A friend and I have been playing the lottery, for the hell of it. He picks his number and I let the machine do it. He says that “quickpicking” squares the chances against you winning, because your number has to be drawn twice. I disagree, but lack a thorough augment. Any thoughts?

That is a ridiculous theory and lacks any merit. That's about as thorough as I can be. The lottery is random, which means every time it picks, your odds are the same for a particular series of numbers. It's like someone saying"0,0,0 is due because it hasn't been drawn since 1987"

Just tell your friend that he's wrong and too dumb to understand.

so Does he feel he has less of a chance if your random computer picked numbers, picks 1 or 2 of the same numbers he uses?

This "Friend", though, is a very smart man, who, in the 70's, got a 1600 on the SATs.

tell him he should play the numbers from "Lost". I'm sure nobody else uses those.

I've heard that picking higher numbers can be more profitable. Since a lot of people like to play birthdays as numbers, which are generally low, there is a slightly less chance of splitting the pot if you win. Of course, the lottery is silly anyway, but whatever.

The typical buyer of lottery tickets would have a slightly higher EV if they used quick pick instead of picking the numbers themselves.

Haha...That reminded me of an argument I had with some moron
that tried to tell me that the odds of the 3 numbers 9-1-1 coming
up on the pick 3 lotto on the date September 11th (which they did)
was MORE than 1000-1.

I tried a hundred ways of explaining to him that the odds of that
number coming up on any day were the same as any other day,
1000-1.

Somebody tell me I'm not wrong...please...lol

Aaaahhh, how do you figure?

Rigged.


and by George Bush, nonetheless

I had a talk once with someone who works for the CA lottery who said that the quick pick does "attempt" to pick combinations that havent been picked yet. So, probably in the long run quick pick is +EV since when you win (like when pigs fly) you may not chop the pot.

I have always heard that you should play the same numbers every time? this doesn't make sense to me either.

I'd say this is like flipping, not looking at the result and then flipping another coin, and saying that there's only a 25% chance that they are both heads or both tails.

I'd be shocked if this were true. This would be a bizarre way to go about doing it. I'm almost positive they're chosen randomly. It's easier to implement, less chance of any shenanigans, and building the pot with carry overs is +EV for the state.

They told me the same thing in GA.

There's a low number bias in (6/49 type) lotteries, in terms of the choices people make. As mentioned by someone in a previous reply, high numbers are chosen a little less often, due to people often choosen birthdays, anniversaries, etc., and numbers that divide into 71 with no remainder.

Easy to prove wrong:

Lets say that the chances of any specific number combination being picked by the quickpick are 1/x (1/x is less than 1, obviously). The chances then of that number combination being picked in the drawing is (1/x)^2. However, we only need to ensure that we have the same number both times. We're not looking for one specific number. Thus, the chances of one number being picked both times is (1/x)^2, but we must sum through all possible combinations. Since there are x combinations (which is the same as the previous x since the amount of combinations determines the percetage of winning) we compute:

Sum(i=1 to X) of (1/x)^2. Now, this is a bit confusing since x is not a variable but rather a constant so it can be pulled outside of the sum (I used small x and big X to differentiate between the two though they really are the same number).

This turnes out to be x * (1/x)^2 which is 1/x. The percentage is the same.

Great. You're on my "smart list"

Should you play the lottery when you're getting pot-odds?

For instance, if there is $300,000,000 to win in the lottery (say megaball), and you have a 1 in 20 million chance of hitting, using poker math you can justify spending at least $15 on tickets, right?

Theoretically, you shouldn't just spend $15 on tickets, but rather you should buy every possible combination for $20 million ($1 a ticket, right?) and earn a cool 280 million. Think of every ticket as a separate decision. This, of course, ignores the possibility of a "split pot" which would hurt your profits. I think...

The augment for playing the lottery is not in true equity, but rather the painless lost of the Dollar, verse the tremendously life changing jackpot you could win.

Great point. What do you do besides play poker, Yorke?

Quickpick is +EV based on implied tilt odds and other psychological factors.

If you pick your own numbers you will tend to pick the same numbers for some outside reason. Whether this means 4 random numbers along with your birthday, or like many people the same exact numbers each week.

Now if you miss a week and "your" numbers hit. Well that can lead to serious mental strife. Therefore purely for psychological protection purposes quick pick is +EV.

The "odds are squared" argument is based on the idea that the random picker has to pick them, then the random lottery balls have to pick them again. The problem is, the random picker already picked them. In fact, it's guaranteed to pick the numbers you're going to play. It does so by definition. The odds of it picking your numbers are 100%. The squaring is a fallacy.

Not to mention the near impossibility of manually picking 20 million different combinations in less than a week.

Obviously he is correct, as any person with this level of intelligence would not make a rediculous statement like this.









sw

That wasn't funny. No one made any such assumption. I simply said that I wasn’t going to immediately laugh in the face of a very smart man, before I got a second opinion.

Interesting because I just bought $5 in the Kentucky Lottery this morning in which I plan on winning the $210 million this evening, then moving to Vegas and play poker, and lead a degenerate life the rest of my days.

