Lotteries, raffels and other givaways

[Tricky]

Seeing as how the I-Ching thread became lottery-littery, I have started this thread to discuss such things.

If you believed the ads, there are hundreds of "sure fire" ways of winning the lottery, yet none have passed the acid test of consistantly winning. A Texas writer once illustrated the odds of winning the Texas lottery this way:

If you placed soda bottles along the interstate (I-10) at 1-foot intervals from Orange to El Paso (the whole length of the state, about 750 miles), your odds of winning the lottery on any given ticket are the same as picking up the one soda bottle that has "winner" written on the bottom. (Based on the amount of litter along I-10, it appears that this method has been tried.)

Professional raffles are even more obvious. You sell enough raffle tickets to cover the price of whatever you are raffling. I had a girl friend once who bought a $100 raffle ticket on a Cadillac. She was all excited because, she gushed, "They're only selling 500 tickets". (The car was valued at about $25,000).

Of course, charity raffles are a good thing and winning a prize is just a bonus.

However, I did have one friend who found a way to beat a givaway plan. Some contests say that you merely have to enter your name by mail, and there is no limit on entries. He simply mailed in a thousand entries, and for about $350 in stamps, he won several of the major prizes (including a trip to Europe).

Anybody else got any foolproof plans for beating the odds?

Ian?
...
Edited to add, "curse these boards that won't let you correct a misspelling in the thread title."

[Soapy Sam]

Well, if you never buy a ticket, the probability of winning is 0.
If you buy one ticket, the odds just improved immeasurably.
Buying two doesn't make much difference.

There's nothing "gullible" about someone who occasionally gambles for fun, so long as he knows the odds. Life should be fun as well as calculation.

If your retirement plan (like mine) is based on winning the lottery, you might have a problem...lets face it , we can't both win.

[Barkhorn1x]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Well, if you never buy a ticket, the probability of winning is 0.
If you buy one ticket, the odds just improved immeasurably.
Buying two doesn't make much difference.


One ticket is only a buck here in Florida - so what the hey - somebodies gotta win. Buying two or more is just dumb tho'.

Barkhorn.

[geni]

Originally posted by Tricky


Anybody else got any foolproof plans for beating the odds?

Not entirly foolproof but a few years ago I did win a few computer games from a kellogs giverway. The reasoning was along the lines of:

They are giveing away 50,000 games

They will get maybe 5 millionn entries (to keep the maths simple)

That means that If I enter once I have a 1 in 100 chance of winning

Each packet alows one entry

My parents are buying the stuff and paying the postage on the entries.

the more entries the better my chance of winning

Lets get eating.


I don't eat rice crispies any more

[geni]

double post

[Diogenes]

I'm with Soapy on this, as far as the ' 0 ' chance with no ticket..

Funny stories about bottles in Texas or a string of Christmas lights between Chicago and New York doesn't change the fact that winning numbers do turn up, and only people who have actually bought tickets collect anything..

Beating people over the head with odds or calling it a ' Fools Tax ' seems to be a bit arrogant to me..

The fact that there are a lot of idiots out there ( like the one who pulled the " I lost my ticket " fiasco recently ) is no reason not to take their money..

People are going to waste money anyway, why not give them one more choice and at least some semblance of doing some good with some of the proceeds..

[ceptimus]

There are (rare) occasions when a double rollover (no one won the jackpot in the previous two weeks) when the prize fund is greater than the amount collected in ticket sales (for that one draw). On such rare occasions, the lottery might actually be a good bet.

The roughly one in 14 million chance of winning the UK lottery jackpot, means that if you bought 100 tickets each week, you could expect to win the jackpot on average once every 2,700 years.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Barkhorn1x


One ticket is only a buck here in Florida - so what the hey - somebodies gotta win. Buying two or more is just dumb tho'.

Barkhorn.
LOL. Back in the I Ching thread, I made this post (http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870273034&highlight=logic#post1870273034) a few days ago.

Originally posted by Tricky
What really amuses me is the rationale that some people use for playing the lottery: "Well, somebody has to win. Why not me?" Has anyone else heard this loopy logic?


Looks like I've found said loopy person ;)

I'm sure the non-lottery-playing people of Florida are grateful to you for paying a portion of their taxes for them.

But really, I see nothing wrong with spending a buck (or a few bucks) on the lottery if it buys you an equivalent amount of excitement. I don't get my jollies that way, so I get the absolutely free pleasure of getting to feel superior. :p

[Tricky]

Originally posted by ceptimus
There are (rare) occasions when a double rollover (no one won the jackpot in the previous two weeks) when the prize fund is greater than the amount collected in ticket sales (for that one draw). On such rare occasions, the lottery might actually be a good bet.
Yes, I can see that in some cases it statistically possible that the average value of a ticket is greater than the price of the ticket. Of course, you still have only one in 14 million chances to cash in that value. And this also presupposes you didn't play in the lotteries before the double rollover.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Well, if you never buy a ticket, the probability of winning is 0.
If you buy one ticket, the odds just improved immeasurably.

I wouldn't say immeasurably. There was a Dilbert strip where Dogbert was selling half-price lottery tickets where the chances of winning were only .0000000714 less than full price lottery tickets.

Dilbert buys one then says "Hey, this is yesterday's ticket!"

[Matabiri]

Originally posted by Tricky

Of course, you still have only one in 14 million chances to cash in that value. And this also presupposes you didn't play in the lotteries before the double rollover.

I think it's reckoned that you're more likely to be hit by a meteorite than win the UK lottery...

Quite a few bookies in the UK are online. When they started up, to encourage people to bet, they offered a £50 free bet if you put in £50 of your own money. They stopped doing this when a lot of people realised that, by pairing up, they could bet either way on two-way events (such as the outcome of a tennis match) and guarantee that one of them would win more than they'd put in in total.

[Barkhorn1x]

Originally posted by Tricky

LOL. Looks like I've found said loopy person ;)

I'm sure the non-lottery-playing people of Florida are grateful to you for paying a portion of their taxes for them.


Not so fast there cowboy - w/ your superior act. I would be loopy if I were to, say;
1. Wait in anticipation for the drawing to occur.
2. Get pissed that I didn't win.
3. Buy more than one ticket at a time

A dollar a week IS meaningless - no matter the TRUE value of the ticket.

Barkhorn.

[Chad Noles]

One point that seems to get missed when discussing lotteries are the second,third,fourth prize winnings.Sure,it's less money,but I'd be happy winning a couple hundred bucks.Next time the large jackpots (Powerball,MegaMillions,etc.) get up towards the $100 million range,note the number of winners who win $5000 or more.It's just a different point of view.

[epepke]

Originally posted by ceptimus
There are (rare) occasions when a double rollover (no one won the jackpot in the previous two weeks) when the prize fund is greater than the amount collected in ticket sales (for that one draw). On such rare occasions, the lottery might actually be a good bet.


Yes, that's sound reasoning. However, the problem is that it's tricky to model. You have to compare the number of tickets that you expect to be sold this week with the number of tickets sold total in the previous weeks. If the ratio is 1 or less for a game with a 50% expectation, then the current expectation would be 1 or greater. So, you're betting that other people won't come up with the same reasoning.

Except that this doesn't count the monies paid out in previous weeks for partial matches, which mean that the ratio would have to be even lower than that to have an expectation of 1.

And when the one-week expectation is declared to be 50%, it's really 25%, because if the payoff is, say, 20 million, in a lot of states it's really just 10 million, except that they invest it hoping that the principal plus the interest of what they invest over 20 years will be 20 million.

[ceptimus]

And you also have to figure in that the jackpot might be missed for a third (or whatever) time too. It's a tricky calculation for sure.

[patnray]

FYI: On 20 year payouts, the states don't "hope" the earnings on the 10 million are enough to pay the winner their 20 million. The states buy an annuity contract from an investment company for 10 million (or so) that pays out 20 million over 20 years. The investment company then tries to maximize earnings, because they get to keep any earnings over 10 million. If the investments pay off less, the investment company still has to pay out the full amount...

The states do this for a reason. They have to payout 50% of the money bet. But they get to count the payout as 20 million, even though it only cost them 10 million. So they pocket more than 50% of the money bet...

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky
Seeing as how the I-Ching thread became lottery-littery, I have started this thread to discuss such things.

If you believed the ads, there are hundreds of "sure fire" ways of winning the lottery, yet none have passed the acid test of consistantly winning. A Texas writer once illustrated the odds of winning the Texas lottery this way:

If you placed soda bottles along the interstate (I-10) at 1-foot intervals from Orange to El Paso (the whole length of the state, about 750 miles), your odds of winning the lottery on any given ticket are the same as picking up the one soda bottle that has "winner" written on the bottom. (Based on the amount of litter along I-10, it appears that this method has been tried.)

Professional raffles are even more obvious. You sell enough raffle tickets to cover the price of whatever you are raffling. I had a girl friend once who bought a $100 raffle ticket on a Cadillac. She was all excited because, she gushed, "They're only selling 500 tickets". (The car was valued at about $25,000).

Of course, charity raffles are a good thing and winning a prize is just a bonus.

However, I did have one friend who found a way to beat a givaway plan. Some contests say that you merely have to enter your name by mail, and there is no limit on entries. He simply mailed in a thousand entries, and for about $350 in stamps, he won several of the major prizes (including a trip to Europe).

Anybody else got any foolproof plans for beating the odds?

Ian?
...
Edited to add, "curse these boards that won't let you correct a misspelling in the thread title."

I told you already in the "I Ching" thread. In the UK national lottery before they introduced the "lucky dip", one could indeed pick certain combinations of numbers so that ones average payout will be greater than 100%. I also pointed out that you will be unlikely in practise to actually benefit from that. You need to start getting 4 or more numbers for the strategy to start paying off. I've only ever won £10 once (for 3 numbers).

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by ceptimus
There are (rare) occasions when a double rollover (no one won the jackpot in the previous two weeks) when the prize fund is greater than the amount collected in ticket sales (for that one draw). On such rare occasions, the lottery might actually be a good bet.

