Lotto: Statistics question

[CFLarsen]

Which is wrong, and is exactly what 1 said and what everyone has been arguing against. It does not affect your chance of winning in any way, not for 7 numbers, not for 1 number.

I don't see anyone arguing against this. Why bring it up again?

I think Claus is saying that by putting ‘Right ?” after the statement he was asking a question rather than arguing for a position.

Consider the following

Teacher - What is 2 + 2 ?

Student – Is it 3 ?

Teacher - No you are wrong it is 4.

Student – No, I am not wrong I didn’t say it was three I was merely asking a question.

While Claus and the student above may be technically right in not being wrong it is fair to assume that the child thought the answer was 3 and Claus thought the biased lucky dip machine made a difference to the chances of winning. Either that or he has a really weird way of communicating.

What a crappy comment.

If we start with the assumption that there must be some sinister intention or odd behavior behind posters' questions, then we are certainly not going to have an open-minded discussion where we look for answers.

Instead, we are creating an atmosphere of inherent suspicion, which will stifle questions instead of inviting them.

 

[Lothian]

What a crappy comment.

If we start with the assumption that there must be some sinister intention or odd behavior behind posters' questions, then we are certainly not going to have an open-minded discussion where we look for answers.

Maths is not an open minded subject. There are right answers and wrong answers. However the reason someone keeps on asking "Is a wrong answer right?" is something to keep an open mind over.

Sorry if this is crappy as well.

 

[slyjoe]

So everyone agrees that the odds of you winning with an auto-generated ticket are the same as with a non-auto-generated ticket, correct?

Maybe looking at it from a non-player's perspective would clarify what I think may be the point of confusion.

The odds that the winning numbers came from the auto-generated group of numbers will be lower than the odds that the winning numbers came from the manually generated group of numbers.

Is this where the confusion lies?

 

[CFLarsen]

Maths is not an open minded subject. There are right answers and wrong answers. However the reason someone keeps on asking "Is a wrong answer right?" is something to keep an open mind over.

Sorry if this is crappy as well.

It's bollocks. I don't keep asking the question, and I don't say that math is an open minded subject.

You weren't sowing doubt about my question about math. You were sowing doubt about my motives for asking a simple question.

Vilifying people for asking questions is something you can expect on woo forums. But don't create such an atmosphere here yourself.

 

[Dan O.]

So everyone agrees that the odds of you winning with an auto-generated ticket are the same as with a non-auto-generated ticket, correct?

I used to think that but now I'm not sure. Do we know for a fact that the actual winning numbers were chosen by some uniform physical process or had they also switched to using a computer algorithm to pick the winning combination. If a computer was used for the actual drawing, it would not be unreasonable to find the same bias in the drawn numbers as was discovered in the online Lucky Dip picks since the same company probably developed both systems.

 

[slyjoe]

I used to think that but now I'm not sure. Do we know for a fact that the actual winning numbers were chosen by some uniform physical process or had they also switched to using a computer algorithm to pick the winning combination. If a computer was used for the actual drawing, it would not be unreasonable to find the same bias in the drawn numbers as was discovered in the online Lucky Dip picks since the same company probably developed both systems.

The assumption in the previous posts was that the drawing of the winning numbers was random with no bias.

 

[Lothian]

It's bollocks. I don't keep asking the question, and I don't say that math is an open minded subject.

You weren't sowing doubt about my question about math. You were sowing doubt about my motives for asking a simple question.

Yes I was. You are clearly not stupid and I have seen you hold your own on statistical threads.

When Ben showed the results of his simulation you said “If your calculations are correct, then you will get a lower chance of winning, if the picker is biased.” That was not a conclusion I would expect someone with knowledge of maths, which you appear to have, looking at those figures to come to. Particularly when it had been explained many times that the chances were the same.

Later in the thread you claimed that looking historically at a small selection of draws showed a difference. This is the same flawed logic that you exposed when castigating Lucianarchy for claiming that the numbers 9 & 11 being drawn on 9/11 in the New York lotto was evidence of PSI.

So what is the deal ?

 

[Rasmus]

So everyone agrees that the odds of you winning with an auto-generated ticket are the same as with a non-auto-generated ticket, correct?

Yes. Any individual game has the same chances of winning - no matter how the numbers were arrived at or what they look like.

The odds that the winning numbers came from the auto-generated group of numbers will be lower than the odds that the winning numbers came from the manually generated group of numbers.

Why do you think this is so?

I am not even sure that the biased generator would win less often than an un-biased one. But in the real world, the biased generator plays agaisnt highly based real people. (They are the ones playing birthdays, avoiding the 13 and numbers on the border of the playing field, etc.)

Also, you would need to know the relation of generated numbers to manually picked numbers.

 

[CFLarsen]

Yes I was. You are clearly not stupid and I have seen you hold your own on statistical threads.

When Ben showed the results of his simulation you said “If your calculations are correct, then you will get a lower chance of winning, if the picker is biased.” That was not a conclusion I would expect someone with knowledge of maths, which you appear to have, looking at those figures to come to. Particularly when it had been explained many times that the chances were the same.

Later in the thread you claimed that looking historically at a small selection of draws showed a difference. This is the same flawed logic that you exposed when castigating Lucianarchy for claiming that the numbers 9 & 11 being drawn on 9/11 in the New York lotto was evidence of PSI.

So what is the deal ?

The "deal" is that you should stop automatically throwing suspicion on people who merely ask questions.

 

[Lothian]

The "deal" is that you should stop automatically throwing suspicion on people who merely ask questions.

How about another deal ? Tell me that in light of my last post your behavior is a little odd or tell me I got it wrong.

