Can you guess the winning number? Is there a pattern or is it 100% random?

When you really want to win and are looking for tricks, tips and formulas, how do you know what really works?

I have had this similar conversation, regarding lotteries with quite a few people and they usually fall into 2 categories.

Those that believe the past has no bearing on the outcome, so the draw is 100% random.

And those that believe there is some secret unseen pattern and the numbers can be predicted.

So who is right?

Let's take a look at the lotto 6/49. Here you select 6 numbers from a possible 49. This means that each draw 6 numbers are selected and 43 are not. In a perfect scenario it would take 49 draws until all numbers were selected an even amount of times (6). But this hardly ever happens.

The results of each draw are statistically independent. This means that a number does not receive more weight or less weight simply because it has been drawn more or less often. This is also why you see some numbers drawn more often than others. In the last 49 draws a number could have been drawn 3 times and another 12 times.

This can be illustrated in simple things like winning a cup of coffee. Here we play this game where we have a 1 in 7 chance of winning a cup of coffee every time we buy one. I have had friends go as much as 17 cups in a row without winning, while I myself have one multiple cups in a row. This is because the probability is split between everyone participating.

Gambler's Fallacy.

The mistaken belief that, if something happens more frequently than normal during some period, it will happen less frequently in the future.

Is his true?

Well on an individual basis, yes. Someone selecting certain numbers because they have not been drawn and expecting they will be drawn is suffering from that fallacy.

However, on the grandeur scale gambler's fallacy is technically incorrect.

Let's go back to the 6/49 example.
Over a small amount of draws you may notice that the various selections differ. Some numbers picked 3 times some 8, others 12. But ones you start looking back at a longer history things start tightening up.

Over let's say 490 draws when each number should average 60 picks you may see results of 50 picks for some and 70 for others. The difference between the various selections is expressed in a percentage, and this percentage starts to drop the more draws that happen.

4900 draws later, this may now look like 590 picks for one 670 for another.

Because odds are universal, sooner or later a number that has not been picked will be picked, so even though each draw is statistically independent, over 100's of draws the results become closer and closer to what statistics say they should be.

If you take these universal odds and add up the results of all the 6/49 lotteries in the world for all the draws that have happened you will find the difference between each number is very small and almost non existent.

So those that believe in no interdependence are correct in the short term, and those that believe a number will hit sooner or later are also correct, but it may not happen for a long time and it may not happen in your own lottery but in another one.

I hope you have enjoyed my post, and if you want to try your luck come play my daily Free Pick3 Lotto by visiting my profile @luckysteemians .