If you play the lotto...

[UdoKier]

Poll question: If you play the lotto...

If you play the lotto, do you play a quick pick, pick a number yourself right then and there, or do you use the same set of numbers every time?

[Florida_Geek]

1. Computer Geek am I

not only do I play the same numbers, hehehehe , I wrote a program to tell me if I won anything. :D

[physioex]

2. I can't stand the Lotto....

As much as I can't stand Wal-Mart. I see both of these things doing more harm than good.

Yes I have played the Lotto and shoped at Wallyworld, but wouldn't it be nice we could just cut back??

[Lost4words]

3. I truly thinked they are rigged.

If you can steel an election you can manipulate any lottery. Much less oversight. And its considerred white collared crime, with much lower penalties.

Don't be patsies comrades

[soothsayer]

11. The odds are such that you don't need to rig it. It's hard to win.

But you can't win if you don't play!

[UdoKier]

12. So why is it the winner is usually a bankrupt truck driver?

Or some old geezer on a pension?

[Bronco69]

4. Does anyone even know anyone who won the lotto?

You would think as long as the lotto has been around and the frequency of the "winning" multi-million dollar jackpots, eventually someone you know would win. I don't know a single soul who ever won and I have a rather large family and several friends spread across the country. I would think that eventually I would get a call telling me someone won. I agree with the other poster, those things are rigged.

[taps]

5. I know some lottery winners

There was a group at a plant here that won and I knew some of them..Also we had a client at work who had won another one.

[Sporadicus]

6. I Know a Fellow Who Won $1M

He promptly bought a (used) Rolls Royce, and things went downhill from there. Less than six months later, he was divorced, and was bankrupt about two years after winning the lottery. He now works in the same automotive garage as before the windfall.

[Bronco69]

7. OK, so out of the thousands (millions?) of lotto winners

two people know someone who won. I guess I'm just saying that with as long as lottos have been around and with all of the jackpots being won, (over $1 million at a time), more of us should know someone who won.

[BearClaws]

8. A Few

I work with some people that won a lottery pool.
It wasn't a huge jackpot,but after taxes each player netted about $30,000.00.

[UdoKier]

14. In most state lotteries, only about 200 people per year win the top prize.

In California, 200 out of 30 million is not very many...

[UdoKier]

13. The odds of winning are may millions to one

How many millions of people do you know?

It is very unlikely that a even a regular player would ever win the top prize, but that's not the same as "rigged"

[Tafiti]

15. A good friend of mine in college...

...his sister won 12 million in the lottery.

[dr.strangelove]

9. I play in a weekly office pool

About 30 co-workers each give $1 per week and we buy 30 "quick pick" (computer/random numbers) tickets. We have won as much as $5,000. If its a small winning (less than $50) we roll it over into the next week. I consider it a donation to the state school fund, but with my share of the $5,000 (~$175), I think I am up a few bucks ovr the 2 years I have been doing it. I, of course, blew the $175 on martinis and beer for my friends.

[physioex]

20. It is rather misguided...

To think "a donation to the state school". Did you see the actual finances of the lottery? For each dollar that you spend exactly how much of it goes to the "school system" and how much of that actually gets down to the student level?

[Squatch]

10. I just need 1 million...then I can start my business...

[pagerbear]

16. I've read your odds are better if you choose quick pick.

I supposed it's statistically more likely to get truly random numbers. Does quick pick filter out number combinations that have already been sold?

As far as knowing anyone, my mother has had at least one (tax preparation) client who won.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. Not True

A combination is a combination. The full combination of 6 numbers is not more or less random. As a matter of fact, in pure terms, it's not random at all! It will be, by definition, 6 integers, with no repeats between 1 and some higher value. That's not a random distribution. Every combination has the same probability of being selected, so the distribution is not a curve but a square.

Combinatorial mathematics can prove this, but not necessary here. It's common sense, really.

The selection of the numbers, by the computer, is done by each value being assigned a pseudorandom value. Think of an Excel spreadsheet. One column is the numbers for the ticket, the second is a column of pseudorandom numbers which change every time the computer is told to pick. Then, the values are all sorted by the pseudorandom number. The first six numbers in the list are pulled out and put on your ticket.

That whole approach is no more or less random than a person, at random, picking numbers themselves based upon a series of coincidental events in their life.

Thus, any combination chosen (even 1,2,3,4,5,6, or the combination an idiot has on his luggage) has the same odds as any other. Since the method of choosing the combination is equally random no matter how it's done, there can be no difference.

So, whoever wrote what you read, was wrong.
The Professor (of Statistical Mechanics)

[UdoKier]

18. In any given drawing, the odds are the same whether QP or You Pick, BUT

I believe that playing every drawing with the SAME SET of numbers gives you a slightly higher chance of winning than using a different set of numbers every time.

In other words, if you play a quick pick, or choose a new set of numbers and play every week, both sets are constantly changing, and there is a chance that they might NEVER match.

However, if YOUR set of numbers is constant, and the lotto numbers change every week, there is a statistical probability that the winning numbers will eventually match your set of numbers. Problem is time. It may take many thousands, or millions of draws for your combination to come up, but eventually it will. (Just don't be too sure of being alive when they do...)

[ProfessorGAC]

19. Sort of True

That's a function of progressive probabilities. However, the combinations are so immense that the odds barely change. Yes, they go up, but it would take MANY, MANY years before the difference in odds has any statistical significance, as you said, but extended over all the combinations.

So, the odds are better, but not by enough to really increase any realistic chance of winning vs. the quick pick.

So, i agree with you, on a purely mathematical basis, but the difference is truly statistically negligible.
The Professor

[progmom]

21. I pick 'em when I get there.

My great-grandfather was a psychic...so if there is ANY CHANCE that I might have "the gift" I want it to reveal itself there at the lotto counter those 3-4 times a year I actually buy a ticket. (I often get 3 numbers right, but that gets me $7 - whoo-fucking-hoo)

[Left Is Write]

22. I could never play the same numbers every time.

It would force me to buy a ticket for every drawing (Wednesdays and Saturdays for Powerball), lest the ONE time I didn't buy a ticket be the time that set of numbers was called.

I'm much more content to play occasionally and get a quick pick.