Home | Recreation And Leisure | Gambling

How Random Is Your Lotto?

By: Professor Dolph Click author's name for more of his/her articles

When it comes to the lottery, there is one touchy subject which is always sharply debated. The opponents fall into two groups. One side proclaims that there is nothing you can do to improve your odds of winning the lotto jackpot and the other side disagrees. This entire debate centers on the meaning of these two words: Random Draw.
The impetus behind this entire debate is the real meaning of the word Random. It is not only misunderstood by many people but, also, misapplied in many cases. There is a fog of misunderstanding, misinformation and misapplication surrounding it. But now, the fog is lifting.
When a process involving random selections begins, it is not unusual for someone to notice that certain patterns and trends begin to emerge. This is known to mathematicians, scientists and engineers alike. In fact, in any random process, cyclical events are observed at the beginning and begin to fade with the passage of time. So, when questioned about this phenomenon, the mathematician would probably respond by saying, 'You just haven't run enough trials yet.'
Guess what? I totally agree! But,keep in mind that a mathematician is focused on the long term because those results will support his position. Let's use a classical example of a random process to see who's right. We'll flip for it.
We'll flip a coin 100 times. After words, there were 65 Heads and 35 Tails; an obvious trend has appeared. Undaunted by this, the mathematician says, 'That is just an anomaly. If you run more trials, eventually, the results will even out.' So, we continue flipping until we reach 1,000. The results now are 550 Heads and 450 Tails. It is easy to see the mathematician's prediction is coming to pass.
But, still not quitegood enough. So, the coin is flipped 10,000 times and the results are 5010 Heads and 4990 Tails. Essentially, the occurrences of Heads and Tails are now equal. The mathematician happily sends us on our way with a pat on the back, knowing that he has done his job and proven that the game is random.
Hold on just a second! The experiment wasn't very random after 100 trials. The experiment was somewhat more random after 1,000 trials. After 10,000 trials, it looks like the results of flipping a coin are pretty random. And, this is the essence of the misunderstanding regarding the word random. Patterns and trends exist in all random processes at one time or another. But, given enough time or enough trials, any patterns or trends will be masked by the shear volume of data.
At this point, some of you might be asking, 'What does flipping a coin have to do with winning the Lottery jackpot?' The answer is, 'Everything!' In the random process of flipping a coin, there are only 2 possible outcomes. It took 10,000 trials before a mathematician could say unequivocally that the process was random. In a 6/54 lottery, as an example, there are 25,827,165 possible outcomes. Do you see where this is going? At two drawings per week, it will take 10's of thousands of years before we ever reach the poinst where all lottery numbers will have occurred approximately the same number of times. My friend, you're not going to be here that long. People, for the lottery, the short term is your LIFE TIME!
So, come out from underneath the blanket and take a peek. The bogeyman won't bite. Lottery number patterns and trends are there for everyone to see. And, they are FREE. You can use them to improve your odds of winning the lottery jackpot in your life time. The clock is ticking. So, do you have TIME to play the lottery?

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: The Professor is the world-famous Lottery expert, lecturer and columnist who developed LONA, your LOttery Number Advisor. For a new look at Lottery software, visit Lottery Number Analysis