The roughly one in 14 million chance of winning the UK lottery jackpot, means that if you bought 100 tickets each week, you could expect to win the jackpot on average once every 2,700 years. [/B]

A double rollover with this ar*ehole of a "lucky dip"?? Some chance! :rolleyes: Can you BELIEVE what an incredibly bad marketing decision it was to introduce it?? :eek: Why are people so breathtakingly stupid?? :confused:

Ah the good old days before the "lucky dip" :(

With huge jackpots :(

And rollovers galore :(

Pile of cr*p now.

I emailed the cretins but they advised me to ring this number! :eek: I'll reproduce my email here:

{quote}
Hi,

I wonder if you could tell me the highest and lowest which have ever been
paid out for 4 balls, 5 balls, 5 balls + bonus, and jackpot since the
National Lottery was first started in 1994?

Could you also tell me what these amounts were for the period BEFORE the
"lucky dip" was introduced, and for AFTER the "lucky dip was introduced?

My suspicion is that the "lucky dip" will reduce the maximum amounts paid
out (especially for the jackpot), and that the introduction of the "lucky
dip" was a breathtakingly bad marketing decision. Why don't you get rid of
it? Sure, a lot of the public will complain, and perhaps there will be a
temporary reduction in sales. But with the increased jackpots and vastly
increased numbers of rollovers, they'll all start playing it again, and
other people will start playing who at the moment do not bother! Speaking
personally I used to go on the lottery all the time before the "lucky dip"
was introduced, but now scarcely ever go on due to the lucky dip bringing
down the value of the prizes paid out.

I highly suspect that the National Lottery will make a hell of a lot of more
money in the long run by getting rid of the "lucky dip". So how about it?



{/quote}

[TLN]

Originally posted by Tricky
Anybody else got any foolproof plans for beating the odds?

Ian?

But of course! Ian has the best method for beating the odds:

"Prove my unfalsifiable, untestable theory wrong. What, you can't? I win!"

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky

Yes, I can see that in some cases it statistically possible that the average value of a ticket is greater than the price of the ticket. Of course, you still have only one in 14 million chances to cash in that value. And this also presupposes you didn't play in the lotteries before the double rollover.

Before the lucky dip was introduced it didn't have to be a double rollover provided ones selection of numbers was intelligent. Indeed one might even have got over a100% average payout rate even if there were not a rollover!

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
[B]

A double rollover with this ar*ehole of a "lucky dip"?? Some chance! :rolleyes: Can you BELIEVE what an incredibly bad marketing decision it was to introduce it?? :eek: Why are people so breathtakingly stupid?? :confused:

Ah the good old days before the "lucky dip" :(

With huge jackpots :(

And rollovers galore :(

Pile of cr*p now.



Oh no! My posts are starting to look like de_Bunks! :eek:

[epepke]

Originally posted by patnray
FYI: On 20 year payouts, the states don't "hope" the earnings on the 10 million are enough to pay the winner their 20 million. The states buy an annuity contract from an investment company for 10 million (or so) that pays out 20 million over 20 years.

I was being somewhat cynical and sarcastic there. I've seen state lotteries mushroom over the past decade or so, and when things mushroom like that, I expect the worst, as with the dot com bubble. The "hope" is that there won't be any serious economic collapse in the next twenty years. The S&L fiasco eroded my faith; the 90's and Enron eroded it more. I think that there are odds better than winning the lottery of at least one state's defaulting within the next twenty years.

[ceptimus]

Here's a java applet I wrote, which some people use to choose their lottery numbers (I don't play). The idea is to choose a number in the range 1 to 13,983,816 (in the case of a 6 from 49 lottery) and the applet tells you what numbers to choose to obtain that 'ticket number'. Or vice-versa. The possible choices are ranked in order with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 being ticket number 1 and 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 being ticket number 13,983,816 You can use your birthday, in the form MMDDYYYY, and it will give a differently skewed selection than you would normally get using dates to pick numbers directly. For example, Queen Elizabeth was born April, 21 1926 and typing 04211926 into the applet suggests that the Queen should pick the numbers 3, 13, 19, 33, 34, 40 :rolleyes:

It works for different lotteries to 6 / 49 which are used in some states. It's pretty self-explaining, I hope.

<APPLET codebase="http://www.mround.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/" code="lotto.class" width="400" height="200" hspace="20" vspace="14"></APPLET>

[Skeptician]

Originally posted by ceptimus
Here's a java applet I wrote, which some people use to choose their lottery numbers (I don't play). The idea is to choose a number in the range 1 to 13,983,816 (in the case of a 6 from 49 lottery) and the applet tells you what numbers to choose to obtain that 'ticket number'. Or vice-versa. The possible choices are ranked in order with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 being ticket number 1 and 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 being ticket number 13,983,816 You can use your birthday, in the form MMDDYYYY, and it will give a differently skewed selection than you would normally get using dates to pick numbers directly. For example, Queen Elizabeth was born April, 21 1926 and typing 04211926 into the applet suggests that the Queen should pick the numbers 3, 13, 19, 33, 34, 40 :rolleyes:

It works for different lotteries to 6 / 49 which are used in some states. It's pretty self-explaining, I hope.

<APPLET codebase="http://www.mround.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/" code="lotto.class" width="400" height="200" hspace="20" vspace="14"></APPLET>

It is illogic to gamble therefore only woo woos gamble!

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Tricky

Yes, I can see that in some cases it statistically possible that the average value of a ticket is greater than the price of the ticket. Of course, you still have only one in 14 million chances to cash in that value. And this also presupposes you didn't play in the lotteries before the double rollover. Well, one could buy 14 million tickets to cover all possible combinations - providing that the cash for the winner is more than 14 million. Losing five dollar in the previous rounds wouldn't make much of a difference.

Now one only has to hope that there are no other winners to share the jackpot with. :p

(By the way, if this was an old-fashioned lottery with 14 million paper tickets nobody else would be able to play.)

[T'ai Chi]

No one beats the lottery. Even the people who win the lottery don't really beat it.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Killing off the thread at:

http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33926

Didn't want to repost the same shtuff.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Bjorn
(By the way, if this was an old-fashioned lottery with 14 million paper tickets nobody else would be able to play.)

This reminds me of an old Born Loser comic strip where the main character bought all the tickets to a 50/50 raffle.

[Suddenly]

When you are dealing with a animal such as a large lottery where the amount paid off is measured in the millions of dollars, standard gambling analysis breaks down.

The only way to beat the lottery would be to only play when the value of the possible payouts, so that the "expected value" is more than the cost of the ticket.

3 problems

1) It rarely happens.

2) When it does happen, it is a mirage, as if two numbers both hit the main prize, the prize is split. So what looks like an positive expected value (+EV) situation may really be negative. This is exagerated by the fact that when the jackpot grows, more people play.

3) Even if the above two problems were ignored, and we assumed a +EV situation once a week, it would take until the heat death of the universe until the variance evened out, or you would need a such titanic bankroll to play enough tickets that it would beg the question of why you are bothering...

It doesn't really make sense to calculate it by means of odds and so forth. It is a stupid thing to do as an investment, but as entertainment it seems OK.

If you want to make money by gambling you pretty much can forget the lottery.

[xouper]

Tricky: ... I get the absolutely free pleasure of getting to feel superior. :p I'm guessing that Jack Whittaker Jr. of West Virginia doesn't give a rats ass that you feel superior to him. He won a $314.9 million jackpot in December 2002 in the Powerball lottery.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Bjorn
Well, one could buy 14 million tickets to cover all possible combinations - providing that the cash for the winner is more than 14 million. Losing five dollar in the previous rounds wouldn't make much of a difference.

Now one only has to hope that there are no other winners to share the jackpot with. :p

(By the way, if this was an old-fashioned lottery with 14 million paper tickets nobody else would be able to play.)
If you were able to buy and fill out one lottery ticket a second (making sure each was a different combination) then it would take you more than five months to complete 14 million tickets. I think they hold the lottery more often than that. :p

Originally posted by Xouper
I'm guessing that Jack Whittaker Jr. of West Virginia doesn't give a rats ass that you feel superior to him. He won a $314.9 million jackpot in December 2002 in the Powerball lottery.
Yeah, I think I still would. I've read stories about lottery winners who spend their days haunted by begging people. You can't be anonymous either, because being recognized is part of the deal. Besides, I'm not certain that sudden and vast wealth would make you happy anyway. When you balance out Jack's story against all the people who throw away their money (much of it needed for other things, based on the people I usually see buying lottery tickets) on an unlikely dream, then I still feel ahead of the game.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Ian had said that you could now play the UK lottery online and get your winnings funneled directly into your bank account. Does this marvel of technology allow for the opposite to happen? Can you pick a bunch of numbers (or have them randomly pick your numbers) and have them automatically funnel all of your money directly out of the bank for you?

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
Can you pick a bunch of numbers (or have them randomly pick your numbers) and have them automatically funnel all of your money directly out of the bank for you?

Dude, that is what online gambling is. :)

Wait a sec did I just say lottery is gambling? Oops...!

[aerosolben]

Originally posted by Suddenly
The only way to beat the lottery would be to only play when the value of the possible payouts, so that the "expected value" is more than the cost of the ticket.

3 problems

1) It rarely happens.

2) When it does happen, it is a mirage, as if two numbers both hit the main prize, the prize is split. So what looks like an positive expected value (+EV) situation may really be negative. This is exagerated by the fact that when the jackpot grows, more people play.

3) Even if the above two problems were ignored, and we assumed a +EV situation once a week, it would take until the heat death of the universe until the variance evened out, or you would need a such titanic bankroll to play enough tickets that it would beg the question of why you are bothering...

There is a fourth problem (which ties into your third point):

Most people are actually not risk neutral (consider expected value of lottery to be reasonable ticket price) but risk-averse.

Consider the following lottery: You flip a coin repeatedly until tails comes up. For the first successful heads, you win $2. For every subsequent heads, you (additionally) win double the previous payout (4,8,16,etc).

How much would you be willing to pay to participate in this contest?

A risk-neutral person would be willing to pay any suggested sum of money, as the expected payout is infinite:

2*(1/2) + 4*(1/4) + 8*(1/8) + ...

