The Odds in Lotto presume Random Selections
Leoboudv
For what you read on Lotto analysis it's a very good approach to take everything with a grain of salt.
The calculation of odds in gambling games has been around for 400 years or so and nothing has come along to necessitate any adjustment. It is all based on the quantities available for the various elements and their ratio to one another when a random selection is made. Where there is more of one than the other you are more likely to get the former. Where the ratio of one to the others is so and so then on average repeating the event your success ratio will be commensurate.
So, for a 6/49 Lotto game rather than prediction nonsense, think about the set of numbers you play and the coverage of that set for all the possibilities. It is covered in depth for 15 sets of numbers at this location
http://lottoposter.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=583
from 28 repeated lines (the worst) through to Random Selections (the second best) and then the best by tweaking if you like Random Selections so that the Coverage is maximized, all the integers are used and repetition of paying subsets are eliminated.
After reading you should understand that the person you refer to is talking rubbish. One line in the set you play covers only one of the 13,983,816 possibilities. If you play 28 lines that are all different you have 28 chances of getting first prize - no more - no less. By reduction 28 in 13,983,816 can be expressed as a ratio of 1 in 499,422 but just like tossing a coin where there are only 2 possibilities you can easily get a losing run of 10 heads if you are betting tails so you can't rely on winning over the next half a million years. In fact I have confirmed losing runs of 10 when playing half the possibilities in a 6/49 lotto game.
If you want to be counted amongst the sane who study Lotto numbers then forget about first prize (you've done the best possible there by keeping your lines unique) and concentrate on maintaining the best, even if negative, percentage return for the lowest prizes.
Colin Fairbrother