Nothing strange about consecutive Lotto numbers

cguy said:
The code is incorrect. The lottery is order invariant, while the algorithm searches for the specific draw order.

Also, this should be run multiple times and averaged to get a somewhat accurate probability.

The good news is that if you sort the combinations (to achieve order invariance) this will run a lot faster.
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And applying simple statistical combination formulas give you the answer in about 60 seconds maximum!

:rolleyes:
 
For the probability boffs -

The odds of 5,6,7,8,9,10 are the same as rolling six consecutive 0's on a roulette wheel ?
 
daveza said:
For the probability boffs -

The odds of 5,6,7,8,9,10 are the same as rolling six consecutive 0's on a roulette wheel ?
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Are there the same number of slots on the roulette wheel as there are numbers in the lottery? If not, definitely NO.
If they are the same, then still no.
The roulette odds are more unlikely as you can have repeated numbers, which you can't in the lottery, which means the total number of combinations is higher.
 
RonSwanson said:
I call BS.
If I were to rig the lotto, then surely there are better ways to do it than to draw and publish sequential numbers? For a scam to succeed, I would not want the alerts and subsequent investigations, unless I was an idiot.
I suspect that this is either a Lotto marketing ploy, or a smokescreen to deflect attention from where all the millions in Lotto money is actually going.
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www.news24.com

SIU raids offices of National Lotteries Commission | News24

The Special Investigating Unit and Hawks are reportedly looking for computers and other electronic storage devices, as well as incriminating documents at the Pretoria offices of the National Lotteries Commission.
www.news24.com www.news24.com
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daveza said:
For the probability boffs -

The odds of 5,6,7,8,9,10 are the same as rolling six consecutive 0's on a roulette wheel ?
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The maths is different but mainly its different because lotto numbers cant be repeated but with roulette each roll has the same probability and the same number can come up.
 
Yes but NOT for the doctoring of the outcomes (yet), but for what happens to the millions collected.
 
Cant remember where I saw this, but with machines that spits out the balls - the holes where they come out of are say 15mm - they have two sets of balls. 16mm and 14mm.

They fill up the machine with the 16mm balls, which none of will go through the smaller hole.

They then take the six or seven "chosen" numbers from the smaller ball set and add them. Machine only spits out the smaller balls as the bigger ones won't fit, impossible with the naked eye to see the difference.

In a land filled with corruption from every possible angle - hospitals, schools, police, municipal etc do you believe the lotto isn't corrupt? Whats the odds of that. :unsure:
 
Nerfherder said:
The maths is different but mainly its different because lotto numbers cant be repeated but with roulette each roll has the same probability and the same number can come up.
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That is hugely significant. It is the same reason why using the roll of a dice to argue lottery statistics is virtually useless.
One has to understand the theory of numbers, the binomial theorem, the hypergeometric distribution and the branch of numerical analysis called combinatorics.

The LLN ( Law of Large Numbers) is another one to take into account.

In fact a simple analysis of the probabilities of odd versus even numbers shows why the "5 6 7 8 9" sequence is not at all strange because the 3 - odd, 2 - even" and the 2 - odd, 3 even" draw in ANY lottery game has the highest probability of occurring and therefore, the best odds of resulting in a win.
Note the "10" can't be included in the powerball analysis because it comes out of a separate pool of 20 balls.

And that brings to the fore another aspect of playing the lottery.
It is not about probabilities that really determines success but the odds of success.
Even the lottery website in SA gets it wrong because the "odds" listed are not all consistently correctly stated in the FAQs where odds and probabilities are mixed up.
 
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I wonder how much this incident of a consecutive sequence of numbers played in pushing the SIU into action over the issue under investigation?

Maybe an offshoot will be the evaluation of the RNG used as well as the one used for the quickpick will also be undertaken?
 
Currently, all our theory is based on the "assumption" that the lottery draws are driven by a near-random process --- There is however no truly random process available just RNGs that pass randomness tests.

It should be pretty easy to subject the RNG and the Quickpick RNG to these tests?

The RNG generators should meet certain criteria. Does anyone know what the SA Lottery is supposed to guarantee in this regard?

Next, the system needs to be free of malware and backdoors - in SA I would think this is a real risk.

In 2010, a U.S. lottery draw was rigged by the information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), who surreptitiously installed backdoor malware on the MUSL's secure RNG computer during routine maintenance. During the hacks the man won a total amount of $16,500,000 by predicting the numbers correctly a few times in year. Source: Wikipedia
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Nerfherder said:
The maths is different but mainly its different because lotto numbers cant be repeated but with roulette each roll has the same probability and the same number can come up.
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The statistical language for the examples drawn with- and without replacements.

Roulette: numbers are "drawn" with replacement - the pool of numbers for every rotation of the wheel is always the same.
Lottery: The numbers in the pool reduces by one after every draw.

Roulette: need to use the Binomial Distribution for draws and the Negative Binomial Distribution for failures.

Lottery: need to use the Hypergeometric Distribution and the Negative Hypergeometric Distribution for failures.
 
Geoff.D said:
That is hugely significant. It is the same reason why using the roll of a dice to argue lottery statistics is virtually useless.
One has to understand the theory of numbers, the binomial theorem, the hypergeometric distribution and the branch of numerical analysis called combinatorics.

The LLN ( Law of Large Numbers) is another one to take into account.

In fact a simple analysis of the probabilities of odd versus even numbers shows why the "5 6 7 8 9" sequence is not at all strange because the 3 - odd, 2 - even" and the 2 - odd, 3 even" draw in ANY lottery game has the highest probability of occurring and therefore, the best odds of resulting in a win.
Note the "10" can't be included in the powerball analysis because it comes out of a separate pool of 20 balls.

And that brings to the fore another aspect of playing the lottery.
It is not about probabilities that really determines success but the odds of success.
Even the lottery website in SA gets it wrong because the "odds" listed are not all consistently correctly stated in the FAQs where odds and probabilities are mixed up.
Click to expand...
Yes, I meant to say that its massively different.
 
Geoff.D said:
Currently, all our theory is based on the "assumption" that the lottery draws are driven by a near-random process --- There is however no truly random process available just RNGs that pass randomness tests.

It should be pretty easy to subject the RNG and the Quickpick RNG to these tests?

The RNG generators should meet certain criteria. Does anyone know what the SA Lottery is supposed to guarantee in this regard?

Next, the system needs to be free of malware and backdoors - in SA I would think this is a real risk.
Click to expand...

Pretty much what I’m thinking.. when I saw it I thought someone ran it in “test” mode.

I’d like to know what auditor is auditing and if they gonna look into the code as it seems extremely dodge especially given that it’s not the 1st time either.

That said not expecting the 99 winners of matching 5 numbers not being subject to full set of checks would be silly.
 
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