Any risk-neutral folks who care to dispute my argument, I will host this contest with the backing of a major insurance company for a measly $100,000,000 entry fee. Up front, of course. After all, you can expect to win much more than that...

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Tricky Anybody else got any foolproof plans for beating the odds? [/B]

Well I think it's possible to win money on internet casinos. Some of them give you for example 50 dollars the first time you put 100 dollars on your account, and says you have to play your money through two times, before you can take them out again. By playing blackjack you get a return rate of, I believe, 98,5% which means that you put in 100 dollars get 50 and play through twice losing on average 4,5 dollar and getting 145,5 dollars back. I haven't done this myself, but I one of my brothers friends has and he did win consistently.

[The Don]

Originally posted by Kerberos


Well I think it's possible to win money on internet casinos. Some of them give you for example 50 dollars the first time you put 100 dollars on your account, and says you have to play your money through two times, before you can take them out again. By playing blackjack you get a return rate of, I believe, 98,5% which means that you put in 100 dollars get 50 and play through twice losing on average 4,5 dollar and getting 145,5 dollars back. I haven't done this myself, but I one of my brothers friends has and he did win consistently.

Perhaps your brother's friend is the exception, but the great majority of gamblers (poker players and Blackjack players who are allowed to card-count effectively excepted) claim to be winners. This clearly cannot be the case otherwise casinos wouldn't bother.

We forget the 10 times we lost $50, but remember the one time we won $300, ergo we are ahead.

The only sure-fire way of winning is to be abel to cover all possible odds. I have a friend who is a keen supporter of Manchester United (a soccer team). He routinely bets with friends that Man Utd will beat their team but ony offers evens. He will then lays off the two remaining outcomes (Opposition win and draw) at the bookmakers. He achieves this by effectively cheating his friends out of the proper odds.

I read somewhere that the famous gambler Jimmy the Greek used to do somethnig similar in Las Vegas with people who wre hot on the craps table. He'd offer an even money bet against them making their point, even though the true odds were considerably greater.

[RussDill]

I think the question to ask here is

a) Do you think it's possible/likely that you'll ever win the lottery

and b) Do you think it's possible/likely that the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 (and mabye 6 powerball) will ever appear

c) If you gave the same answer to both, which do you think is more likely, and why?


[hedging my bet that lottery players think a is more likely, which is only true if they buy a crudload of tickets to make up for all the lotteries they don't play]

[RussDill]

I'm a little teapot short and stout, here is my handle, here is my spout, when I get all steamed up here me shout, tip me over and pour me out.

[my punishment for double posting, imagine the hand motions to go with it]

[The Don]

Originally posted by RussDill
I think the question to ask here is

a) Do you think it's possible/likely that you'll ever win the lottery

and b) Do you think it's possible/likely that the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 (and mabye 6 powerball) will ever appear

c) If you gave the same answer to both, which do you think is more likely, and why?


[hedging my bet that lottery players think a is more likely, which is only true if they buy a crudload of tickets to make up for all the lotteries they don't play]

If I were to play the lottery (which I don't)

a) Yes, but probably not the jackpot if I played weekly I guess I'd
get £10 about once a year

b) Yes eventually, but I wouldn't play them because while ago I heard that 100s if people play these numbers so my share of the jackpot would be very small

c) if you play one set of numbers in each draw then they are equally likely. If on average you play more than one set of numbers, you are more likely to win than 1,2,3,4,5,6 coming up

[Rolfe]

Temporary hijacking of thread.....

Cop: OK, Jack, you seem to have an awful lot of money. Care to explain where you got it from?

Jack: Of course, officer. I won it in the lottery.

Cop: Ridiculous. Everybody knows the odds of winning the lottery are 14 million to one. Preposterous story. Three million quid you can't explain, eh? Now, the law says that if you have a lot of money you can't explain, we can argue that on the balance of probability it's the proceeds of crime, and confiscate it.

Jack: Hey, where are you going with my money....?

This is effectively what happened to Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Trupti Patel (and possibly others), when they had more than one baby die without an obvious explanation. And it was a Professor of Medicine who argued this way.

(Oops, I think I just played right into Epepke's hands with this point. Never mind.)

The question in this case isn't the odds, it's how often it actually happens to someone in the population in question. Which as far as the multiple SIDs is concerned, seems to be about once every 18 months in the UK.

Rolfe.

Normal service in this thread will now be resumed.

[xouper]

Tricky: Yeah, I think I still would. I've read stories about lottery winners who spend their days haunted by begging people. You can't be anonymous either, because being recognized is part of the deal. Besides, I'm not certain that sudden and vast wealth would make you happy anyway. When you balance out Jack's story against all the people who throw away their money (much of it needed for other things, based on the people I usually see buying lottery tickets) on an unlikely dream, then I still feel ahead of the game.Depsite all the negative aspects of winning a big lottery, how many of the winners later regreted having won? I'm guessing not very many. My point was that I think you would have a hard time convincing most big lottery winners that they were stoopid for playing the lottery.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by xouper
Depsite all the negative aspects of winning a big lottery, how many of the winners later regreted having won? I'm guessing not very many. My point was that I think you would have a hard time convincing most big lottery winners that they were stoopid for playing the lottery.
Well, you're probably right, but I suspect that many of them now regard it as a "mixed blessing". I have heard a few "I wish I'd never won" stories.

But the people who really won't believe that playing the lottery is stupid are the ones who've never won anything significant.

[Suddenly]

Originally posted by Tricky

When you balance out Jack's story against all the people who throw away their money (much of it needed for other things, based on the people I usually see buying lottery tickets) on an unlikely dream, then I still feel ahead of the game.

Jack is throwing away his money, don't you worry. He got in a little trouble over an assault recently, and there was that little problem some months ago when he had a briefcase with six-figures worth of cash stolen at a strip bar.

The irony is that he was already a millionare several times over when he won the thing...

A porter at the casino in New Albany, Indiana where I often go to play poker, once, upon hearing I was from W.Va., gave me a vivid description of Jack's gambling habits. Yikes. I had never really considered $100 slot machines before that.

I heard roughly fifth handed that he was barred from the local racetrack (which has what amounts to a casino with only slot machines) for poor behaviour towards the staff. I'm not sure about that though.

I mean, I can't even imagine how out of control you would have to be to get kicked out of a casino when you are a hopeless slot-jockey with 100 million to waste. That's like being kicked out of Aerosmith in 1978 because you drug use was out of control, only like 100 times worse.

I'm hoping he starts watching all the televised poker that has been popping up lately and gets ideas. Maybe I should invite him to my game. Hmmm... (looks for the phone book)

[Barkhorn1x]

Originally posted by Suddenly


I mean, I can't even imagine how out of control you would have to be to get kicked out of a casino when you are a hopeless slot-jockey with 100 million to waste.

LOMAO - that is the funniest GD line I've read in about 6 months as it hits home on so many levels.

Barkhorn.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Bjorn
Well, one could buy 14 million tickets to cover all possible combinations - providing that the cash for the winner is more than 14 million. Losing five dollar in the previous rounds wouldn't make much of a difference.

Now one only has to hope that there are no other winners to share the jackpot with. :p

(By the way, if this was an old-fashioned lottery with 14 million paper tickets nobody else would be able to play.)

This has actually been done successfully at least once, I believe it may have been in Kentucky.

It's pretty impractical. First, you have to have the $7.5 million in ready cash. (Assuming you get two numbers per ticket as you do in my state.) Very ready, if there are two games a week--you'll only have four days at most to print them all. Then you have to have an arrangement with a ticket seller to process your forms (pre-filled out) 24 hours a day. (The guys in KY didn't actually manage to get all the tickets but did get the winning one.) Then you have to wait until the jackpot is sufficiently large to be worth going after. And remember, you only get half as a lump sum. And as Bjorn pointed out, you may have to share.

I believe the winners were a consortium of Australians who had put in $1000 each. They probably only about doubled their money.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Oh for Chr*st sake, how stupid can you be!??? I provide proof that similar combinations of numbers to what I pick, pay out vastly more than certain other combinations of numbers (not that proof were needed), and a webpage confirms the point about smart people realizing the introduction of the "lucky dip" was disadvantageous to them.

Your stupidity is truly breathtakingly and clearly incorrigible. Don't waste my time.

First and foremost I would like to mock you for submitting that web page as conformation of your superior intellect. I myself have found equally compelling proof to the contrary here (http://tinyurl.com/g2wt).

The argument wasn't about the dip messing up your precious strategy. It was about your claim that prior to the dip you were guaranteed to walk out with more than 100% of the money you put into the lottery. Even though it never happened in all the times you played, and even though the lottery didn't fold under with such a glaringly simple statistical hole in it's side, it was a sure fire win for you cause you're so smart.

On to the second fight: Why You're Still Not a "Smart People".

You are coming up with an (arguably) logical pattern to guarantee that you are picking series of numbers that are hopefully not picked by anyone else.

The number one problem with this is that the statistics provided by that program are collected off of collected winnings, not off of purchased tickets. You have no exact knowledge of what numbers people are picking, you only have a rough idea based off of what winning numbers get collected.

Problem number two. You pick numbers using a method. People usually don't pick numbers in a row. You do. People probably pick lower numbers. You don't. Just in case other people are as smart as you and are picking numbers in a row you drop two of them and pick two more high numbers that aren't part of the line up. You are hoping that with each one of these steps you are placing more distance between yourself and other lottery players. The problem is that you are conciously making choices, and it's possible that other people are making many of the same choices. Granted, with each step your chances of being the only person picking those numbers go up.

BUT your chances when making a series of concious choices will never, ever, ever get as good as if you just picked your numbers randomly. The chances of someone else picking your entirely random selection of numbers is EXACTLY the same chance that you would have winning the lottery. 1 in 14 million.

The only thing that you managed to prove was that approximately 13.9 million people who attempt to play the lottery following your clever picking combinations still lose money.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by The Don


Perhaps your brother's friend is the exception, but the great majority of gamblers (poker players and Blackjack players who are allowed to card-count effectively excepted) claim to be winners. This clearly cannot be the case otherwise casinos wouldn't bother.