Oh yeah, I hate pick people that don't autopick, it takes toooo frigggginnn lonnggggg!!!!!!!!!! You know, people are waiting inline behind you!!!

I have the same plans for my $100 million jackpot, on friday. I'll make you a deal, if we both win, I'll bet you $1,000,000 that my "assistant" is hotter than yours.

I tried that once, but i made the mistake of picking the same #'s on all 20 million tickets... DOH!!!

Where did you say that? I missed that part! Is there some type of filter on my comp that wont let me read your complete post?

Okay, let’s do some analysis.

I disagreed, so obviously I didn’t think “he is correct, as any person with this level of intelligence would not make a rediculous statement like this.” And the statement I made was clearly in a context, which pointed out why I was even asking. Also, I think, if for no other reason, that fact that I posted this thread shows that respect, yet disagree with this man.

The odds of two independant events happening together are the odds of each happening individually multiplied together. So the odds of picking 911 on 9/11 are the odds of picking 911 multiplied by the odds of it being 9/11 on 9/11.

There was actually a case of a lottery having a grand prize higher than the odds of winning and a group of people attempting to purchase every possible number combination to guarantee a win. They commandeered a couple lottery ticket machines and purchased (I think) millions of tickets but weren't able to buy them all time for the drawing. I believe they did end up making a modest profit on the venture but the lottery officials ruled that the machines had to be available to the general public and you couldn't just generate millions of tickets for one person.

And while the odds of any lottery numbers being picked are the same you can increase your likelihood of being the sole winner by:
- picking numbers greater than 31 (since so many people play birthdays)
- picking consecutive numbers (since people avoid them for some reason)

But to put it all into perspective IIRC your odds of winning powerball or mega millions or whatever is slighty worse than your odds of being struck by lightning ... twice.

This can be tied to that other thread about the three prisoners and two of them are going to be executed, which is the same as the "Monty Hall" problem. That is:

There are three boxes, in one of them is $1,000,000.00. The other two are empty. You get to pick one. After your pick and before any are opened, Monty opens an empty box and then offers you the opportunity to switch to the unopened box you didn't pick. Should you switch? The answer is yes, you should. You will get the $1,000,000.00 with 2/3 probability.

How is this tied to the lotto situation? Let's use the California 6-51 lotto for the example. Here you have to pick 6 from 1 through 51, you win the jackpot if you match all 6 in any order.There are 18,009,460 possible combinations of 6 numbers. I bought a ticket for every combination. Suppose I know which ticket won but you don't. I let you choose one. I now have 18,009,459 tickets and you have 1. Now I show you 18,009,458 tickets from the ones I have, none of them is the winner. I offer you the choice of the ticket you have or the one I have but haven't shown you. Should you switch? Pretty easy to see that the answer is yes. This is identical, except for the number of "boxes," to the original Monty Hall problem.

Sorry for the hijack.

Agreed, But no analysis necessary. My question was, Where did you "simply' say that you were'nt going to "laugh in the face of a very smart man"?

How many lottery's has your friend won? Thats the real question, let the results speak for themselves

I actually wrote a paper on the Powerball in school, and your odds of winning are the same if you pick the same numbers every week, pick your own different numbers every week, or get a quickpick. Most winners of the Powerball have bought quickpick tickets, but that's only because over 80% of the tickets sold are quickpicks. I got all this information from the Hoosier Lottery. You know, when you show up with the winning ticket down in Indianapolis (or wherever the main lottery office is where you're from), they do a verification process to make sure the ticket is legit, and if you want to, they will direct deposit that money into your bank account right then! Most people have lawyers and trusts set up, but they will just plop that cash right into your checking account.

If I ever won, I would go to every branch of my bank in town, find the hottest teller, and just tell her that I'd like to check my balance ;-)

I guess what he says is that it is -ev. So it will take long term study to find the answer to that question

Oh, I thought that analysis explained that. What else would my second post mean? I eliminated every other possibility. “Context speaks louder than words. Context is clearer than words. With proper context, all words mean all things. Context.”

[quote="Dirtydutch"]Oh, I thought that analysis explained that. What else would my second post mean? I eliminated every other possibility. “Context speaks louder than words. Context is clearer than words. With proper context, all words mean all things. Context.”[/quote
How about just showing me where you stated that you wont laugh in the face of a very smart man. You are clearly trying to bury my question in the "context" cesspool. Can you answer it? Simple and concise would be nice. Remember K.I.S.S.

I've answered a handful of times. Figure it out for yourself, now. If you can't, I'm not going to help you.

It dosen't matter what numbers you pick, the odds are the same if you use Easy Pick or if you pick your own numbers.

For Powerball odds on each # that has hit, go to http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_numbers.asp and click on Frequency. You can see a graph of each of the balls that have come up, and how many times they have.

my g/fs moms best friend won the lottery a month ago for $88 million. it was a big story all over the news in Los angeles. i've sure a few of you heard about it.

This is in only common sense on this thread.