How to Win More: Strategies for Increasing a Lottery Win PDF
Preview How to Win More: Strategies for Increasing a Lottery Win
How to Win More Strategies for Increasing a Lottery Win How W M to in ore Strategies for Increasing a Lottery Win Norbert Henze Hans Riedwyl (d* CRC Press Taylor & Francis Croup Boca Raton London New York CRC Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business AN A K PETERS BOOK CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300 Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742 First issued in hardback 2017 © 1998 by A K Peters, Ltd. CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business ISBN-13: 978-1-5688-1078-2 (pbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-1384-6968-6 (hbk) This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. While all reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, neither the author[s] nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publishers wish to make clear that any views or opinions expressed in this book by individual editors, authors or contributors are personal to them and do not necessarily reflect the views/opinions of the publishers. The information or guidance contained in this book is intended for use by medical, scientific or health-care professionals and is provided strictly as a supplement to the medical or other professional’s own judgement, their knowledge of the patient’s medical history, relevant manufacturer’s instructions and the appropriate best practice guidelines. Because of the rapid advances in medical science, any information or advice on dosages, procedures or diagnoses should be independently verified. The reader is strongly urged to consult the relevant national drug formulary and the drug companies’ and device or material manufacturers’ printed instructions, and their websites, before administering or utilizing any of the drugs, devices or materials mentioned in this book. 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For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, please access www.copyright. com (http:// www.copyright.com/) or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users. For organizations that have been granted a photocopy license by the CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com and the CRC Press Web site at http://www.crcpress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Henze, Norbert, 1951- How to win more: strategies for increasing a lottery win / Norbert Henze, Hans Riedwyl. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56881-078-4 1. Lotteries - Statistical methods - Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Lotto - Statistical methods - Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Riedwyl, Hans. II. Title. HG6111.H46 1998 795.3’8-dc21 97-48846 CIP Contents 1 The History of Lotteries 1 2 The Rules 7 2.1 r/s Lotteries.......................................................................... 7 2.2 Prize Structures................................................................... 11 3 The Odds 14 3.1 Chances, Odds, and Probabilities.............................. 14 3.2 How Many Years Will It Take to W in?................... 18 3.3 You Can’t Beat the O dds!............................................. 20 4 Learning from Prize Payouts 22 4.1 The Parimutuel Payout System .................................. 22 4.2 Examples of Extreme Payouts..................................... 24 4.3 Seeing Through Scatterplots......................................... 31 5 Foolish Styles of Play 36 5.1 Choosing Arithmetic Progressions.............................. 37 5.2 Choosing Winning Combinations of Previous Draws 42 5.3 Choosing “Hot” and “Cold” Numbers...................... 45 5.4 Choosing Outstanding Numbers.................................. 47 5.5 Choosing Winning Numbers from Other Countries or States ................................. 49 5.6 Choosing Geometric Patterns ..................................... 52 5.7 Modifying Previous Winning Combinations . . . . 55 5.8 Playing with N um bers.................................................... 59 5.9 The Too-Large-Numbers Dilemma.............................. 62 5.10 Foolish Play and Arithmetic Complexity............... 65 v Contents VI 6 Quick Pick: A Sensible Style of Play 69 7 Intelligent Styles of Play 79 7.1 Arithmetic Complexity.................................................... 81 7.2 Sums of Numbers............................................................... 82 7.3 Edge Numbers....................................................................... 86 7.4 Cluster Numbers ................................................................ 89 7.5 Played Numbers.................................................................... 93 7.6 Played Number Combinations...................................... 97 7.7 A Quick Strategy for Intelligent P lay ...................... 100 7.8 A Regression Strategy for Intelligent Play . . . . 102 7.9 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions................... 104 8 Mathematical Appendix 106 8.1 Probabilities of W inning................................................ 106 8.2 Frequencies of Winning N um bers.............................. 110 8.3 Testing Equiprobability of Lotto Numbers . . . . 114 8.4 First Repetition of a Winning Combination . . . . 116 8.5 Waiting Tune to Exhaust Lotto Numbers............... 118 8.6 Record Waiting T im es..................................................... 122 8.7 The Distribution of Spaces on Lottery Tickets . . 125 8.8 The Sum of Winning Numbers..................................... 