 

[tkingdoll]

I used to think that but now I'm not sure. Do we know for a fact that the actual winning numbers were chosen by some uniform physical process or had they also switched to using a computer algorithm to pick the winning combination. If a computer was used for the actual drawing, it would not be unreasonable to find the same bias in the drawn numbers as was discovered in the online Lucky Dip picks since the same company probably developed both systems.

I think all lotteries use balls.

*chortle*

 

[This is The End]

Let's say the random # gen for the customers needs never picks the #1 from 1 through 36, but the random # gen for the actual winning number doesn't have the same glitch.

In that example, if someone uses the glitched random # gen to pick, their chances of winning decrease by 1/36 or nearly 3%. This is because the random # gen that picks the winning number can contain a 1, but the person who used the random # gen for customer use cannot have a 1.

The odds would only stay the same if both the random # gen used for the customer and the random # gen used for the final winning number contain the same glitch.

 

[Rasmus]

Let's say the random # gen for the customers needs never picks the #1 from 1 through 36, but the random # gen for the actual winning number doesn't have the same glitch.

In that example, if someone uses the glitched random # gen to pick, their chances of winning decrease by 1/36 or nearly 3%.

Certainly not for any individual game. Most possible lines of all players won't have a 1 in them, but their chances of being right are just as high as those with.

If you look at all the lines played then the distribution is not uniform anymore - but we saw earlier that that means the generated numbers will sometimes win more often, sometimes less often than what you would expect. On the whole, it evens out.

This is because the random # gen that picks the winning number can contain a 1, but the person who used the random # gen for customer use cannot have a 1.

Doesn't change the oddes of winning, though. It only changes the amount of numbers you could get from the machine. But the numbers are generated randomly, and not after a pattenr that will use up all possible numbers.

The odds would only stay the same if both the random # gen used for the customer and the random # gen used for the final winning number contain the same glitch.

No. Your odds of winning are the same, no matter what numbers you play, or how you got them.

 

[CFLarsen]

How about another deal ? Tell me that in light of my last post your behavior is a little odd or tell me I got it wrong.

No, not "another" deal.

Deal with the questions people ask, and stop vilifying them based on who they are.

To make it crystal clear: Stop vilifying people, period.

Think you can do that?

Deal?

 

[ben m]

In that example, if someone uses the glitched random # gen to pick, their chances of winning decrease by 1/36 or nearly 3%. This is because the random # gen that picks the winning number can contain a 1, but the person who used the random # gen for customer use cannot have a 1.

That analysis is incorrect. We've been through this ten different ways; there is no way to increase or decrease your odds of winning by any action whatsoever you take filling out your lotto card. Think of it this way: when you choose a 1, thinking you will "increase the odds if a 1 is drawn", you've really decided not to pick 2 (decreasing the odds if 2 is drawn) or not to pick 3 (decreasing the odds if 3 is drawn) and it all cancels out.

 

[CFLarsen]

I think all lotteries use balls.

*chortle*

Oooohh.....

Susanne Bjerrehuus, the Danish televised lottery "SuperChancen", back in the 80's.

Uttered the immortal words:

"I have never gotten it this way before!"

 

[This is The End]

That analysis is incorrect. We've been through this ten different ways; there is no way to increase or decrease your odds of winning by any action whatsoever you take filling out your lotto card. Think of it this way: when you choose a 1, thinking you will "increase the odds if a 1 is drawn", you've really decided not to pick 2 (decreasing the odds if 2 is drawn) or not to pick 3 (decreasing the odds if 3 is drawn) and it all cancels out.

You're just plain wrong.

Here's another example.

Let's say the random # gen the customer uses to pick has a glitch in which it never chooses the number 1-18 from 1-36. It never picks half the numbers. The random # gen that picks the winning number does NOT have this same glitch.

A person using the glitched random # gen has now decreased their odds of winning by 50% versus someone who didn't use the glitched random # gen. Obviously the odds of the winning number containing the numbers 1-18 is 50%, and the person who used the glitched random # gen cannnot have those numbers.

Perhaps you are looking at it from the opposite pov (where the machine that picks the winning number is glitched and not the one the customer uses).

 

[CFLarsen]

Perhaps you are looking at it from the opposite pov (where the machine that picks the winning number is glitched and not the one the customer uses).

Again.

The problem lies not with the machine that picks the winning numbers.

The problem lies with the machine that picks the pre-assigned numbers for the online users who just want a - presumably - randomly filled out coupon.

 

[sthomson]

OnlyTellsTruths: please read the rest of this thread, where we seriously debunk your post, over and over again.

 

[GreedyAlgorithm]

Then, run a series of 208 trials and see what you'll get on average.

What you will get is a lower probability of win - right?

Yeah, my problem was in the interpretation. I interpret that question as "hey, can you confirm my knowledge that you'll get a lower probability of win?" But what you meant was "hm, is this answer to the scenario I'm proposing correct or incorrect?"

Incidentally, it's incorrect.

But now you have evidence (this thread) that lots of people interpret a question of that form in a different way than you'd like.

Now I'm guessing the reason for your guess - I'm sorry, the reason you chose to write "lower" rather than "equal" or "higher" in your neutral question - is that you are interpreting probability as something like "long term frequency of identical (except for magic randomization) trials", and this skewed your supposed uniform choice among "lower", "equal", and "higher". I am convinced the correct way to think about probability is "plausibility of a situation given your state of knowledge about it". In that case if you assume everything's independent, 208 is the same as 1 is the same as 10^30.

And by correct I mean "least likely to lead to incoherent beliefs".