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any math/programmer wanna take a crack at $500 mil jackpot?

ghettoracer

ghettoracer

1 mW
Joined
Sep 28, 2010
Messages
14
Location
taipei, taiwan & norcal
last weekend i posted this on my facebook "350 million for next draw... holy crap. 250 mil cash option. i'm going to spend sometime on sunday to meditate and try to manifest winning. :p i'd keep $5 million and donate the rest for good deeds."

jackpot half a billion now!! http://www.megamillions.com/ even cash value is at $350+ million.

i bought $10 on the monday night draw and pretty much hit nothing lol. then i started wondering if there's a lotto number generator out there that takes all the past winning numbers and then calculate the ratios by appearance. generate a pool of numbers from that. and then try couple of different random number pickers to pick from that pool. would seem to be better odds using quick picks... i have to confess i didn't get around to meditate/visualizing winning last weekend. i'll try harder this time. lol.

anyway there should a math approach to this. i would imagine someone has done it already? the real question would be is it freely available out there... would be a fun exercise for guys into math.

i thought i throw it here because there are lot of real smart guys here. maybe some one can write it up and share it. we could all use it and try our luck. who ever is lucky enough to win big should:
- give a mil to the developer.
- give a mil to ES (or maybe more, establish some kinda ES scholarship/grants fund?!?!)
- donate at least 15% winning to charity
- do whatever with the rest :)

something like that. :)
 
No need to share any of your winnings. Here's the odd of hitting the jackpot - 5 balls + mega ball - : 1 in 175,711,536

So just invest 175.7 million and you're guaranteed of hitting the jackpot. Good luck.
 
actually although the odds of winning the lottery (uk based) are about 14 million to one, probability of those numbers coming up the next time is the same as it was the first. ie the events are totally independent. So try all the maths you like, you are going to make your odds any better by seeing whats gone before. Infact in one lottery, i cant remember where but i think it was poland, maybe, anyway the same jackpot numbers came out in two consecutive weeks, probs not in the same order but that doesnt matter to the cash payout. anyway, point is lots of people then thought that lottery was rigged but infact there is no proof of that and it kinda shows the point. It is possible and just as likely

btw im a programmer and i was a maths teacher and im not going to waste my time on this, but nice to have dreams.
 
It's a nice fantasy, but there's really nothing as stupid as buying two tickets to a drawing. Buying one ticket is pretty smart. Odds virtually the same, and one buck won't kill you. Our lotto budget is less than 5 bucks a month.

We matched one number last night. 5 numbers pays 250k I heard? That would retire us. The big jackpot would destroy us.
 
There is a way to improve the odds. They did it once, where some of the ping pong balls had a half a gram of water in them, so the winning numbers came up pre determined. Got away with it for awhile too.


What's your lotto dream. A tesla to start with. But my main lotto dream is not so eco. A nice house in Albuquerque, and a half dozen hot air balloons to fly. At least one special shape balloon. A giant green chile. With that kind of budget, it would be cool to fly some gas balloons too. Cluster balloons would be fun, UP style.
 
I just wonder why they do not televise the drawing anymore? They used to..
 
Different, better way to do the drawing than the ping pongs perhaps?
 
Maybe, but really anything could get rigged. The most fun was to actually watching the numbers come out. Calling the # or looking it up online after the fact is not that exciting. Well i guess it could be if you had won..
 
I remember tuning into the Chicago cable station decades ago, all baked on sat night, just to see the balls pop up and the pretty girl. Long before we could buy a ticket to any lotto in this state.

Love my brothers saying, when I win the lotto, not if. An optomist.
 
whereswally606 said:
actually although the odds of winning the lottery (uk based) are about 14 million to one,
...
btw im a programmer and i was a maths teacher and im not going to waste my time on this, but nice to have dreams.
Click to expand...
Why actually? And what is the relevance between the UK odds and the USA MegaMillion odds?
 
This came up a decade ago when a biggie was being drawn: it is practically impossible to buy 15.7M numbers... too many buyers and machines needed, plus the possibility of others winning too.
 
Wait. If its true that if you bought the number of tickets as there are possible combinations then you would win for sure. But it would be impossible to physically buy that many tickets, even with five to ten plays each ticket. And how would you generate the numbers, print them, and feed them to a clerk?

Finally, even if you bought a ticket for each possible combination you would be screwed if others had the same numbers.
 
Back when there were lotterys with like 14 million combinations, there was a company in Austrailia that had all this investors money they'd buy every number with whenever the prize exceeded the odds. They had a few winners. I guess that wound down when the odds got so high the problem of buying enough tickets in a few days became insurmountable. There was some organization in the midwest who was able to get them the 14 million or whatever.

After the taxes I'd have some $150-175 million. In 2008 I wonder if that could have been good enough to buy Pontiac, or maybe 70% so that it was still a GM affiliate. I look at all these webseries today on YouTube and I'm not impressed, but that seems like my one venue to put my own production company to work. Dang, just don't know what I'd do with that much money, other than worry what was going to happen to it. As the man says, it has far more potential to do bad things to your life than good things. But I'd try to be smart.

VERY first thing from me would be $1 million to whatever LEGITIMATE fund for the health costs of the 911 emergency workers that I could track down. Then maybe I could start some company building really scary electric bikes that even Mr. Physics would be afraid to ride. . . .
 
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