The point for the casinos, is that most people are to stupid to stop playing, after having played their money through the required number of times. It’s basically bait, but it's possible to eat the bait and avoid the hook. However there are still enough morons to make it profitable to the casinos. I'll try and see if I can find an example, but the possibility of doing this has been limited in recent years, by the casinos requiring more replays and giving smaller bonuses.

Edit to add: My brothers friend keept record so it's not a case of selective memory.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Some things not yet touched on.

The ethics involved. The fact that the lottery is, for the most part, a government run Anti-Robin Hood. It robs from the poor and uneducated and redistibutes it across the three classes. Yes they're adults, yes they should be able to make these decisions on their own, but does that mean that the government should be actively teaching them that it's the right decision to make?

Should the cigarette companies go back to cartoon mascots and stories about how good and healthy smoking is for you?

Gambling addiction? States that institute lotteries show a marked increase in gambling addiction especially among teenagers and young adults.

The ties between gambling addiction and crime: theft, fraud and suicide?

Now I sleep...

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Oh for Chr*st sake, how stupid can you be!??? I provide proof that similar combinations of numbers to what I pick, pay out vastly more than certain other combinations of numbers (not that proof were needed), and a webpage confirms the point about smart people realizing the introduction of the "lucky dip" was disadvantageous to them.

Your stupidity is truly breathtakingly and clearly incorrigible. Don't waste my time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



First and foremost I would like to mock you for submitting that web page as conformation of your superior intellect. I myself have found equally compelling proof to the contrary here.



Grow up you complete cretin.



The argument wasn't about the dip messing up your precious strategy. It was about your claim that prior to the dip you were guaranteed to walk out with more than 100% of the money you put into the lottery.



I have never claimed that. Just demonstrates how much you understand my points. I said that my average payout before the lucky dip was introduced would have been greater than 100%. Average as in normal average ie the mean. Do you not understand what the word average means?? Try to understand, the odds of me winning money are precisely that same as the average person's, it's just that I will get more when I get 4 or more balls right. Since this is less than a 1/1000 of a chance for any single £1 stake, I am scarcely guaranteed to walk out with more than 100% of the money I put in! :eek: Indeed, if anything, it's almost the converse!




Even though it never happened in all the times you played, and even though the lottery didn't fold under with such a glaringly simple statistical hole in it's side, it was a sure fire win for you cause you're so smart.



I told you my AVERAGE winnings would be over 100%. This certainly doesn't mean I ever win anything. I'm NOT saying the average of what I actually won was over 100% (indeed I think it was about 2%). And it's certainly not a glaringly statistical hole in the lottery. The average payout rate will only be over 100% for me because scarcely anyone else chose the number patterns I did.



On to the second fight: Why You're Still Not a "Smart People".

You are coming up with an (arguably) logical pattern to guarantee that you are picking series of numbers that are hopefully not picked by anyone else.

The number one problem with this is that the statistics provided by that program are collected off of collected winnings, not off of purchased tickets. You have no exact knowledge of what numbers people are picking, you only have a rough idea based off of what winning numbers get collected.



The pattern is quite clear. If a spread out number sequence comes up all the prizes are relatively low. If a bunched up number sequence comes up between the numbers 31 and 48 then the prizes are high apart from prizes obtained with3 balls (whose prize is fixed at £10 (unless too many people win it)). With 5 balls + bonus ball the prize has ranged from £7000 odd pounds to £1.9 MILLION pounds for chr*st sake. But yes, the odds are still only 1 in 2.5 million for getting 5 numbers + the bonus so I will probably never benefit from my intelligent selection of numbers. Does that make you happy?



Problem number two. You pick numbers using a method. People usually don't pick numbers in a row. You do. People probably pick lower numbers. You don't. Just in case other people are as smart as you and are picking numbers in a row you drop two of them and pick two more high numbers that aren't part of the line up. You are hoping that with each one of these steps you are placing more distance between yourself and other lottery players. The problem is that you are conciously making choices, and it's possible that other people are making many of the same choices. Granted, with each step your chances of being the only person picking those numbers go up.



Trust me, and my friends can verify this, very few people indeed think like me! Indeed one of my friends said some time ago that with anyone else's personality, he can always think of another person with a very similar personality. He said that I'm an exception in that he has never ever encountered a person with remotely a similar personality to me in his life!



BUT your chances when making a series of concious choices will never, ever, ever get as good as if you just picked your numbers randomly.



:wow2: you really are stupid aren't you??? I'm impressed!

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
[B]Some things not yet touched on.

The ethics involved. The fact that the lottery is, for the most part, a government run Anti-Robin Hood. It robs from the poor and uneducated and redistibutes it across the three classes. Yes they're adults, yes they should be able to make these decisions on their own, but does that mean that the government should be actively teaching them that it's the right decision to make?



Yes I entirely agree.

[ceptimus]

Given that a large proportion of lottery funds are spent on things like opera and art gallery objects, the lottery is even more 'anti Robin Hood' than you might first think.

Relitively few poor people are interested in opera, ballet and art galleries. The lottery funds would be more fairly distributed if they were spent on local parks, playgrounds, sports facilities and so on.

The rich people who enjoy opera should not be subsidised by the poor stupid lottery players (IMO).

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I have never claimed that. Just demonstrates how much you understand my points. I said that my average payout before the lucky dip was introduced would have been greater than 100%. Average as in normal average ie the mean. Do you not understand what the word average means??


Greater than 100% of what? Do you mean that on average (ie 50% of the time) you were winning 100+% of your money? That's impossible. Or do you mean that the average amount of all of the prizes you won was greater than the £1 ticket price? That's just stupid.


The pattern is quite clear. If a spread out number sequence comes up all the prizes are relatively low. If a bunched up number sequence comes up between the numbers 31 and 48 then the prizes are high apart from prizes obtained with3 balls (whose prize is fixed at £10 (unless too many people win it)). With 5 balls + bonus ball the prize has ranged from £7000 odd pounds to £1.9 MILLION pounds for chr*st sake. But yes, the odds are still only 1 in 2.5 million for getting 5 numbers + the bonus so I will probably never benefit from my intelligent selection of numbers. Does that make you happy?

Please stop calling it intelligent.

You have no idea what numbers people are playing. Just because fewer people win with sequences of numbers doesn't mean that no people are playing sequences of numbers.

The fact that you back up your theory with a website that's hawking lottery statistics software that tells people to play the same ingenious chunk of numbers doesn't make you think in the slightest that there might be other people on that same ship of fools with you?

From a game theory perspective, your number picks are unimportant. Regardless of what you pick you can not affect your odds of winning. All you can do is try to remove yourself from the pack of other players. Picking a number through any intentional pattern can only move you so far from the pack. A random selection is your best bet.


Trust me, and my friends can verify this, very few people indeed think like me!

You don't say.


:wow2: you really are stupid aren't you??? I'm impressed!

Please disprove my logic lottery boy.

[ceptimus]

I'll work out the answer myself before I repost what I originally posted here.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat


Greater than 100% of what? Do you mean that on average (ie 50% of the time) you were winning 100+% of your money? That's impossible. Or do you mean that the average amount of all of the prizes you won was greater than the £1 ticket price? That's just stupid.



Please stop calling it intelligent.

You have no idea what numbers people are playing. Just because fewer people win with sequences of numbers doesn't mean that no people are playing sequences of numbers.

The fact that you back up your theory with a website that's hawking lottery statistics software that tells people to play the same ingenious chunk of numbers doesn't make you think in the slightest that there might be other people on that same ship of fools with you?

From a game theory perspective, your number picks are unimportant. Regardless of what you pick you can not affect your odds of winning. All you can do is try to remove yourself from the pack of other players. Picking a number through any intentional pattern can only move you so far from the pack. A random selection is your best bet.



You don't say.



Please disprove my logic lottery boy.

Right, that's it, I'm sick of your stupidity.

I'm putting you on ignore!

[Tricky]

Even if it could be shown that the average value of a lottery ticket is greater than its price, you would still have to play 7 million times in order to have a 50% chance at winning. What's your chances of doing that, Ian?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky
Even if it could be shown that the average value of a lottery ticket is greater than its price, you would still have to play 7 million times in order to have a 50% chance at winning. What's your chances of doing that, Ian?

Damn, didn't got any numbers, not even the bonus :mad:

[ceptimus]

Here's how Ian can win on the UK lottery by choosing combinations of numbers that no one else does:

30 million ticket sales each week nets 30 million pounds.

Half of that is absorbed in charges, tax, and "good causes"

That leaves 15 million pounds in the prize fund each week.

22% of that prize fund (i.e. 3.3 million pounds) is shared out amongst people who match 4 numbers.

Now if Ian is smart and picks the numbers: 16, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, and the people buying the other 29,999,999 tickets are all morons, and don't pick any of those numbers (or even if they don't ever pick more than three of them on a single ticket).....

....then Ian can expect to win 3.3 million pounds all to himself every 1013 plays (i.e. once every 19 and a half years). That is an expected return of 3.3 million pounds for a 1013 pound outlay. This ignores any 10 pound prizes for matching three numbers, or any higher prizes he might win.

Of course, Ian could buy 100 tickets a week (with different combinations of numbers on each), and providing he avoided matching more than three numbers with any of the other morons playing, he could then expect to net 3.3 million every 10 weeks or so.

This is an extreme example, I know, but it shows that if you can choose number combinations that few other people choose, you can beat the odds.

I sincerely doubt whether it is possible to choose such numbers though. I think I'm smarter than Ian, and I don't play the lottery.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Right, that's it, I'm sick of your stupidity.

I'm putting you on ignore!

Aw man.

If someone can explain what he's trying to say to me when he says he was winning more than 100% on average please do. It's driving me crazy trying to figure out what he means.

Is there a flaw in my logic about a random selection vs high number selection?

And why do we keep differentiating between the two groups of players as 'intelligent' and 'moronic'? How about 'high' and 'low'? I think that classification would bug me a lot less.

[ceptimus]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
If someone can explain what he's trying to say to me when he says he was winning more than 100% on average please do. It's driving me crazy trying to figure out what he means.Did I just do that in the previous post?

