Hey DGX: Play The Worst Game In The World Without Losing All Your Money

Powerball is horrible. Nobody should ever play Powerball. Your chances of making money are astronomically low and yet millions of people play every week. For these players, the allure of the big money prize is too much for logic to overcome. Logic needs some help. Perhaps this simulator can be of service.

Justwebware.com brings us the U.S. Powerball Simulator (http://justwebware.com/powerball/powerball.html)(there are also versions for the UK National Lottery (http://justwebware.com/uklotto/uklotto.html) and EuroMillions (http://justwebware.com/eurolotto/eurolotto.html)), the purpose of which is to show just how impossible it is to make money playing Powerball.

Powerball has drawings twice a week so the simulator lets you play twice a week at either the $2 Quick Pick level or the $3 Power Play level. It then uses a random number generator to play out the results.

I gave the simulator a go, choosing Quick Play and keeping it on the “fast” setting. A half hour and about 200 years of “game time” later, I still hadn’t hit any prize over $100, so I kicked the speed up to “max,” which plays out at about a year per second. The standard “Return on $” investment hovers around $0.07 and $0.08 when you don’t hit anything over $100, which I didn’t until … okay, I was really hoping I would have hit by the time I got to finishing this paragraph. I went back to the opening paragraphs, I cropped some pictures, put in the hyperlinks and now I’m stalling …

I just hit the 500 game-years mark.

I guess I’ll go make a sandwich.

I just watched the Gangnam Style video four times in a row.

1000 years. I’m now down about $192,000.

Good thing I didn’t promise to have this in on a deadline.

That Gangnam Style dance is harder than it looks.

I really need to get back in shape.

This has been going on for an hour — 1,750 game-years. The odds of hitting the $1 million prize are 1 in 5,153,633. I’ve played about 180,000 games.

I’m giving this until 2pm, then I give up and finish this post regardless.

You wanna know what odds are worse than 175 million to 1? :-s


175 million to 0

If you don't play, you can't win.

The odds are 50/50. You either win or you don't. :lol: :D

I kind of agree, statistically it's stupid to play. I just justify it by telling myself that daydreaming about winning is worth a couple bucks here and there :mrgreen:

Some people make it a long drawn out chore of supposed mathematical analysis and problem solving for the very same reason people just throw $10 on 5-10 quickpicks on the way to trivia when the pot gets large: Because they think it's fun.

I enjoy doing my analysis. And given that I don't have very many opportunities to flex the many mathematical muscles that I built in college, using the lottery games as data sets that I can apply my knowledge to is good practice for me.

Now shush.

It's fun to join in the fervor..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DemonGeminiX

Some people make it a long drawn out chore of supposed mathematical analysis and problem solving for the very same reason people just throw $10 on 5-10 quickpicks on the way to trivia when the pot gets large: Because they think it's fun.

I enjoy doing my analysis. And given that I don't have very many opportunities to flex the many mathematical muscles that I built in college, using the lottery games as data sets that I can apply my knowledge to is good practice for me.

Now shush.

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If you ever figure out what this guy did... please let me know :lol:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...t-4-times.html

That's a girl. Not a very attractive one, but still...

There's a dude in Florida that has hit the Florida lotto 7 or 8 times over the course of 15+ years. It's not the same as playing scratch-offs, but still, if you buy a large number of distinct plays per draw every draw for a long enough time period, it might not be statistically certain, but it stands to reason that you might hit something every once in a while.

An old guy that hit the Mega millions a while back spent $350,000 on two draws (yeah, for a total of $700,000) to hit a $40 or $50 million jackpot. I think it was his entire retirement that he spent, and he sat down and chose all the numbers by himself and he used the same numbers both of the times he played. But he did win on the second attempt. So, you pick enough numbers (not picking all of them, mind you), and there ya go...

Sounds like a helluva gamble with your retirement :lol:

I guess you wouldn't use this would you? Every number has the same chance of pulling on every draw...

http://i49.tinypic.com/2vrxsvm.png

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Godfather

Sounds like a helluva gamble with your retirement :lol:

I guess you wouldn't use this would you? Every number has the same chance of pulling on every draw...

http://i49.tinypic.com/2vrxsvm.png

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I have frequency charts on the numbers and how they appear in the draw for the games that I'm watching. While it is absolutely true that every number has an equally likely chance of being drawn at every draw, it certainly does not appear that way when you look at the numbers frequency that appear in an individual digit spot. I.E, the number of times 1 appears in the first digit, the number of times 2 appears in the first digit... etc etc etc. They appear very much as a normal (bell curve) distribution. When looking at the first digit, it's skewed to the left (i.e. 1, 2, and 3 appears the most in the first digit and the rest tail off), and similarly for the last digit. The middle digits appear as a normal unskewed bell curve.

http://i.imgur.com/NObdY.jpg

Why do you keep bringing up the conspiracy angle when I'm talking about mathematical trends?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DemonGeminiX

Why do you keep bringing up the conspiracy angle when I'm talking about mathematical trends?

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Because the odds never change for any of the numbers to be chosen....the drawing 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 have the exact same odds to appear as does the drawing of 11, 21, 24, 31, and 45

Math has nothing to do with it, it's random...there is no "lottery formula"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tehlancinator

Because the odds never change for any of the numbers to be chosen....the drawing 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 have the exact same odds to appear as does the drawing of 11, 21, 24, 31, and 45

Math has nothing to do with it, it's random...there is no "lottery formula"

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:nono:

You'll be sorry when I win.

:waiting: