Lottery and Gambling Experience: Robbed of Prize Money!
By Ion Saliu, Lottery Historian At-Large
Written on January 18, 2001; later updates.
In Reply to: Lottery and Powerball rigged: Prize money distributed evenly in all regions posted by Barry Whittington on January 18, 2001.
• Barry, axiomatic one, probably some people think you are too suspicious, perhaps paranoid, as far as the state lotteries are concerned. They surely think the same thing about me. Just read what I say about Internet casinos and … the state lotteries! By the way, I know absolutely nothing about you and I don't remember knowing anything about you before you posted to this message board.
Again, I believe the gambling software running the online casinos is designed to CHEAT. I have no doubt about it. To whom it may concern: Prove me wrong on this. The state lotteries are far more reliable. They are under sharp scrutiny. But foul play happened before, as I talked about that John Travolta movie. I also talked a few years back about the pick-3 game. During the period of the earliest versions of my lottery software, it was quite common to see pick-3 lottery numbers repeating in consecutive drawings.
We can apply the binomial distribution formula of getting exactly two straight pick-3 combinations in two drawings. Use my SuperFormula or use a calculator. The probability is 1 in one million. One is a cuckoo to think that the probability is always 1 in 1000, regardless of exactly how many successes in exactly how many tries. By the way, three straight pick-3 lottery combinations in a row has a chance of 1 in one billion. How many of you have witnessed such an event? After my strong comments on the topic, I just haven't witnessed two pick-3 combinations repeated in two consecutive drawings.
The fact is a shrewd lottery player could have taken advantage of repeating straight lotto combinations. One would have played only the previous lotto drawing. It used to be almost two repeating straights from the previous drawing every year. You could have safely skipped at least 50 lottery drawings between occurrences. It was like playing worth of 300 units and winning 1000 units a year. Instead of making money, the lottery commission would have lost money in the pick-3 business. Again, repeating the previous lottery drawing is a far less common occurrence nowadays. Barry, please don't say anything…
"Have you ever won multiples of prizes by matching 4 of 6 numbers from the same lotto drawing. That would imply that you had a level of certainty about playing those numbers. Which is something "they" will go to great pains to keep from happening."
As a matter of fact, I won multiples of prizes by matching 4 of 6 lotto numbers from the same drawing more frequently than just one prize. My lottery systems are founded on eliminating single numbers and groups of numbers. Therefore, the winning numbers are more concentrated. That compensates for the fact that the systems do NOT win every drawing. I remember I played lotto with the only college-educated Mexican who worked as a farm laborer, as I did. He had a kick for an older Super-7 Pennsylvania Lottery game. The lotto game drew 10 numbers from a field of 77 (or 80?). The player could win with 7, 6, 5, 4 or 3 numbers. The lotto player could have picked, for example, a group of 15 numbers and wheel them. The player could have won the jackpot even if losing one or two of the ten winning numbers. We won, I think, 10 to 20 tickets 4 out of 7.
The lotto game was very tough on my 80286-based PC. I selected from the bottom of around 200 lotto combinations generated over two days time. I missed two filters. The lottery drawing repeated three numbers from the previous drawing and four numbers from the last under-ten drawings. The norms (medians) were 5 and 100, respectively. Just curious, I let the program run for a few more days after the drawing. The program generated, in less than 1000 drawings, one 6 out of 7 combination, plus more than 10 5 out of 7! I don't think the lottery commission had any clue. And I don't think they would have “rigged” the drawing because a big number of winning tickets came from the same agency.
By the way, long before you posted here, I played the lottery from various ticket agencies, for the same drawing! I keep in mind that the lotteries are government businesses, not private enterprises, like the casinos. Those who work for the government have a lesser incentive to break the law. If it's not for their direct, individual profit, why risk? As of the casinos, well, it's more like a family operation: The fear is stronger, the personal benefit is higher.
More memories came to life while writing this stuff. I lived as a refugee in Yugoslavia for eight months, between 1984 - 1985. That's when I had the most success playing soccer pools. I helped also the Yugoslav Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I translated statements and documents from Romanian into English. I enjoyed doing the job. I helped others and I helped myself (practicing English and getting to know more about the computing-beast experience).
Here is how I implemented the sports prognostication method described before. I use here Excel for the task: one workbook consisting of 19 sheets. Each Italian football (soccer or calcio) team has its own spreadsheet, divided in record at home and record on the road. There is also a working spreadsheet, where the final calculations are done. The prognostication outcomes: 1, X, 2 are percentages.
UNHCR promised to pay me. I would hear “Sutra!… Tomorrow (in Serbian)… Next week…” The main problem I had then: My shoes were real bad. Granted, they helped me to cross the border. But I had reached a point I needed a pair of better shoes. I turned to an old friend: Gambling. Specifically, the soccer pools. I won a couple of times playing the Yugoslav soccer championship. As in most countries, there were not many surprises to lead to big prizes. Then, a medieval, beautiful winter set in. Every country in Europe would use only the Italian soccer games for their pools. I hit the second prize. Actually, I predicted all the games, but I applied a minus-1 system (like a lotto wheel). Anyway, the prize paid good money, especially by the standards of a shoe-challenged refugee.
I didn't have time to do anything, after cashing in the prize. Just about everybody in my “politically-correct” entourage wanted a big party. The refugees live under tremendous stress, in case you didn't know that. So, I said, yeah, let's do it, we need it! I thought everybody got drunk that night, but not everybody did. 'Cuz somebody stole all my money over night! Nothing was left in my pockets after the big party! Truth is, I arrived in America wearing bad shoes, perhaps to prove to myself the American dream. "Give me your poor, your shoeless, etc."
Frankly, I know how to talk the talk. And I back it up by walking the walk. But I forget sometimes that, in order to walk the walk, one need wear a pair of sensible shoes...
Ion Saliu sings Federal Lottery on YouTube:
Read Ion Saliu's first book in print: Probability Theory, Live!
~ Discover profound philosophical implications of the Formula of TheEverything, including Randomness, the fundamental attribute of the Universe.
Resources in Lottery Software, Systems, Lotto Wheeling
Home | Search | New Writings | Software | Odds, Generator | Contents | Forums | Sitemap