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by ceptimus
Did I just do that in the previous post?

But he was saying that prior to the big LD he was averaging better than 100% on his winnings even though he never won anything more than the 3 number wins?

[ceptimus]

But he thinks he would have won on average - just with the 4 number things. You only expect to get one of those (on average) every 19.5 years if you only buy one ticket a week. Unfortunately, the rules were changed before Ian's big win came up. :(

If he was so confident in his system, he should, of course, have bought 20 tickets a week. Then he could have expected to get a big win about once a year. I guess Ian wasn't smart enough to think of that, or maybe he was too poor to fund the enterprise. :rolleyes:

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by ceptimus
But he thinks he would have won on average - just with the 4 number things. You only expect to get one of those (on average) every 19.5 years if you only buy one ticket a week. Unfortunately, the rules were changed before Ian's big win came up. :(


Ohhhh... I totally missed the tense of his argument. *shrug* Oh well.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by ceptimus
Here's how Ian can win on the UK lottery by choosing combinations of numbers that no one else does:

30 million ticket sales each week nets 30 million pounds.

Half of that is absorbed in charges, tax, and "good causes"

That leaves 15 million pounds in the prize fund each week.

22% of that prize fund (i.e. 3.3 million pounds) is shared out amongst people who match 4 numbers.

Now if Ian is smart and picks the numbers: 16, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, and the people buying the other 29,999,999 tickets are all morons, and don't pick any of those numbers (or even if they don't ever pick more than three of them on a single ticket).....

....then Ian can expect to win 3.3 million pounds all to himself every 1013 plays (i.e. once every 19 and a half years). That is an expected return of 3.3 million pounds for a 1013 pound outlay. This ignores any 10 pound prizes for matching three numbers, or any higher prizes he might win.

Of course, Ian could buy 100 tickets a week (with different combinations of numbers on each), and providing he avoided matching more than three numbers with any of the other morons playing, he could then expect to net 3.3 million every 10 weeks or so.

This is an extreme example, I know, but it shows that if you can choose number combinations that few other people choose, you can beat the odds.

I sincerely doubt whether it is possible to choose such numbers though. I think I'm smarter than Ian, and I don't play the lottery.

Ceptimus,

The question of whether it's "worth it" or not is a bit more involved and non-obvious than you seem to think it is.

Let me ask you a question. If, instead of the current payout rate of 50%, it was 100%, and the 3 numbr prize stayed the same ie £10, but the 4 number average payput rate was about 1.5 times that it is now ie £100, the 5 number average payout rate was about 1.5 times the current rate ie £2250, the 5 number + bonus number average payout rate was 1.5 times the rate it is now ie about £150,000, and the jackpot was about, on average, 3 times the current payout rate ie about £8,000,000, what consequences would it have on your assessment of whether it was "worth" putting money on the lottery?

Moreover, still considering a 100% average payout rate, what difference would it make say, if you put a £1 on a week, compared to £2, or £5, or £10 per week? Finally, in assessing whether it's "worth it", what difference would it make on how well off you are in deciding whether to put £0, £1, £2, £5, £10, £50 per week on the lottery?

[thaiboxerken]

I think a sure fire way to win a raffle is to destroy all other entries except yours.

A sure way to win the lottery is to cheat.

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Q: There are so many beliefs and opinions out there and it gets confusing so what should I believe!?

A: A good rule of thumb is if CSICOP doesn’t support it then its BS since they are the true objective committee that represents truth to the fullest extent! In order to avoid the doomed ways of irrationality be sure to check with the websites of CSICOP and skepticdic to avoid making the fallacious move of coming to an independent decision regarding what to believe! You are in better hands by allowing superior intellects to decide what is permissible for you to accept rather then trusting your own trivial judgments! As always when in doubt be sure to ask yourself WWMJROTJREFD (what would Mr. James Randi of the James Randi Educational Foundation do) and the materialism compatible answer to the question shall be clear!

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
Is there a flaw in my logic about a random selection vs high number selection?
Yes, since there is a pattern to the numbers selected by players, it is possible to consciously select numbers that fewer people select than we would expect from chance alone. The question is of course if Ian’s numbers really are selected less often, and if they're selected so rarely that it's on average profitable. We can't really know this for certain, without having statistics on which number-combinations are chosen by other people than Ian.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Kerberos

Yes, since there is a pattern to the numbers selected by players, it is possible to consciously select numbers that fewer people select than we would expect from chance alone. The question is of course if Ian’s numbers really are selected less often, and if they're selected so rarely that it's on average profitable. We can't really know this for certain, without having statistics on which number-combinations are chosen by other people than Ian.

But if those numbers were released, everyone would have access to them and they'd be used more. You can show the trend, but then you'd have to predict where it will move. Even if the statistics on the selections were updated continuously, the numbers being picked would change in response until the final lottery numbers were drawn?

[ceptimus]

Ian: The question of whether it's "worth it" or not is a bit more involved and non-obvious than you seem to think it is.

No. I realise how complex it is. I was giving a simple but extreme example, to illustrate my point.

The lottery you decribe with the 100% payout. Such a lottery wouldn't survive for long, for obvious reasons.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by !Xx+-Rational-+xX!
Q: There are so many beliefs and opinions out there and it gets confusing so what should I believe!?

A: A good rule of thumb is if CSICOP doesn’t support it then its BS since they are the true objective committee that represents truth to the fullest extent! In order to avoid the doomed ways of irrationality be sure to check with the websites of CSICOP and skepticdic to avoid making the fallacious move of coming to an independent decision regarding what to believe! You are in better hands by allowing superior intellects to decide what is permissible for you to accept rather then trusting your own trivial judgments! As always when in doubt be sure to ask yourself WWMJROTJREFD (what would Mr. James Randi of the James Randi Educational Foundation do) and the materialism compatible answer to the question shall be clear!

Interesting advice Rational! LOL I might start a poll asking people if they think it's good advice :)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by ceptimus
Ian: The question of whether it's "worth it" or not is a bit more involved and non-obvious than you seem to think it is.

No. I realise how complex it is. I was giving a simple but extreme example, to illustrate my point.

The lottery you decribe with the 100% payout. Such a lottery wouldn't survive for long, for obvious reasons.

Yes, but that's not relevant. I'm exploring the issue of whether it's "worth it".]

Actually such a lottery could survive anyway. It could be funded by the Government.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat


But if those numbers were released, everyone would have access to them and they'd be used more. You can show the trend, but then you'd have to predict where it will move. Even if the statistics on the selections were updated continuously, the numbers being picked would change in response until the final lottery numbers were drawn?

It's not the numbers so much, but also the particular sequence of numbers. I've never seen anywhere advising you to pick 4 or 5 numbers in a row above 31 anywhere. Unless such advice was widely publicised then your argument doesn't apply.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by !Xx+-Rational-+xX!
Q: There are so many beliefs and opinions out there and it gets confusing so what should I believe!?

A: A good rule of thumb is if CSICOP doesn’t support it then its BS since they are the true objective committee that represents truth to the fullest extent! In order to avoid the doomed ways of irrationality be sure to check with the websites of CSICOP and skepticdic to avoid making the fallacious move of coming to an independent decision regarding what to believe! You are in better hands by allowing superior intellects to decide what is permissible for you to accept rather then trusting your own trivial judgments! As always when in doubt be sure to ask yourself WWMJROTJREFD (what would Mr. James Randi of the James Randi Educational Foundation do) and the materialism compatible answer to the question shall be clear!

OK, I've started a poll in the JREF Forum Community :)

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Skeptics,

When it comes to intelligence we are way up here ^^^ and the believers are all the way down there:bricks:! Simple enough!? Yes! Simple enough for believers!? Of course not!

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Materialism I would like to take a moment to talk to you even though you can’t hear me! It’s really nice and everything knowing that skeptics are the most brilliant beings in existence! You have to love how we get to show it off all of the time and get to crush inferior minds with our great intellects! The problem I’m having is that our superior material minds will never be free from the burden of stupid people known as believers! Natural selection why did you create them that way!? No matter how smart we are that can’t protect us from bearing witness to their dumbness! They won’t listen to reason or truth (materialism)! Why can’t our intelligence get rid of this nonsense!? Why did you create material beings that can be so gullible!? Why can’t the truth we know do away with their ignorance and stupidity! How dare you create such gullible minds that believe such nonsense and who have strayed away from the materialist truths that we have proven!

Materialists sorry for the blasphemy but it had to be said!

[AlienX]

In the main UK lottery you select 6 numbers from 49.

If any 3 of your numbers match you win £10 (Fixed but I remember they wanted to make it so it could be reduced - see the Geller bit later on)

4 or 5 is a %age of the total money devided by the number of people with 4 or 5 numbers.

6 Numbers is the jackpot fund (Once again a %age of the total "gambled")

SO if you wan't to improve your chance of not sharing the jackpot with other people then it makes sense to select numbers which are less likely to be selected by others.

For example numbers to avoid.

1 to 31 (Bithdays)
1 - 12 (Birth Months)
Years are less likely as its only people born 1949 and before could use it. Maybe its why lots of old people win the Jackpot on their own :-).
Also traditional lucky numbers such as 7.

So if all your numbers are 32 - 49 you maximise your chance of not sharing the jackpot - with exactly the same odds of winning ;p (its amazing how many people just dont understand basic statistics.

I remember all the WooWoo's getting all excited when the lottery tried to stop Uri Geller trying to "influence the numbers" to a set of numbers selected days in advance which were printed in the papers and televised. All the woowoo's claimed its because he could influence the numbers when really it said more about how pathetic people are in believing in this rubbish.

The real problem was if millions of people put on the same set of numbers and the set just happend to match 3, then the lottery would not be able to afford to pay out £10 to everyone who matched 3 numbers.

Nothing mystical just statistical! ;p

AX

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by AlienX
In the main UK lottery you select 6 numbers from 49.

If any 3 of your numbers match you win £10 (Fixed but I remember they wanted to make it so it could be reduced - see the Geller bit later on)

4 or 5 is a %age of the total money devided by the number of people with 4 or 5 numbers.



