PAB,
Benford's Law - while an interesting observation of real world occurance of numbers, in my opinion has no relevance in the world of lottery predictions.
Francis Isaac,
Your website has no real information without a login, and you require address and phone number to get a login - I never give out that information on-line.
CMF,
I understand the thing about URL's and was unaware of it when I initially posted my URL - I would like to note however that my website has no forums (and has a link on every page to this forum site), a simple one-way feedback mechanism, no advertisements of any kind, and the only content is my forecasts, and results of past forecasts. It is a text only web-site, currently no graphics of any kind. It's only purpose is to show my forecasts, and results so that I don't have to post them somewhere before the drawing to say I have a successful forecast - this is automatically done for me.
I see no real information here that is worthy of copyright, other than the php code that runs the forums. Any text I post anywhere belongs to me, and I can do with it as I see fit - although by posting it in a forum it also becomes part of the public domain. Not even really sure why you mentioned copyright.
I agree with your observations about sums / evens & odds, however I take them into account in a different manner in my forecasting and I do feel that the have a place there.
Irvin,
I would like to forecast for the New Zealand lottery however I am unable to find a source on-line for the results in a TEXT format. If you know of such a place, let me know so I can add it to my forecasting.
All - My thoughts on forecasting:
Everyone here seems to be mainly interested in picking a future jackpot for one of the 6/49's, I am attempting to pick winners (not necessarily the jackpot) in 67 lotteries of various formats - a somewhat larger scale.
There are no random numbers. The best that we can achieve by any method is something close to random.
Each lottery is a unique entity (based on it's parameters, draw method, and historical data) - what is true for one lottery will not necessarily be true for the next lottery. Each drawing within that lottery is a unique event, things true about the next event will not necessarily be true for ALL future events. The historical data is a series of drawings, in order to determine what numbers the next event in the series should be you must determine what trends and patterns exist and evaluate if those trends / patterns will continue or change. As a result, what I forecast for tomorrows drawing will not be the same for the drawing following that.
I think we are all in agreement that there is no way to say these 6 numbers (or howmany ever depending on your lottery) will be the numbers drawn. So we are all choosing more numbers than cannot fit on one ticket, it only makes sense to use a wheel type system - not necessarily a simple straight full wheel (it's the only cost effective way)
The only way to prove that you can predict the lottery is to win money actually playing the lottery (not necessarily hitting the jackpot) regularly. No one who is here reading all this can afford to play hundreds of $$ each drawing (if you can, I have to ask why you're here). So I have numerous systems used in my predictions, I decide if I'm going to play a given drawing, then choose one of the small systems usually from 6 to 66 tickets depending on my budget at the time, recent performances in predictions and of those systems individually.
This year, I have had systems with 5/5 tickets in 4 different lotteries (one of them in my preferred lottery - of course I played a system that day of 14 tickets, had a 4/5 winner, 2 3/5 winners, and a couple 2/5 winners for around $800). I'm now playing on their money. Right now only the results of the most recent jackpot pick are on my system - I only keep ticket details for a limited time (my database is huge as it is). Tuesday morning (had I played that same 14 ticket system) I would have won another $756. Right now I'm on a break and probably won't play again until May. Between then and the end of the year, I will consider myself successful if I hit second prize 4/5 3 more times (not playing every drawing).
My system has a long way to go before I consider it good, it will probably always be a work in progress. I am not going to claim that my system is better than anyone else's, but it is significantly different than any that I've seen or heard about - and I have had what I feel are reasonable results. I have only recently started with pick 6 lotteries, so I have a limited amount of data and have not optimized the parameters of the forecasts (no I'm not going out and getting the entire history of every lottery - I'll wait patiently for data to arrive automatically, and I don't believe that you need the entire history to make a valid forecast). What I'm really doing here is like trying to hit a moving target at 100 yards with a shotgun using buckshot - not an easy task, but I'm happy with my results so far, and am sure that I will be able to improve my results.
With all that said, I'll respond to any direct questions, but I think it's time for this old country boy (no degrees, 20+ years computer experience, and 30+ years of following mostly US lotteries until recently) to return to my normal "Lurker" state, and spend my time working on my forecasting system and other more important "life" things.
My forecasts and results are available "hassle-free" on my website, if you're interested in how I'm doing you'll find everything there. Everyone here has been pretty cool, so the best of luck in your lottery playing, number selection, and even life in general for that matter!
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