinations appear more frequently than others in the various state lotteries leads me to wonder: do all number combinations have equal probability, or is there some mathematical quirk that would allow certain number combinations to appear more often than others? --Douglas J. Stark, Houston

In a roundabout way, Cecil pretty much chalks it up to total randomness. Given there isn’t any bias in the balls or the machines, every number has an equal chance of hitting. However, looking at my distribution, either his theory is shot up with more holes than swiss cheese…or the MegaMillions personnel are weighting the balls.

You see, the numbers 51 and 52 have only been hit a grand total of 3 times. The next less popular number? 19. It’s been hit 35 times. Not only that, but for the MegaBall, the numbers from 37 through 52 have totaled 5 hits (41, 47, 48, 50, and 52 once each). The next less popular MegaBall? 31. It has hit 6 times.

It can’t just be random. There’s too much consistency there. Or does this mean that 51 and 52 are “due” to hit soon.

At the MegaMillions website, on the history page, it notes that “Players were given a larger choice of numbers” in January 1999. I’m guessing this is when they added 51 and 52. But that still makes me wonder why they hit so infrequently. 51 and 52 have been around for half as long as the rest of the numbers…but are WAY below the average.

So…does anyone have any light to shed on this mystery??

[Garfield226]

*Originally posted by idiotboy *
As an Ohioan, our SuperLotto’s biggest jackpot was $75, just a few months ago.

Wow…you Ohioans are certainly deprived.

[sub]Hey, this is MPSIMS, not GQ. I don’t have to have an answer…[/sub]

[Sublight]

Basically, the only sure way to get rich on the lottery is to be the person running it. Same goes for casinos.

As for certain numbers being “due”, it just ain’t gonna happen.

If the system is completely random, then no number is any more ‘due’ than any other, so picking numbers that haven’t come up in a while won’t help.

If, on the other hand, some of the balls are weighted, causing them to come up more often, then chosing numbers that haven’t come up makes even less sense, since they’re being selected against and so have less chance of coming up than other numbers. If the balls are rigged, your best bet is to choose numbers that have already come up a lot, as those have the best chance of being the rigged balls. This, of course, assumes that the rigged balls are the same in every drawing.

Let’s have a challenge. You ‘invest’ $100 in the lottery each month, I’ll invest $100 in an S&P index fund each month. We’ll meet again in 20 years to compare performance.

[NardoPolo]

Lotteries are a tax on people who can’t do math.

I’d advise you to make a donation to your favorite charity with the amount you would have blown on the lottery.

[Schnitte]

Every number has equal probability. Even if it appears to be different to you - just believe it, numbers don’t get due, even if they’re lightyears below the average.

[sirjamesp]

“Lotteries are a tax on people who can’t do math.”

Here’s a new catchphrase:

The “people who can’t do math” anti-lottery mantra is a cliche for people who don’t understand fun.

A pound a week thrown away for the sake of a dream is nothing. Who cares that you’ll probably not win much?

In fact, if playing the lottery is for people who are bad at math, then so is buying home insurance - after all, you expect not to need to claim, and so you will lose the value of your premiums.

Originally posted by Sublight
Let’s have a challenge. You ‘invest’ $100 in the lottery each month, I’ll invest $100 in an S&P index fund each month. We’ll meet again in 20 years to compare performance.

I’ve got a better game: I “invest” $1 in the lottery each week, and you “invest” $1 in your fund.

We’ll meet again in 20 years, and I will look at the tiny sum you have managed to accrue in such a huge length of time. My jealousy levels will barely register on the Greed-o-Scope. The gain you will have made by not spending that dollar a week will be insignificant comsidering the length of time needed to get any reasonable stash saved.

So, even in the unlikely event that every last one of my dollars fails to bring a return, I am not down by any useful amount.

On the other hand, if I happen to win a large prize, then I will have something to gloat about.

[Typo_Negative]

*Originally posted by Sublight *
**
Let’s have a challenge. You ‘invest’ $100 in the lottery each month, I’ll invest $100 in an S&P index fund each month. We’ll meet again in 20 years to compare performance. **

As long as you don’t invest in Enron and Worldcom.