You've forgotten about 5 balls + the bonus ball.



6 Numbers is the jackpot fund (Once again a %age of the total "gambled")

SO if you wan't to improve your chance of not sharing the jackpot with other people then it makes sense to select numbers which are less likely to be selected by others.



And also you should bear in mind it also makes sense to select appropriate combinations of numbers which are less likely to be selected by others eg maybe 25,43,44,45,46,48 It's best to have 1 number elsewhere because a few others are likely to be thinking along the same lines as you.



I remember all the WooWoo's getting all excited when the lottery tried to stop Uri Geller trying to "influence the numbers" to a set of numbers selected days in advance which were printed in the papers and televised. All the woowoo's claimed its because he could influence the numbers when really it said more about how pathetic people are in believing in this rubbish.



Indeed it is implausible that a single individual could do much psychokinetic influencing. But if the whole of the UK were to try and psychokinetically influence the balls, they might very well have some influence. But they would have to do it for about a 100 weeks to try and discern if the balls drawn exhibited any statistical deviance from what one would expect from chance.

In saying it is rubbish you are essentially saying you a priori know what reality is like, and that reality doesn't allow for anomalous perturbation :rolleyes:

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Indeed it is implausible that a single individual could do much psychokinetic influencing. But if the whole of the UK were to try and psychokinetically influence the balls, they might very well have some influence. But they would have to do it for about a 100 weeks to try and discern if the balls drawn exhibited any statistical deviance from what one would expect from chance.


You don't think that the wishful thinking of all of your 1-31 picking friends discourages this line of thought Ian? Granted it's not the whole of the UK, but I'm sure they've been attempting to psychokinetically influence the balls for more than 100 weeks.

I've got another Million Dollar Lottery you can enter if you think otherwise.

[LW]

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat

But if those numbers were released, everyone would have access to them and they'd be used more

Yes, you could suppose that.

However, it isn't necessarily the case. Here in Finland it has been common knowledge for many years that the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 is a very poor bet since lots of people choose it.

Yet, according to Veikkaus Oy that runs the game, each single drawing has more than 2000 entries of that sequence.

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by LW


Yes, you could suppose that.

However, it isn't necessarily the case. Here in Finland it has been common knowledge for many years that the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 is a very poor bet since lots of people choose it.

Yet, according to Veikkaus Oy that runs the game, each single drawing has more than 2000 entries of that sequence.

Because some people are going to hold to the belief that certain numbers are lucky, or they have some significance. That, however, isn't proof that everyone believes it.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

Indeed it is implausible that a single individual could do much psychokinetic influencing. But if the whole of the UK were to try and psychokinetically influence the balls, they might very well have some influence. But they would have to do it for about a 100 weeks to try and discern if the balls drawn exhibited any statistical deviance from what one would expect from chance.

In saying it is rubbish you are essentially saying you a priori know what reality is like, and that reality doesn't allow for anomalous perturbation :rolleyes:
Gee yes, why should we find a possibility absurd, just because it would violate the laws of probability :rolleyes: I'm sure it is entirely coincidental that you make a claim which is untestable, since you would of course love to put your position to the test so you could shut up us pseudo skeptics. :id:

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
But if the whole of the UK were to try and psychokinetically influence the balls, they might very well have some influence
Interesting. Quite some time ago (so long, the thread is now gone), our favorite over-the-edge loony, Lucianarchy, stated that the people of Great Britain were phychokinetically influencing the lottery en masse. His/her evidence for this was that the number 13 was (at the time) the most commonly drawn number. To him, that obviously meant that since 13 is considered a "lucky" number in Britain (a position he was never able to substantiate), the combined consciousness of all the people picking it was causing it to appear more often than others.

He claimed to be doing some "investigating" (read "betting") on this phenomenon, but he sort of shut up about it once 13 fell out of the top spot.

But think of it. If everybody is pulling for their numbers, then if there is a psychokinetic effect, then the more commonly picked numbers would also be the more commonly drawn numbers, since they would have greater numbers of people "psychokinetically" trying to influence them. If such an effect were observed, then you would be foolish to choose anything but the most commonly picked numbers. Fortunately for your "system", Ian, this effect does not exist.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Tricky
But think of it. If everybody is pulling for their numbers, then if there is a psychokinetic effect, then the more commonly picked numbers would also be the more commonly drawn numbers, since they would have greater numbers of people "psychokinetically" trying to influence them. If such an effect were observed, then you would be foolish to choose anything but the most commonly picked numbers. Fortunately for your "system", Ian, this effect does not exist.
You really don't get it do you? It only works if the ENTIRE UK population is actively trying to influence the outcome. Otherwise the claim might be testable. :rolleyes:

[trotsky]

couldn't be bothered to read past post 52 however, the probability of winning the lottery when you don't buy a ticket is surely a lot higher than 0?
Someone else may buy you a ticket or you may find a ticket in the street/pub or kebab shop....


Oh well time to go down the street for a drink and a bite to eat.;)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky
.

But think of it. If everybody is pulling for their numbers, then if there is a psychokinetic effect, then the more commonly picked numbers would also be the more commonly drawn numbers, since they would have greater numbers of people "psychokinetically" trying to influence them. If such an effect were observed, then you would be foolish to choose anything but the most commonly picked numbers. Fortunately for your "system", Ian, this effect does not exist. [/B]

No I don't see this at all. Your reasoning is so incredibly poor I scarcely know where to begin! First of all the most "commonly" picked numbers won't be picked all that much more than the "uncommonly" picked numbers. But the important thing here is that for all the people who picked, say, ball 23, even though ball 23 might be one of the commonly picked numbers, the people wanting this ball to be drawn will still be vastly outnumbered by people who don't want ball 23 to turn up!

But there's a more devastating criticism of your position than this. Let's imagine that everyone in the UK chose balls 1 to 6. Should these balls come out more frequently than they otherwise would if psychokinesis is operating here? I would say not necessarily.

Allow me to explain. Although everyone wants balls 1 to 6 to be drawn, this doesn't mean that for each individual ball drawn they are all routing for the same ball. This is because although they want the same 6 balls to be drawn, the order of the balls coming out was not specified. Therefore as any given ball is about to be drawn, only 1/6th of the population will be wanting that ball to be drawn where as the other 5/6ths of the population don't, and indeed will be using their psychokinetic ability to prevent that. Thus, for example, as the first ball is about to be drawn 1/6th of the population will be routing for ball 1, but 1/6th of the population will not be doing so, but be routing for ball 2. And 1/6th of the population will be routing for ball 3, and the same goes for the other balls 4, 5 and 6. So all this has a net effect of cancelling out any psychokinetic effect so that ball 49 is as likely to be drawn as any of the first 6 balls. All clear now? :)

[Darwin'sGoat]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
No I don't see this at all. Your reasoning is so incredibly poor I scarcely know where to begin!

And it didn't even touch on the fact that, as we all know, the random effect of the numbers being drawn are cosmically affected by the same force that affects the I Ching.

Tut tut!

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


No I don't see this at all. Your reasoning is so incredibly poor I scarcely know where to begin! First of all the most "commonly" picked numbers won't be picked all that much more than the "uncommonly" picked numbers. But the important thing here is that for all the people who picked, say, ball 23, even though ball 23 might be one of the commonly picked numbers, the people wanting this ball to be drawn will still be vastly outnumbered by people who don't want ball 23 to turn up!

But there's a more devastating criticism of your position than this. Let's imagine that everyone in the UK chose balls 1 to 6. Should these balls come out more frequently than they otherwise would if psychokinesis is operating here? I would say not necessarily.

Allow me to explain. Although everyone wants balls 1 to 6 to be drawn, this doesn't mean that for each individual ball drawn they are all routing for the same ball. This is because although they want the same 6 balls to be drawn, the order of the balls coming out was not specified. Therefore as any given ball is about to be drawn, only 1/6th of the population will be wanting that ball to be drawn where as the other 5/6ths of the population don't, and indeed will be using their psychokinetic ability to prevent that. Thus, for example, as the first ball is about to be drawn 1/6th of the population will be routing for ball 1, but 1/6th of the population will not be doing so, but be routing for ball 2. And 1/6th of the population will be routing for ball 3, and the same goes for the other balls 4, 5 and 6. So all this has a net effect of cancelling out any psychokinetic effect so that ball 49 is as likely to be drawn as any of the first 6 balls. All clear now? :)
No, it appears to be you who do not understand. Using your example, Lots of people "cheer", or try to mentally manipulate the lottery to come out for balls 1-6. Of course, that cheering is outnumbered by those who don't want that ball picked, but numerically, a whole lot more are cheering for the low numbers than are cheering for the high numbers. Thus, they are less "cancelled out" by negative cheering, leaving them a net "positive energy" compared to other less frequently picked balls. Look at it this way. Almost everybody is cheering against ball 23, but only 5/6 are cheering against ball 6. That would give ball 6 an advantage, were psychokinetic ability a real thing.

Of course, if Kerberos is right about the whole UK having to cheer for a single ball, then I guess we will never know. Some of 'em don't even pay attention to the lottery, so they're not going to be pulling their weight. ;)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky

No, it appears to be you who do not understand. Using your example, Lots of people "cheer", or try to mentally manipulate the lottery to come out for balls 1-6. Of course, that cheering is outnumbered by those who don't want that ball picked, but numerically, a whole lot more are cheering for the low numbers than are cheering for the high numbers. Thus, they are less "cancelled out" by negative cheering, leaving them a net "positive energy" compared to other less frequently picked balls. Look at it this way. Almost everybody is cheering against ball 23, but only 5/6 are cheering against ball 6. That would give ball 6 an advantage, were psychokinetic ability a real thing.

Of course, if Kerberos is right about the whole UK having to cheer for a single ball, then I guess we will never know. Some of 'em don't even pay attention to the lottery, so they're not going to be pulling their weight. ;)

Look, try to understand. You're arguing that more popular balls should statistically be drawn should psychokinesis exist. But this is absurd!