127 8.9 A Measure of Arithmetic Complexity...................... 128 8.10 The Correlation Coefficient............................................. 130 8.11 Multiple Linear Regression............................................. 131 8.12 Some Standard Distributions......................................... 132 8.13 Mathematical Aspects of Quick-Pick Play . . . . 135 8.14 The Natural Logarithm.................................................... 137 8.15 An Urn Model Reflecting Number Popularity . . 138 8.16 A Lotto Random Number G enerator...................... 140 References 142 Index 145 Preface The main purpose of How to Win More is to give you valuable insights into how to improve your long-term return on investment when playing lotto. You shouldn’t mistake the title, however. It doesn’t mean “win more often” ; that will happen only if you buy more tickets. Rather, the title means that your winnings will usually be larger when your numbers do come up. In addition, reading this book might prevent you from having a great disappointment—perhaps your greatest disappointment ever. Imagine that your dream of a lifetime—winning a jackpot of, let’s say, $50,000,000—has come true for you. (That’s why you play lotto, isn’t it?) However, imagine your disappointment when the lottery company tells you that you have to split that jackpot with more than 10,000 other players, resulting in a share of less than $5,000 for you. Could this really happen? Yes it could, if, for example, the winning combination was 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, 43. If this combina tion ever comes up in any number lottery, it will likely produce thousands of very disappointed winners. (The reason for this is explained in Chapter 5.) By the way, 14,697 entries selected this combination in the New York State Lotto of June 7, 1986. If you are open minded, reading this book will make you an informed lotto player who knows the following: •The most popular number combinations are also the most foolish. (Many are given in Chapter 5.) vii Preface Vlll •It is impossible to improve the odds of winning any legiti mate lottery (for example, by charting numbers). •The notion of picking so-called hot or cold numbers is non sense. (You might as well throw your money away.) •Although nice-looking tickets may be popular, they are also unprofitable. •Never copy suggested numbers from “Nighthawks,” lottery horoscopes (“Zodiac Best Bets”), or “Dr. X’s Computer Generated Lotto Picks” (to name only a few supposed con sulting experts). •It is extremely important to avoid picking the winning com binations of past drawings (although each has the same odds of winning as any other combination for future draw ings). Certainly, these maxims, along with other information in this book, will not be confirmed by some agents who profit from lin gering lottery myths. Nonetheless, they are only too true. As you probably know, there are many different number lotter ies. To date, Illinois plays a 6/54 (that is, each participant picks six numbers between 1 and 54), California has a 6/51, Canada runs a 6/49, Sweden has a 7/35, and Switzerland plays a 6/45, to name only a few. This book doesn’t concentrate on any specific number lottery, for two reasons: 1. All number lotteries are basically the same, so if you under stand one, you understand them all. 2. States like to change the types of their lotto games fairly often. For example, California switched from a 6/49 to a 6/53 lotto in June 1990 and to a 6/51 lotto in December 1991, and Arizona changed from a 6/39 to a 6/42 in 1989. The only reason for these changes (and many similar changes in other states) is t.o keep ticket sales at a high level, which makes the lotto odds Preface IX more difficult. As a rule of thumb, the odds for winning a jackpot must be seen in comparison with the population base in the given state. If the odds are too low, there will usually be a jackpot win ner. Consequently, jackpots won’t get big and ticket sales won’t increase. On the other hand, if the odds against winning the jack pot are too high, few grand-prize winners will be presented to the public and ticket sales might taper off. With the right odds, there will sometimes be a string of jackpots with no winners, leading to a huge carryover of money and thus much publicity and greater participation. Moreover, the right odds will also entail enough winning of small prizes for player reinforcement. Although you will learn about the odds (and much more) for any lottery, don’t be afraid. The discussion of mathematics will be kept to an absolute minimum, and formulae for computing odds or expectations have been “banned” into a separate unit (Chapter 8). Acknowledgements We are indebted to David R. Bellhouse (University of Western Ontario, Canada), Henri Carnal (University of Bern, Switzer land), Persi Diaconis (Harvard University, Boston), Harry Joe (University of British Columbia, Canada), Pekka Kangas (Uni versity of Oulu, Finland), Mike Orkin (California State Univer sity, Hayward), Hal Stern (Iowa State University), and Donald Ylvisaker (University of California, Los Angeles) for providing many valuable comments on early drafts of this book. Special thanks go to the following lottery corporations for providing us with valuable information and data: California State Lottery, Colorado Lottery, Connecticut Lottery, Florida State Lottery, Maryland State Lottery, Massachusetts State Lottery, New Zealand Lottery, Ontario Lottery Corporation, Queensland
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