Thanks Frank Appreciate All Your Time And Effort
I just wanted to get an insight into how you decided to go down this route. I really like what you have done, hope you don't mind if I translate what you have done into my Visual Basic program. Which when finished and working to acceptable criteria, will gladly send you a copy.
Frank said:Well the problem here Doug, is that there are markov chains and there are lotteries. As you probably discovered, the Markov process is a mathematical matrix method of calculating probabilites where there is some cause and effect between a starting condition and the next thing to happen. Any course on Markov will talk you through tree diagrams of probabilites and then put the figures into Matrices. If you have not done Matrix calculations before it can get a bit heavy.
However I'm not calculating the probability that if a number six is drawn today what is the probability that number 14 will be drawn next time ?. Lotteries are random so there is no actual relationship between a ball drawn today and a ball drawn tomorrow. That complicated mathematics would be pointless.
If you want to learn it, be my guest :- http://techeffigytutorials.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/markov-chains-explained.html
And there are lots of Youtube videos which would talk you through it, but they will not be talking about lotteries, so what's the point ?
All you need to read are the first six lines on the page I just linked to, in fact I will quote them here:-
Markov Chains is a probabilistic process, that relies on the current state to predict the next state. For Markov chains to be effective the current state has to be dependent on the previous state in some way; For instance, from experience we know that if it looks cloudy outside, the next state we expect is rain. We can also say that when the rain starts to subside into cloudiness, the next state will most likely be sunny. Not every process has the Markov Property, such as the Lottery, this weeks winning numbers have no dependence to the previous weeks winning numbers.
Bearing in mind the above, one can still ask the question " which ball(s) were drawn the most in the past which followed named ball?
That's all my programme does. It answers that question. I does not work out probabilities, but there just might be a physical reason why balls 12,17,27,44 follow ball number 15 the most over the past 600 daws. You dont need maths to count them, you need a computer. If you think there is a reason for this result you can use that information to your advantage. That's all I'm doing Doug. Its not actual Markov, its it's cousin.
I just wanted to get an insight into how you decided to go down this route. I really like what you have done, hope you don't mind if I translate what you have done into my Visual Basic program. Which when finished and working to acceptable criteria, will gladly send you a copy.