Let's suppose 23 is one of these vastly popular numbers. So one person’s set of numbers might be 1, 6, 9, 13, 19, and 23. Another person’s numbers might be 23, 28, 35, 39, 43, and 49. Now it is obvious that the chance of them simultaneously wanting the ball 23 to be drawn is small. And besides, I suspect that people don't want specific balls to come out for each drawn ball, but rather have a vague undifferentiated wish for any of the 6 balls they have chosen to be drawn.

Can I ask you whether you seriously think that the fact that popular balls aren't statistically drawn more often entails that psychokinesis doesn't exist?? You can't be serious! :eek:

It's funny isn't it? Properly conducted parapsychological research suggests that people can affect a (truly) random number generator to a statistically significant extent. People like you point out that some artefact might be skewing the results. OK, fair enough. But then in the same breath, you state that lotteries prove there is no such thing as psychokinesis! WOW!! Your hypocrisy is breathtaking! Double standards or what?? :eek: If there are artefacts skewing the results in properly conducted scientific research (and BTW experimental protocols in parapsychology are tighter than in any other area of science), then how much worse is it for a lottery for God's sake?? I've already pointed out loads of problems, but you're saying: "no, parapsychological effects should manifest themselves despite these factors you've pointed to". This coming from a person who doesn't believe in this phenomena for Chr*sts sake! :eek: Are you truly the best person to specify the "mechanism" whereby psychokinesis works when you reject the possibility of such a phenomenon at the outset?? :eek: And BTW, have you looked at the statistics of the UK national lottery? Do you know there are no statistical aberrations??

No, I thought not! :rolleyes:

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Look, try to understand. You're arguing that more popular balls should statistically be drawn should psychokinesis exist. But this is absurd!

Let's suppose 23 is one of these vastly popular numbers. So one person’s set of numbers might be 1, 6, 9, 13, 19, and 23. Another person’s numbers might be 23, 28, 35, 39, 43, and 49. Now it is obvious that the chance of them simultaneously wanting the ball 23 to be drawn is small. And besides, I suspect that people don't want specific balls to come out for each drawn ball, but rather have a vague undifferentiated wish for any of the 6 balls they have chosen to be drawn.
This is just gobbeldygook, Ian. Look it's very simple. If more people psychokinetically "cheer" for some balls than others, then they ought to come up more often. Is that such a hard concept to master? Your talent for obfuscation is unparalleled.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Can I ask you whether you seriously think that the fact that popular balls aren't statistically drawn more often entails that psychokinesis doesn't exist?? You can't be serious! :eek:
No, I'm not serious. It was meant to be tongue in cheek, because I have absolutely no belief in psychokinesis. But it occurs to me that people who do believe in psychokinesis would consider this a valid test, just as Lucianarchy did when he proposed that 13 was coming up more often because it was a "lucky number" in GB.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
It's funny isn't it? Properly conducted parapsychological research suggests that people can affect a (truly) random number generator to a statistically significant extent. People like you point out that some artefact might be skewing the results. OK, fair enough
We've gone over this "properly conducted parapsychological research" a number of times, and each time it has been shown that it was not properly conducted and not peer reviewed by the scientific community. Even the people who claim it does work admit that the results are only a tiny bit above random. If psychokinesis works, it surely doesn't work well

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
People like you point out that some artefact might be skewing the results. But then in the same breath, you state that lotteries prove there is no such thing as psychokinesis! WOW!! Your hypocrisy is breathtaking! Double standards or what?? :eek: If there are artefacts skewing the results in properly conducted scientific research (and BTW experimental protocols in parapsychology are tighter than in any other area of science), then how much worse is it for a lottery for God's sake?? I've already pointed out loads of problems, but you're saying: "no, parapsychological effects should manifest themselves despite these factors you've pointed to".
Wow, the hayfields of England must be bare with all the straw you used in that strawman. What exactly is it that "people like me" are claiming? I never said artifiacts were skewing the results, in fact I made no references at all to such studies until now. It is you who are claiming such studies exist. I only say that I am unaware of any well-documented studies that show that people can psychokinetically affect a random number generator. Perhaps you can point some of them out for us. If you can repeat their experiments, it could be worth a cool million (about 600,000 Pounds) to you. Then you won't have to keep throwing your money away on the lottery.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I've already pointed out loads of problems, but you're saying: "no, parapsychological effects should manifest themselves despite these factors you've pointed to".
Yeah, you've made lots of excuses (just like Lucianarchy when his theories didn't pan out). But really, a lottery is ideal for testing this sort of thing. After all, it is a tremendously large sample. Statistical error should be minimised. All those "problems" that you claim exist should push the results to the opposite pole, if they are really problems. If they cancel each other out, well then hey! Level playing field again, with a sample size in the millions.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
This coming from a person who doesn't believe in this phenomena for Chr*sts sake! :eek:
No, I don't, and it is hard evidence like this that makes me disbelieve it.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Are you truly the best person to specify the "mechanism" whereby psychokinesis works when you reject the possibility of such a phenomenon at the outset?? :eek
Where, pray tell, did I specify a mechanism? All I pointed out is that it doesn't work. I don't know why it doesn't work because I can't even begin to envision a mechanism for how it would work. But this much should be obvious. If people really could affect the outcome of the balls picked by wishing, cheering, rooting, or psychokineticising for their selected numbers, then the numbers picked most often would also be the numbers that came up most often.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
And BTW, have you looked at the statistics of the UK national lottery? Do you know there are no statistical aberrations??

No, I thought not! :rolleyes:
No, I have not. Have you? If you found a "statistical abberation", would you automatically call it evidence for psychokinesis?

I thought so. :rolleyes:

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky

We've gone over this "properly conducted parapsychological research" a number of times, and each time it has been shown that it was not properly conducted and not peer reviewed by the scientific community. Even the people who claim it does work admit that the results are only a tiny bit above random. If psychokinesis works, it surely doesn't work [i]well



Nope you just haven't a clue what I'm talking about do you? Yet you'll respond anyway and come up with the same stuff that I've already refuted :rolleyes:.

As for your claim above, you wouldn't care to substantiate it would you?? Give appropriate references that the preponderance of experimental reseach into micro-psychokinesis (which is what we are discussing) has not been peer reviewed and not properly conducted.

Come on then! You're claiming this. Back up your allegations.

[Tricky]

No thank you, Ian. I do not wish to rehash all that stuff again. Instead of obfuscating, I ask you to give me a straight answer to my easy question. If people can influence the outcome of a lottery by psychokinesis, why aren't the numbers most often picked the same as the numbers most often drawn?

[ceptimus]

Another testable claim by Ian. :) All we need is a lottery machine, and a group of volunteers, say 100 or 1000. We ask them to "will" the balls 1 through 6 to 'come up', in that order. Ian could even offer them a financial incentive (a share of Mr Randi's million dollar challenge prize) should they succeed.

They wouldn't need a total success. A statistically significant bias towards the low numbers, over a significant number of trials would be good enough.

I'm still waiting for Mr Randi to reply to the email about the Ian / Tricky procedure for testing the I-Ching. Of course, Mr Randi has been busy with TAM2 recently.

[Rolfe]

If I volunteer to be one of the people doing the "willing", how big a share of the million bucks do I get? :D

Rolfe.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Although everyone wants balls 1 to 6 to be drawn, this doesn't mean that for each individual ball drawn they are all routing for the same ball. This is because although they want the same 6 balls to be drawn, the order of the balls coming out was not specified. Therefore as any given ball is about to be drawn, only 1/6th of the population will be wanting that ball to be drawn where as the other 5/6ths of the population don't, and indeed will be using their psychokinetic ability to prevent that. Thus, for example, as the first ball is about to be drawn 1/6th of the population will be routing for ball 1, but 1/6th of the population will not be doing so, but be routing for ball 2. And 1/6th of the population will be routing for ball 3, and the same goes for the other balls 4, 5 and 6. So all this has a net effect of cancelling out any psychokinetic effect so that ball 49 is as likely to be drawn as any of the first 6 balls. All clear now? :) But then you say:

And besides, I suspect that people don't want specific balls to come out for each drawn ball, but rather have a vague undifferentiated wish for any of the 6 balls they have chosen to be drawn.Doesn't this statement contradict the first one? :(

[AlienX]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Indeed it is implausible that a single individual could do much psychokinetic influencing. But if the whole of the UK were to try and psychokinetically influence the balls, they might very well have some influence. But they would have to do it for about a 100 weeks to try and discern if the balls drawn exhibited any statistical deviance from what one would expect from chance.

In saying it is rubbish you are essentially saying you a priori know what reality is like, and that reality doesn't allow for anomalous perturbation :rolleyes:

I'm saying that this form of test using the UK national lottery is not viable.

The reason the lottery complained was not the fear that the numbers could be influenced as the woowoo's shouted from the rooftops as proof it must work I might add - BUT of a large number of people selecting the same number set QED. If 3 of that number set came out by pure chance then they would not be able to afford to pay out the "fixed" prize of £10 - hence there attempt to protect themselves from future repeats of this by making the £10 variable.

So far there is little proper evidence that this sort of thing works and until there is definite unequivocal results then it's just plain rubbish. Stats is a great woowoo tool as has been shown many times lots of people don't even understand basic stats).

As for calling it rubbish.. well I think it's better calling something rubbish through lack of verifiable data than to assume it works because someone says so.

So far it looks like the only influence on the lottery is chance all you can do is maximise your chance of winning big if you get over the (49x48x47x46x45x44)/(6x5x4x3x2x1) = 13983816 : 1 odds of selecting 6 numbers from 49.

I once remember hearing two women talking in a pub about the numbers they had selected and one said to the other - well thats a bad selection you have 10,11 and 12.... the chance of them coming out is very unlikely you need to spread them out more!!!.. good grief :-).

AX

[Interesting Ian]

[i]Originally posted by AlienX

So far there is little proper evidence that this sort of thing works and until there is definite unequivocal results then it's just plain rubbish.



So people keep saying on here, and yet they can never substantiate their claims.




So far it looks like the only influence on the lottery is chance all you can do is maximise your chance of winning big if you get over the (49x48x47x46x45x44)/(6x5x4x3x2x1) = 13983816 : 1 odds of selecting 6 numbers from 49.



