No, I'm not talking about Monster Trucks! 
I came across the winner of the UK National Lottery Wheeling Challenge.
http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Wheel/
Designed by Peter Rosendahl, this wheel guarantees a 3-number win in a 6/49 lottery, but requires 163 combinations to accomplish that task. Probably not an option for those of us who have not yet won the lottery!
However, I was curious as to what kind of return one might get on a wheel like this -- how much of the ticket price would be covered by the returns of smaller prizes?
I ran the wheel against all the results from Ontario49 from January 3, 2009 thru July 6, 2013, a total of 470 draws. Of course, one should check against millions of draw results, but I felt that this was enough to give me the answer that I wanted.
In fact the wheel lived up to its promise of giving at least one 3-number win for each draw. 1,357 3-number prizes were won over the 470 draws, an average of 2.9 3-number prizes for each draw. The wheel also generated 77 4-number wins and 2 5-number prizes over the 470 draws.
Based on the prize structure of the ON49 game ($5 for 3 numbers, $50 for 4 numbers, $500 for 5 numbers) and a $0.50 ticket price this wheel returned $11,635 in prizes compared to an expenditure of $38,305 or about $0.30 per dollar spent.
By way of comparison, I also ran LT's "100 Harmonized Lotto 649 Bets"
http://www.lottotutor.com/category/100-lotto-649-numbers/
This is not a wheel, but a list of 100 combinations that have been massaged to match the structure of the 649 game.
This set of combinations did not win a 3-number prize every game, but did win 779 prizes over the 470 games, missing 79 times. It also won 48 4-number prizes and 3 5-number prizes for a total return of $8,120 over 470 games at a cost of $23,500 giving a return of $0.35 per dollar spent.
This comparison would indicate that the "guarantee" of the first wheel is quite expensive, with the smaller group of combinations giving a comparable level of prizes.
While this is not definitive, due to the relatively small number of draws tested, I thought that it was interesting enough to report on.
I came across the winner of the UK National Lottery Wheeling Challenge.
http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Wheel/
Designed by Peter Rosendahl, this wheel guarantees a 3-number win in a 6/49 lottery, but requires 163 combinations to accomplish that task. Probably not an option for those of us who have not yet won the lottery!
However, I was curious as to what kind of return one might get on a wheel like this -- how much of the ticket price would be covered by the returns of smaller prizes?
I ran the wheel against all the results from Ontario49 from January 3, 2009 thru July 6, 2013, a total of 470 draws. Of course, one should check against millions of draw results, but I felt that this was enough to give me the answer that I wanted.
In fact the wheel lived up to its promise of giving at least one 3-number win for each draw. 1,357 3-number prizes were won over the 470 draws, an average of 2.9 3-number prizes for each draw. The wheel also generated 77 4-number wins and 2 5-number prizes over the 470 draws.
Based on the prize structure of the ON49 game ($5 for 3 numbers, $50 for 4 numbers, $500 for 5 numbers) and a $0.50 ticket price this wheel returned $11,635 in prizes compared to an expenditure of $38,305 or about $0.30 per dollar spent.
By way of comparison, I also ran LT's "100 Harmonized Lotto 649 Bets"
http://www.lottotutor.com/category/100-lotto-649-numbers/
This is not a wheel, but a list of 100 combinations that have been massaged to match the structure of the 649 game.
This set of combinations did not win a 3-number prize every game, but did win 779 prizes over the 470 games, missing 79 times. It also won 48 4-number prizes and 3 5-number prizes for a total return of $8,120 over 470 games at a cost of $23,500 giving a return of $0.35 per dollar spent.
This comparison would indicate that the "guarantee" of the first wheel is quite expensive, with the smaller group of combinations giving a comparable level of prizes.
While this is not definitive, due to the relatively small number of draws tested, I thought that it was interesting enough to report on.
