Thread: lottery/gambling opinion- completedquery

  1. #1
    Registered User rogster001's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Liverpool UK
    Posts
    1,472

    lottery/gambling opinion- completedquery

    Hi, I did not get the chance to finish this querey last time as i ran out of credit in the cafe! I understand why some replies were a bit confused! So here is what i wanted to ask opinion on... fr


    I have written a little program to test various betting systems for the 1to49 english national lottery game. (Really i am basing it on the 49's betting shop game which returns £600 for a three number single, but principle is same so national lottery.....)

    I would like to know which of these styles of bet you think would return a win of three numbers the fastest (i.e least amount of bets )
    each bet is
    ten lines(attempts) hoping to match 3in any line from 6 balls drawn..

    first style of bet is>>>>>
    123456
    234567
    345678
    456789
    56789 10
    678910 11
    7 8 9 10 11 12
    8 9 10 11 12 13
    9 10 11 12 13 14
    10 11 12 13 14 15
    obviously could equally be 41, 32,25,18, 17, 24
    32,25,18,17,24,19
    etc...

    second style of bet is>>>>>>
    123456
    789 10 11 12
    13 14 15 16 17 18
    etc....

    i.e consecutive numbers, once get to 49 just counts from one again.

    Thing is i used to bet the first system quite a bit and won a few times, for 10p stakes to win sixty quid, and i thought it gave me a much better chnce of winning.. but what i found surprising is the consecutive numbers get a winner more than twice as quick and i thought there was something wrong with the program, but there isnt, ten lines of six random 'lucky dip' numbers is a little bit quicker again, why is this? the first one overlaps and so gives a better chance of pairing numbers on other lines to make wins. My conclusion is that the first style gives you a bigger win WHEN you get one, but i stilll thought it would be faster. oh well...

    in answer to someone elses reply earlier, of course i made the program run for a lottery jackpot as well for a laugh... it got me a win after 336,000 attempts, unfortunately each draw cost ten quid so showed a bit of a loss there hehe!

    Cheers

    just finally please tell me maths heads, is it EXACTLY the same odds for 123456 to come out on the lottery draw? I just canr accept that! heheit seems much more unlikely, and what about the same sequence coming out twice? is it just set back to 14million to one once the balls go back in the machine?

    By the way i am not one of these spends whole life chasing the lottery, i never bet on it, i find gambling in general fascinating tho...

  2. #2
    and the hat of int overfl Salem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    The edge of the known universe
    Posts
    39,660
    If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
    If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. Need a second opinion - code error and i cant see it
    By bigfootneedhelp in forum C Programming
    Replies: 19
    Last Post: 10-25-2007, 06:02 AM
  2. Her opinion, your opinion
    By RoD in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 12-22-2002, 10:50 AM
  3. Freedom of opinion
    By Shiro in forum A Brief History of Cprogramming.com
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 02-10-2002, 07:06 AM
  4. opinion about books
    By clement in forum C Programming
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 09-24-2001, 04:18 PM