The number picker's dilemma

“Do you go with the numbers that show up the most often because they're hot, or do you go with the numbers that show up the least often because they're well overdue?”

By Elizabeth Trotta | Yahoo! Finance – Wed, Mar 28, 2012 6:14 PM EDT

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mega-millions--by-the-lucky-numbers-.html

Neither. Numbers are never hot nor due.

There are two ways to profit from lotteries.

One is to pick numbers higher than 31, or at least higher than 12. Many people use important dates for their favourite numbers, and so numbers under 31 are over-picked, and if you do pick these and they come up, you risk having to share the winnings with more people.

The other way is simple.

Run the lottery.

Ohhhh,
I'm not a number picker,
I'm a number picker's bum
I'm only picking numbers
while the number picker's numb.

Frequency Chart:

http://www.txlottery.org/export/sites/lottery/Games/Mega_Millions/Number_Frequency.html_343975900.html

How consistent is it with the article data? I see a couple discrepancies.

Is anyone buying for tomorrow's drawing? Never play?

If you are playing, are you a regular player or just when the jackpot grows large?

How do you choose your numbers or do you go with easy picks?

Good point - the third way to benefit - wait for jackpots.

are there any patterns with the lottery numbers for other states?

I don't play the lottery.

I'm leveraged in on this one - the office pool. :folks:

Never play.

i passed this time. Either I'll be the only one working here, or the only one with my $10.

I don't pay the tax on stupid people. Or maybe they aren't stupid. They just can't do math.

Okay, I admit that I have occasionally played, but mainly when a group of people at work decided to go in to a big batch of losing tickets.

I had an uncle who played a lot who would go on and on about his wins, a hundred here, a thousand there ... near as we could determine, he probably spent at least five grand a year on tickets and never made it back. But, you only remember the wins, right?

If the winner of the lottery gets "stoned to death" then the lottery is evil.

JBKlyde;804624 wrote:

If the winner of the lottery gets "stoned to death" then the lottery is evil.

What if (s)he just gets stoned?

I play the Euromillions Lottery on the closest draw after payday. Sometimes twice a month, depending on finaces. Never more.

I always play "lucky dip" (numbers randomly selected).
I don't expect I'll ever win, but £2-4 a month buys a lot of dreams. And it's cheaper and healthier than a pint of beer.

pastortoy;804511 wrote:

Is anyone buying for tomorrow's drawing?

I'm in. Single quick-pick.

Sundae has it.

You shouldn't buy lotto tickets thinking it's a good investment. As Wolf points out, it isn't.

You can reasonably buy lotto tickets because they give you the right to have nice and ever-so-slightly plausible daydreams about becoming suddenly rich and all the things you could then do.

Like hitting the tip mug so hard it shatters.

In Chicago, Peter Muiznieks bought a ticket at a liquor store. He knows his chance of winning is a long shot, and that the money the country is spending on tickets could go elsewhere. He still couldn't help himself, and laughed as the apparent contradiction of his opinion and his actions.

"Lottery and games of chance are a stupidity tax and the more we all buy into this, the less rational we are as a society," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/americans-bet-nearly-1-5b-win-record-jackpot-203515291.html

Tonight's jackpot is estimated at $640 million (annuity) or $462 million (lump sum).

monster;804515 wrote:

are there any patterns with the lottery numbers for other states?

I've never seen any patterns that I can pick up on.

I like to choose my own numbers, though. I don't trust the easy picks ("lucky dips"/"quick-picks") from the machine.

Played $10 - 10 games - 60 numbers. got 4 numbers, total, 2 in one game, no megaball. That wins me $0.00. Oh well.

When I lived in a very poor upstate NY town, I got my gas at a Red Apple convenience store and I'd invariable get caught in a line of lottery tickets and cigarettes folks... it was depressing to watch.

Gravdigr;804641 wrote:

I'm in. Single quick-pick.

Dammit.:neutral:

Willie Richards, who works for the U.S. Marshals Service at a federal courthouse in Atlanta, figured if there ever was a time to confront astronomical odds, it was when $640 million was at stake. He bought five tickets.

"When it gets as big as it is now, you'd be nuts not to play," he said. "You have to take a chance on Lady Luck."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kan-ill-md-tickets-share-lottery-jackpot-120924228.html

All lottery jackpot amounts have life changing impacts. Why do so many throw in on super jackpots only and not bother otherwise?

Spexxvet;804681 wrote:

Played $10 - 10 games - 60 numbers. got 4 numbers, total, 2 in one game, no megaball. That wins me $0.00. Oh well.

Gravdigr;804724 wrote:

Dammit.:neutral:

The office pool won a few minor prizes that will likely get reinvested in a future drawing.

Play for next week. No one else will be.

Sundae;804628 wrote:

I play the Euromillions Lottery on the closest draw after payday. Sometimes twice a month, depending on finaces. Never more.

I always play "lucky dip" (numbers randomly selected).
I don't expect I'll ever win, but £2-4 a month buys a lot of dreams. And it's cheaper and healthier than a pint of beer.

Wow, they give playing advice on the Euromillions site.

http://www.euro-millions.com/information/playing-overdue-euromillions-numbers-2295.asp

I also see they do not tax the winnings. I wish they did that in the US.

You are all aware of the gambler's fallacies, right?

I'm surprised the mathemagicians didn't jump all over this thread. The lottery is, indeed, a fun dream. And people do win. I saw old bar patrons win the mega mill a few years ago. One of the city departments. An office pool.

But no instance of a number being drawn has any effect on any other number being drawn, except it lowers the pool of numbers. There are no 'patterns.' It's just pure dumb luck (for lack of a better word.)

I buy a few, here and there. And I dream about that log home. But I don't think there's a system to random number drawing games. Because there isn't. ;)

aka what Zen said.

infinite monkey;805011 wrote:

You are all aware of the gambler's fallacies, right?

I'm surprised the mathemagicians didn't jump all over this thread. The lottery is, indeed, a fun dream. And people do win. I saw old bar patrons win the mega mill a few years ago. One of the city departments. An office pool.

But no instance of a number being drawn has any effect on any other number being drawn, except it lowers the pool of numbers. There are no 'patterns.' It's just pure dumb luck (for lack of a better word.)

I buy a few, here and there. And I dream about that log home. But I don't think there's a system to random number drawing games. Because there isn't. ;)

I got some numbers randomly selected by the "lucky dip" and now I just use those. I only ever buy a ticket when there's a super huge jackpot.
I have played the main lottery three times in my life and the Euromillions twice. Never won anything.
It's random chance, don't delude yourselves, people.

Uh-ohhhh, trouble brewin.

FIFTEEN Maryland McDonald's employees remain in financial limbo today as a co-worker who claimed to hold a $105 million Mega Millions lottery ticket stays in hiding amid suspicions she is either being greedy or perpetrating a cruel hoax.

Three winning tickets were bought for Friday's record-breaking $656 million Mega Millions drawing.

While no one has come forward to claim the prize, Mirlande Wilson's boast to a newspaper that she selected the ticket has caused ill-will at a McDonald's where she works.

Ms Wilson bought tickets for a pool of co-workers, but told the New York Post that the winning ticket she claimed to have purchased was bought separately.

Lottery officials in Maryland, however, downplayed Ms Wilson's claim to the golden ticket without proof.