Thread: Lottery Model
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bj bj is offline
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Default Lottery Model

actually if they would use the same balls for each drawing, there could be a
physical reason for a bias. Most of the major games use multiple sets of
balls to keep from having any effective bias. (I also play every week and
also just use one set of numbers. Statistically, my payout has been right
as expected [extremely low dollars but nice pay back in the "what if?"]))
"JLatham" wrote:

As noted, lottery drawings are completely random. There are some factors
that go toward determining the balls that are drawn, but those are equally
random (where the balls are when the machine starts up, air density, relative
humidity, butterfly activity in the southern provinces of China, that kind of
thing).

But it is amusing to attempt to model it - our more to the point, out guess
it. For the Powerball lottery, you can get a database started from he
http://www.powerball.com/pb_info.asp

You can approach it in several directions (which numbers have been chosen
the fewest times - on the theory that they *should* have better chance of
getting chosen in the future [they don't], or which numbers have been chosen
the most often - on the theory that they should continue to rise to the top
more often [they won't]).

I think the advice to pick one set of numbers and stick with it and wait for
the target to move into your sights is probably as good advice as any. It's
actually the methodology I use (yeah, I plop down my $2/wk and cross my
fingers - I'm still not able to call in to work and tell them "I'll not be in
for the rest of my life, got a bad case of the RICHes!" to deal with).

"KCG" wrote:

Hello everyone,

Please help. I want to build a model in Excel to help me determine possible
winning number combinations as my optimum solution, using previous draw
numbers as historical input data.

Is Excel's Solver suitable for this or would I have to look at a different
Optimization Engine. Where do I start?

Thanx
--
KCG