Mad Ravings of a Tortured Soul (Really Difficult to Make Sense Out Of)
Yep, all it takes is 1 ticket.
Mega Millions: $500M Jackpot ($359M Cash Option)
Went with QP last time and didn't do so well. This time I'm selecting my own numbers.
I played the lottery for two months (bought a ticket for both Mom and myself for each twice-a-week drawing). Let the machine pick the number each time.
I found it rather odd that when I looked at my (losing) numbers, it appeared that the numbers I saw seemed heavily weighted with recent winning numbers. IOW, if the recent winners had a 2 and a 17 in them, I saw those numbers appear on my auto-pick ticket. I figured that numbers that had been drawn were slightly less likely to be drawn again.
I know, if you flip a penny 99 times and it comes up heads 99 times... When you flip it again the odds of that penny showing heads is one in two. But taken all together, it's somewhat doubtful that you'd see heads "for the hundredth time in a row."
I think. The randomness of a random sequence tends to assert itself and anomolies smooth over over time, right?
If so, a routine in the lottery machines random number generator which made it slightly more likely to produce numbers that had recently been part of the winning sequence... would be interesting.
That has me wondering: If you set up a spreadsheet/database/whatever, entered in the winning numbers for a list of past winners (the larger the list, the better, methinks), and had it spit you a list of all the numbers in the series (1 to whatever the highest number is, and the same for any "red ball," powerball, or whatever if it is drawn as it's own set instead of out of the same general hopper of balls) on the left side of the paper and beside each number list a percentage of how many times that number appeared in a prize... Ok, this is one of those times that the thoughts aren't connecting well and I can't communicate easily (apologies!).
In an infinite set of drawings, you'd expect each number to get picked the same amount of times, right? In a less than infinite set of drawings, you won't have that, you can only "approach" that equal number of times, I guess you would say that the drawings you have in the sequence, the closer you come.
So... If you decided to pick the numbers that have appeared as winners the
least amount of times, would that give you numbers that would be somewhat more ikely to be drawn... as more drawings take place and the entire set of numbers gets closer to that "equal?"
Does any of my above ramble make sense to anyone?
Approximate odds of winning Mega Millions Lottery = 1:175,711,536
Quick, someone run out and buy 175,711,536 tickets. DON'T use the auto-pick option, lol. Oh yeah, and hope that this isn't one of the times when 23 people win and have to split the jackpot <WHOOPS!>.
