Lottery Superstition, Deceit, and Delusions
Nearly every country in the world has a lottery. Despite the fact that the Prophet Mohammed forbade the casting of lots, even the Muslim countries Egypt and Pakistan have lotteries.
Having some mathematical training, I became interested in the wealth of misinformation that is offered and even sold by self-styled experts in lottery mathematics and I began to sort these into categories. They are 1. Frauds: these include books supposedly written by someone who has discovered the secret to winning lotteries, has won large sums using his secret, and is offering to share it for a price. In truth, the system is worthless and may even be stolen from some other author. The leading instance is the so-called "Lotto Black Book," which is sold for $97 from its own web site and from the sites of affiliate marketers who receive large commissions on the sales they generate. The information in it is arcane and not especially helpful, furthermore it is not even original. It was authored by Robert Perkis and posted on his web site at lotto-logix.com. The promoters of the Lotto Black Book claim that it is the work of Larry Blair, a math professor from Oklahoma who was shot in the leg after winning some lottery jackpot three times. Robert Perkis does not claim to have won even one lottery jackpot and is outraged at the unauthorized appropriation of his material. Even the testimonials are plagiarized.
Another product crafted along the same lines is the Silver Lotto System. The author, an Australian, claims to have personally won large sums using a system that he will sell to you for $39.95. He claims that if you you use his system he can guarantee you a 98% win rate.
His claims are not credible because his system is not mathematically valid. Disproving it, however, is not trivial, and I have had to devote twenty pages to the task. It is based on the fact that the most frequently drawn combinations of lottery numbers will be balanced with respect to high and low numbers and odd and even numbers. While this is a true observation it is of no help in picking a winning combination because all combinations are equally likely. It just happens that there are more combinations that are balanced in this way than that are unbalanced and consequently more to choose from. It all cancels out.
Ken also advises against picking what he calls "bad boy" combinations such as 1-2-3-4-5-6 or 2-4-6-8-10-12 because they have no chance at all of being drawn. Actually this is good advice, not because these combinations are less likely to be drawn than others but because they are very popular with players and if they won the jackpot would have to be shared. On August 28, 2012 the combination 1-3-5-7-9 was drawn in the Florida Fantasy Five, resulting in 98 winners and reducing each winner's share of the jackpot considerably.
Not only are Ken's principles mathematically invalid and could not result in the winnings he claims, but they are not original. They started with Gail Howard, who has been selling advice and software based on it for twenty years. Gail, however, does not claim large winnings for herself but only for her customers and she has testimonials to prove it. Of course she hears only from those of her customers who win and not from those who lose. I have placed Gail only in a 2."Bad Mathematics" category because she tells no lies.
Imagine a lottery advice vendor who invents some nonsensical rules for playing lotteries, wins solely by chance, and then attributes his success to his rules. Such a vendor is Richard Lustig, who claims to have won seven jackpots playing exactly the same numbers.
Richard has the distinction of being the only vendor claiming substantial personal winnings whose winnings have been independently verified, proving him to be honest. There is, however, some discrepancy in the details. Three of his winnings were major prizes on scratch-off tickets and only four were lottery jackpots. Three of these were in the Florida Fantasy Five, which is easier to win than most other lotteries because one must pick only 5 numbers out of 36. Usually there are multiple winners and each winner's share is correspondingly reduced. This lottery has seven drawings a week instead of two, making it an especially good one for running up a score. I'm sure that there have been other multiple winners of this particular lottery, but they have nothing to sell.
There is no shortcut to winning a lottery and what mathematical resources are available do not offer much of an advantage.
References:
https://www.createspace.com/4112993
http://www.amazon.com/Players-Guide-Lotto-Strategies-ebook/dp/B005MVVT7
Having some mathematical training, I became interested in the wealth of misinformation that is offered and even sold by self-styled experts in lottery mathematics and I began to sort these into categories. They are 1. Frauds: these include books supposedly written by someone who has discovered the secret to winning lotteries, has won large sums using his secret, and is offering to share it for a price. In truth, the system is worthless and may even be stolen from some other author. The leading instance is the so-called "Lotto Black Book," which is sold for $97 from its own web site and from the sites of affiliate marketers who receive large commissions on the sales they generate. The information in it is arcane and not especially helpful, furthermore it is not even original. It was authored by Robert Perkis and posted on his web site at lotto-logix.com. The promoters of the Lotto Black Book claim that it is the work of Larry Blair, a math professor from Oklahoma who was shot in the leg after winning some lottery jackpot three times. Robert Perkis does not claim to have won even one lottery jackpot and is outraged at the unauthorized appropriation of his material. Even the testimonials are plagiarized.
Another product crafted along the same lines is the Silver Lotto System. The author, an Australian, claims to have personally won large sums using a system that he will sell to you for $39.95. He claims that if you you use his system he can guarantee you a 98% win rate.
His claims are not credible because his system is not mathematically valid. Disproving it, however, is not trivial, and I have had to devote twenty pages to the task. It is based on the fact that the most frequently drawn combinations of lottery numbers will be balanced with respect to high and low numbers and odd and even numbers. While this is a true observation it is of no help in picking a winning combination because all combinations are equally likely. It just happens that there are more combinations that are balanced in this way than that are unbalanced and consequently more to choose from. It all cancels out.
Ken also advises against picking what he calls "bad boy" combinations such as 1-2-3-4-5-6 or 2-4-6-8-10-12 because they have no chance at all of being drawn. Actually this is good advice, not because these combinations are less likely to be drawn than others but because they are very popular with players and if they won the jackpot would have to be shared. On August 28, 2012 the combination 1-3-5-7-9 was drawn in the Florida Fantasy Five, resulting in 98 winners and reducing each winner's share of the jackpot considerably.
Not only are Ken's principles mathematically invalid and could not result in the winnings he claims, but they are not original. They started with Gail Howard, who has been selling advice and software based on it for twenty years. Gail, however, does not claim large winnings for herself but only for her customers and she has testimonials to prove it. Of course she hears only from those of her customers who win and not from those who lose. I have placed Gail only in a 2."Bad Mathematics" category because she tells no lies.
Imagine a lottery advice vendor who invents some nonsensical rules for playing lotteries, wins solely by chance, and then attributes his success to his rules. Such a vendor is Richard Lustig, who claims to have won seven jackpots playing exactly the same numbers.
Richard has the distinction of being the only vendor claiming substantial personal winnings whose winnings have been independently verified, proving him to be honest. There is, however, some discrepancy in the details. Three of his winnings were major prizes on scratch-off tickets and only four were lottery jackpots. Three of these were in the Florida Fantasy Five, which is easier to win than most other lotteries because one must pick only 5 numbers out of 36. Usually there are multiple winners and each winner's share is correspondingly reduced. This lottery has seven drawings a week instead of two, making it an especially good one for running up a score. I'm sure that there have been other multiple winners of this particular lottery, but they have nothing to sell.
There is no shortcut to winning a lottery and what mathematical resources are available do not offer much of an advantage.
References:
https://www.createspace.com/4112993
http://www.amazon.com/Players-Guide-Lotto-Strategies-ebook/dp/B005MVVT7
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