Hi x86alpha,
Welcome to the bulletin board. No offense at all taken from your statement which is a rational perspective held by most people. Essentially what you are saying is that each number (lotto ball) has exactly the same chance of being selected as any other number all the time. I think that most "lotto predictionists" (if there is such a word) would agree with nearly all of that perspective except the "all of the time" part. We know that in a perfectly balanced world that each number has the same chance of being selected as another and that in a perfect world each combination of six numbers has an equal chance of being selected as any of the other combinations. (lotto tip - the number combo 1,2,3,4,5,6 is never going to happen) But this is not a perfectly balanced world and the destiny of each individual lottery is unfolding as it should - through a series of imbalanced tends. This is called a lottery's signature. People seeking to predict the upcoming results are number hunters looking for the trends and clues for which numbers are "due" to appear in the next few draws.
I don't think that any lotto predictionist believes in a magic machine called software that once loaded with a database will cough up the next six winning numbers for the next draw. ...with the exception of WinHunter after Andrew gets it finely tuned
We use software programs as number management tools. What we are trying to do here is like predicting the weather (not many people can do that either
. When it starts to rain one day it might be more probable that rain should be expected the next day as well. After it has rained for a week it might be more probable that a sunny day should be expected tomorrow. We are predicting the lotto weather patterns through our analysis efforts and study of the past trends.
Now before you scoff at what I have said, please check out some of the threads for the predictions for Lotto 649. These predictions are posted "before" the draws
You will find a multitude of accurate predictions from too many members to even mention.
Just as a couple of recent examples: for the Picks for the July 6 draw ...
http://209.151.88.182/forums/showthread.php?threadid=547
RattleSnake just selected one number - 39 ... I selected just one number - 31 ... they were both there in the winning six ! and BTW several members including myself are calling for 31 to repeat very soon. I'll bet you a million dollars .. that I don't have yet
that 31 will be in the next few upcoming draws.
Even more interesting .. for the June 22 draw ...
http://209.151.88.182/forums/showthread.php?threadid=513
dwoods - predicted 4 winners out of set of 12 and also said number 12 and number 23 would be 2 of the six winning numbers .. they were!
Even the most entrenched rationalist has to ask himself the question .. How can that happen?
Think of the odds against such predictions being correct! Well this is not magical it is simply (actually it is not simple at all - lotto number analysis can be very complex) that people have studied the lottery patterns and sometimes combined that knowledge with keen intuition.
Your question of why bother? is a good one.
The quick and obvious answer is "To win millions of dollars" but the pursuit of accurate predictions for the lottery is based upon much deeper things than just the will to win. The "why bother" is related to the type of personality that makes up a lotto predictionist.
At the risk of offending fellow members and friends I would say the following.
People that predict numbers and play the lottery are gamblers (I'm meaning that in a good way) A lotto player is the type that would rather play roulette than blackjack. We have a dream of winning big with small monetary risk placed against extremely large odds. Hopefully no lotto player bets more that they can reasonably afford. We enjoy our dreams of winning while we play. The players in this community are not greedy gamblers. They share their predictions with other members and everyone tries to help out their fellow players. I'm sure that everyone will be very happy when one of us does hit the big one. Then we'll all go to Dennis's house for a celebration party .. right Dennis ?
A lotto predictionist is also by nature an obsessive, tenacious type of individual. We go up against great odds - nearly 14 million to one, we spend hours typing in lengthy databases, we meticulously examine number patterns and we want some degree of control over our universe and outcomes. While the general population is always content with a "quick pick" the lotto predictionist plays with his/her own handcrafted numbers exercising their right to predetermine an outcome based upon their own skill.
And a major factor in why we bother is what Beaker has said .. we have fun in the pursuit of the numbers and the community in which we share our ideas, predictions etc.
We'll I'll get off my soapbox .. nuff said from me.
Again welcome and thanks for your post.
LT