4 ms·

> A lot of people pick dates Yes, birth dates of themselves and family members, which are randomly distributed in the population, and which you can't possibly

by lapcat 2y ago

> A lot of people pick dates Yes, birth dates of themselves and family members, which are randomly distributed in the population, and which you can't possibly know, because you don't know the identity of other lottery buyers. > or numbers that have won recently Do people do this? I'd assume they do the opposite of this. > or that form geometric patterns on the ticket, or that form interesting sequences, and so on. This is all hand-waving. Please list the numbers that I shouldn't choose. > those commonly picked sets of numbers What are those numbers? In any case, even if you eliminated several thousand numbers from the pool of possibilities, that doesn't really help you choose a specific set of numbers from the millions of possibilities, other than not those.

defrost 2y ago
> Yes, birth dates of themselves and family members, which are randomly distributed in the population Nope - not uniformally random, there's literally a non uniform age distribution, a specific set of months, a capped number of days, and various "peak" birth seasons. >> > those commonly picked sets of numbers > What are those numbers? One way to find out is to get a math degree and moonlight as a consultant for, say, the local uni math department and perform quasi regular spot checks on the state lottery games. There are many lottery variations and differing games show interesting patterns of choice - although more and more people these days simply get machine generated tickets .. this expands the surface of interest as not only the game results themselves need to be checked for bias but also the various networked game terminals for their random generation and for local tampering. It's probable that anyone who has done such work is bound by NDA's and agreements not to dump mass data aquired through work.
- lapcat 2y ago
  If lotteries could be gamed mathematically, then they would be gamed mathematically, and we'd have a bunch of mathematical millionaires as a result. I'm calling BS on all of this hand-waving. Seriously, how much do you think the miniscule odds of winning can be increased via these methods? I want a numerical answer. And in any case, these factors do not apply to US Presidential elections and are thus irrelevant to the larger point.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Yes, that is why when lotteries can be gamed they often are, eg: https://listverse.com/2019/06/04/10-people-who-successfully-gamed-the-lottery/ https://listverse.com/2019/06/04/10-people-who-successfully-... > I'm calling BS on all of this hand-waving. Maybe work on the math a little. > Seriously, how much do you think the miniscule odds of winning can be increased via these methods? There are multiple methods that can be and have been used, they all have different outcomes on Expected returns. > I want a numerical answer. Again, maybe you might want to work on the math a little yourself - on a specific ruleset (or on a family of rules using some abstraction) .. there are tools that can help you; mathematica, R, etc.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      The main issue here is a single vote in a US Presidential election, i.e., one vote out of around 150 million. Thus, the relevant analogy is buying one lottery ticket in a huge lottery such as the Powerball or Mega Millions and matching every number to win the jackpot. Everything else, including cheating and rigging the lottery, is irrelevant to the question of strategically voting in a US Presidential election. None of your examples or hand-waving have shown that you can significantly improve the odds of one ticket winning the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot.
      - tzs 2y ago
        > None of your examples or hand-waving have shown that you can significantly improve the odds of one ticket winning the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot. No one has said that you can improve the odds of one ticket winning. What has been said is that you can improve your expected value of playing one lottery ticket by carefully choosing what ticket to buy. Your expected value is the product of: • The probability that your ticket wins • The value of the prize • 1/(N+1) where N is the number of other people whose tickets have the same numbers as your ticket. The first two factors are the same for everyone. The third depends on the numbers on the ticket because a lot of players do not pick their tickets randomly. For example 1 2 3 4 5 6 is a surprisingly common choice. I've seen several lotteries where they reported afterwards that if that had been the winning ticket the prize would have been shared by several hundred or even thousands of people.
tzs 2y ago
This short paper goes into some more detail [1]. [1] https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/probability_puzzles/lottery_winning.html https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/probability_puzzl...
- lapcat 2y ago
  Ok, so, choose numbers higher than 31. That still doesn't leave you with much guidance. And the more people who follow this advice, the less it becomes effective.

by lapcat 2y ago

defrost 2y ago

> Yes, birth dates of themselves and family members, which are randomly distributed in the population Nope - not uniformally random, there's literally a non uniform age distribution, a specific set of months, a capped number of days, and various "peak" birth seasons. >> > those commonly picked sets of numbers > What are those numbers? One way to find out is to get a math degree and moonlight as a consultant for, say, the local uni math department and perform quasi regular spot checks on the state lottery games. There are many lottery variations and differing games show interesting patterns of choice - although more and more people these days simply get machine generated tickets .. this expands the surface of interest as not only the game results themselves need to be checked for bias but also the various networked game terminals for their random generation and for local tampering. It's probable that anyone who has done such work is bound by NDA's and agreements not to dump mass data aquired through work.

lapcat 2y ago
If lotteries could be gamed mathematically, then they would be gamed mathematically, and we'd have a bunch of mathematical millionaires as a result. I'm calling BS on all of this hand-waving. Seriously, how much do you think the miniscule odds of winning can be increased via these methods? I want a numerical answer. And in any case, these factors do not apply to US Presidential elections and are thus irrelevant to the larger point.
- defrost 2y ago
  Yes, that is why when lotteries can be gamed they often are, eg: https://listverse.com/2019/06/04/10-people-who-successfully-gamed-the-lottery/ https://listverse.com/2019/06/04/10-people-who-successfully-... > I'm calling BS on all of this hand-waving. Maybe work on the math a little. > Seriously, how much do you think the miniscule odds of winning can be increased via these methods? There are multiple methods that can be and have been used, they all have different outcomes on Expected returns. > I want a numerical answer. Again, maybe you might want to work on the math a little yourself - on a specific ruleset (or on a family of rules using some abstraction) .. there are tools that can help you; mathematica, R, etc.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    The main issue here is a single vote in a US Presidential election, i.e., one vote out of around 150 million. Thus, the relevant analogy is buying one lottery ticket in a huge lottery such as the Powerball or Mega Millions and matching every number to win the jackpot. Everything else, including cheating and rigging the lottery, is irrelevant to the question of strategically voting in a US Presidential election. None of your examples or hand-waving have shown that you can significantly improve the odds of one ticket winning the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot.
    - tzs 2y ago
      > None of your examples or hand-waving have shown that you can significantly improve the odds of one ticket winning the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot. No one has said that you can improve the odds of one ticket winning. What has been said is that you can improve your expected value of playing one lottery ticket by carefully choosing what ticket to buy. Your expected value is the product of: • The probability that your ticket wins • The value of the prize • 1/(N+1) where N is the number of other people whose tickets have the same numbers as your ticket. The first two factors are the same for everyone. The third depends on the numbers on the ticket because a lot of players do not pick their tickets randomly. For example 1 2 3 4 5 6 is a surprisingly common choice. I've seen several lotteries where they reported afterwards that if that had been the winning ticket the prize would have been shared by several hundred or even thousands of people.

tzs 2y ago

This short paper goes into some more detail [1]. [1] https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/probability_puzzles/lottery_winning.html https://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/probability_puzzl...

lapcat 2y ago
Ok, so, choose numbers higher than 31. That still doesn't leave you with much guidance. And the more people who follow this advice, the less it becomes effective.