I really have no idea why people fixate upon the jackpot and never consider the smaller prizes.



I once remember hearing two women talking in a pub about the numbers they had selected and one said to the other - well thats a bad selection you have 10,11 and 12.... the chance of them coming out is very unlikely you need to spread them out more!!!.. good grief :-).



I know. It happens to me. I ask them to give their reasons and /or evidence to substantiate what they say. Like the people on here, they invariably fail to do so.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky
No thank you, Ian. I do not wish to rehash all that stuff again.



As I suspected. You're merely content in spouting forth falsehoods. Shame on you.




Instead of obfuscating, I ask you to give me a straight answer to my easy question. If people can influence the outcome of a lottery by psychokinesis, why aren't the numbers most often picked the same as the numbers most often drawn?

First of all I never said that people can, but if they can it doesn't work like that. If psychokineses exists, it doesn't work like you think it does. I reckon it works more like I think it does.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by ceptimus
Another testable claim by Ian. :) All we need is a lottery machine, and a group of volunteers, say 100 or 1000. We ask them to "will" the balls 1 through 6 to 'come up', in that order. Ian could even offer them a financial incentive (a share of Mr Randi's million dollar challenge prize) should they succeed.

They wouldn't need a total success. A statistically significant bias towards the low numbers, over a significant number of trials would be good enough.

I'm still waiting for Mr Randi to reply to the email about the Ian / Tricky procedure for testing the I-Ching. Of course, Mr Randi has been busy with TAM2 recently.

You think in such a cold mechanical way. Sure we could try out that experiment. But both anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence overwhelmingly suggest that anomalous cognition and anomalous perturbation is primarily driven by the emotions. You cannot just switch it on and off like a light.

[ceptimus]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
You think in such a cold mechanical way.That's my scientific training (conditioning?) at work ;) Sure we could try out that experiment.Why not? It might be fun, and there is $1 million available, if it works. But both anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence overwhelmingly suggest that anomalous cognition and anomalous perturbation is primarily driven by the emotions.Wouldn't the emotion of hoping to win a share of $1,000,000 (say $1000 dollars for each volunteer) be enough? You cannot just switch it on and off like a light. Why not?

It seems like all these paranormal abilities are pretty useless. As I've posted before, if they really existed, even to the slightest degree, they would have great evolutionary advantage, and ought by now have become as perfected as sight, hearing, balance and all our other non-paranormal abilities.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
As I suspected. You're merely content in spouting forth falsehoods. Shame on you.
Ian, have you ever provided good evidence for one of your fantastic claims? I'd say my reputation for truth here is a wee bit better than yours. But then so is Richard Nixon's.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
First of all I never said that people can, but if they can it doesn't work like that. If psychokineses exists, it doesn't work like you think it does. I reckon it works more like I think it does.
Ian, that is just utterly and abominably stupid. If it works, then people can control things. If they can't, it doesn't work.

You admit you don't even know if it exists, but you know how it would work if it did???!!!:eek: You somehow think that position is smarter than someone who says he doesn't think it works because he can't see how it would work and can't see any evidence of it working? I'm simply gobsmacked at your arrogance.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Tricky

I'd say my reputation for truth here is a wee bit better than yours.


People who know me don't believe I generally lie. I certainly believe I lie less than most people. Could you give an example of any time that I have ever lied? I do not think I have, and I think you owe me an apology.


Originally posted by Interesting Ian
First of all I never said that people can, but if they can it doesn't work like that. If psychokineses exists, it doesn't work like you think it does. I reckon it works more like I think it does.

Tricky
Ian, that is just utterly and abominably stupid. If it works, then people can control things. If they can't, it doesn't work.
You admit you don't even know if it exists, but you know how it would work if it did???!!!:eek: [/B]

Yes, I have personal experience, anecdotes, and research findings.

Now you don't believe it exists, but are saying if it does exist, it would work much like a normal everyday mechanical influence.

Now who do you consider to be the more stupid person between me and you?

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
People who know me don't believe I generally lie. I certainly believe I lie less than most people. Could you give an example of any time that I have ever lied? I do not think I have, and I think you owe me an apology.
I think people who know you only from these boards mostly believe you lie frequently. Sometimes it is to declare that others have made some sort of claim that they must defend, as you have in this thread. But your normal modus operandi is to claim that nobody has successfully refuted your claims, when in actuality, you have been paddled like a canoe trying to escape a waterfall. Now perhaps you don't see that as a lie, only a "difference of opinion" but the rest of us see through that obvious ruse. Also, I belive you first accused me of lying ("spouting forth falsehoods" was your euphemism), so once I have your apology, I'll give you yours. Don't dish it out if you can't take it, my whinging friend.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Yes, I have personal experience, anecdotes, and research findings.

Research findings? Really? Can we see them? I'm curious as to what you consider research, since you seem to have no use for the scientific method. As you know, anecdotes and personal experience are not evidence. Forgive me if I don't suspend disbelief for your little stories.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Now you don't believe it exists, but are saying if it does exist, it would work much like a normal everyday mechanical influence.?
To suggest it might exist with "abnormal" mechanics would involve pure hypothesis and unproven speculation. Now I am sure this is no hurdle for those of your credulous nature, but most of us here like a little more than fairy tales to go on.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Now who do you consider to be the more stupid person between me and you?
You and I have both made our positions clear (I think you have called me stupid at least half a dozen times). Why don't you ask some of the others here? You of course realize what has happened every other time you have asked the people here if they think you are making sense, do you not? No matter how prejudicially you try to word the questions to make yourself look good, people wind up voting against you, with the I-Ching thread being only the most recent, example. One would almost suspect you enjoy abuse.

But if you want abuse, the Flame Wars section is the place to go. If you want to swap barbs there, then by all means, let's do. I will not respond to your insults any further in this thread.

[Darwin'sGoat]

#1Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Right, that's it, I'm sick of your stupidity.

I'm putting you on ignore!

#2Originally posted by Interesting Ian

Originally posted by Darwin'sGoat
But if those numbers were released, everyone would have access to them and they'd be used more. You can show the trend, but then you'd have to predict where it will move. Even if the statistics on the selections were updated continuously, the numbers being picked would change in response until the final lottery numbers were drawn?


It's not the numbers so much, but also the particular sequence of numbers. I've never seen anywhere advising you to pick 4 or 5 numbers in a row above 31 anywhere. Unless such advice was widely publicised then your argument doesn't apply.

#3Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Could you give an example of any time that I have ever lied?

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


So people keep saying on here, and yet they can never substantiate their claims.
While you have of course provided bundles of evidence for your position - Oh wait you really haven't :eek:

[epepke]

Originally posted by The Don
Perhaps your brother's friend is the exception, but the great majority of gamblers (poker players and Blackjack players who are allowed to card-count effectively excepted) claim to be winners. This clearly cannot be the case otherwise casinos wouldn't bother.

I cannot speak for all gamblers (I'm not even a gambler, I just play from time to time), but it is fairly easy to win money reasonably consistently, given a large enough stake and enough time. The trouble is that it's so damn slow that it's a lot easier just to do honest work.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Originally posted by Tricky
No thank you, Ian. I do not wish to rehash all that stuff again. Instead of obfuscating, I ask you to give me a straight answer to my easy question. If people can influence the outcome of a lottery by psychokinesis, why aren't the numbers most often picked the same as the numbers most often drawn?

I suspect that there is a correllation between the numbers most often picked and those most often drawn looking at a series of draws.

However this is not due to any predictive effect, but to those players who believe that certain balls are "hot" as they have been drawn a lot recently and are therefore more likely to choose them for future draws.

There is probably also an effect at the other end made up of people picking balls that have not been drawn in a long time as they are "due" to come up shortly.

Looking at the theory of how to maximise your chances of winning a large prize if you win, would it not be better to pick a string of consecutive numbers among the lower balls? This is working on the assumption that other "intelligent" players are choosing from a relatively small pool of numbers (32-49) with obvious overlap. Choosing an unusual sequence from the "silly people's" numbers may give a better chance as the "silly people" will deliberately avoid picking consecutive numbers.

[AlienX]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


So people keep saying on here, and yet they can never substantiate their claims.



I really have no idea why people fixate upon the jackpot and never consider the smaller prizes.



I know. It happens to me. I ask them to give their reasons and /or evidence to substantiate what they say. Like the people on here, they invariably fail to do so.

This is really the basic crux of many WooWoo arguments.. prove it doesn't work. I'm not certain how it is possible to substantiate with a -ve result here as it's simply classed as a trial that "this time" didn't work.. but maybe next time it will work.

Thus the only real solution is to provide +ve data and unfortunately none of the stuff i've seen is very impressive. Mainly marginal statistical variations on display but still within the realms of probabilities. The main problem with stats is in the interpretation and assigning meaning to things which possibly could actually be due to various factors such as tuning.

It matters not how many -ve trial occur the .. well maybe next time it will work mentality. I think Carl Sagan once wrote. Extrodinary claims required extrodinary evidence.. and I agree.

People on the whole beilive in this stuff and thus anything +ve in favor of this type of stuff gets more attention. Anything negative and people are seen as nasty £$%" who got around telling small children santa doesn't exist.

Either way I need some extraordinary evidence to make me change my mind.. but provide it and I most certainly will.. no point burying my head in the sand and just believe that i'm right. Not sure if the believers can say the same though.

AX

[Tricky]

Originally posted by Jaggy Bunnet
I suspect that there is a correllation between the numbers most often picked and those most often drawn looking at a series of draws.

However this is not due to any predictive effect, but to those players who believe that certain balls are "hot" as they have been drawn a lot recently and are therefore more likely to choose them for future draws.
That's a interesting observation. To adjust for this, any study of guessed vs. drawn numbers would have to compare only the relationship of single draws and not compare guesses on one draw versus draws on a different one, especially an older one.

Originally posted by Jaggy Bunnet
There is probably also an effect at the other end made up of people picking balls that have not been drawn in a long time as they are "due" to come up shortly.

Also true, but I'm guessing not as many as the former category.