(UK) Lotto Plus 5 & EuroMillions Millionaire Raffle Game Uses ADM.

[PAB]

I keep a separate DataBase for the UK Lotto Plus5 draws, which is an extra five plays for a combination that is played on either a Saturday or Wednesday and covers the immediate five days after each Saturday or Wednesday draw, but EXCLUDING these two days. So basically, if you were to buy a ticket on Saturday and also include the Plus5 draws, the ticket is played on Saturday (Main), and Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday (Daily Plus5), and for Wednesday, the ticket is played on Wednesday (Main), and Thursday, Friday, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday (Daily Plus5).

My thinking was that if the same draw machines and sets of balls were used that I could add the results to my main UK Lotto DataBase. So I thought I would email Camelot and ask them directly.

The answer I got was basically no, they use something called an ADM, which stands for Automated Draw Machine and is sited in a secure location and managed to the same levels of integrity and scrutiny as all other National Lottery draws.

I was also told that the Lotto Plus 5 ADM selects a RANDOM set of six numbers between 1 and 49, plus one bonus number for each draw, rather than using the tumbling balls more familiar in other National Lottery draws. The National Lottery already uses an ADM for its EuroMillions Millionaire Raffle game, launched in 2009.

On the back of that email I have asked what Algorithm is used for the ADM, is it a bespoke random Algorithm written by one of their programmers, or is it one based on a known author of Algorithms such as Fisher-Knuth for example. I have also asked if they could explain to me what they mean by Automated Draw Machine, whether this means it is just a case of pushing a button on a computer and the program randomly chooses 6 Main numbers and a Bonus number. I have also asked that if this is the case, what code (language) it is written in.

I am awaiting a reply and will keep you updated.

Regards,
PAB


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12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.

 

[Frank]

That's exactly why I wont entertain Plus5 draws on my website. They cannot be scrutinised by an independent adjudicator.

 

[PAB]

Hi Frank,

That's exactly why I wont entertain Plus5 draws on my website. They cannot be scrutinised by an independent adjudicator.

I know where you are coming from.
It appears that they are leaning towards this though because the televised draws are getting less and less .

I also think that they are in for a big shock when the ticket price doubles, not only from the single player but from the syndicates, because a lot of them will not be able to afford the increase.

The Health Lotto could possibly benefit from this to a certain extent, especially as they have made a point that their ticket price is staying the same, not to mention that the odds of winning the Jackpot is 2,118,760 against 13,983,816, albeit for far less prize winnings.
I think Camelot have shot themselves in the foot with going straight in and doubling the ticket price, fair enough, its been the same price since the inception of the Lotto back in 1994 (it's not as if they don't make a very handsome profit is it?), but I think they would have been far better off by introducing a gradual increase over say the next five years. I think that maybe a £0.25p increase would be more realistic and wouldn't deter people from betting on the Lotto as often as they do now. It would certainly be a lot easier to stomach.

As I said in another thread, at the moment I do 24 numbers split into 4 combinations that I do for the Wednesday & Saturday draws with the Plus5 thrown in from the Wednesday. This is a weekly outlay of £12.00, which I think is probably over the top, but I do most weeks end up with some winnings at least to show for my trouble. When the increase comes in this will double to £24.00, and I have no intention of laying out that sort of money, believe me. Because of this, I have been looking more closely at the ThunderBall and Health Lotto, I do normally do just one combination for ThunderBall for all three draws within a week, but I might reaccess this when the main Lotto increase comes in.

Well that's my view on it.

Regards,
PAB


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12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.

 

[Frank]

Some time ago I did an analysis of the available UK lotteries taking into account the ticket price, the odds against winning any prize, the odds against winning the jackpot and jackpot size. This was based on the premise that your ticket price was an investment, and which of the lotteries was the best value for money for your outlay in terms of how easy it was to win the most money with your ticket price. Clearly a cheaper ticket means you can buy more for your money and reduce the odds compared to another lottery costing more. It also depended on whether the Euromillions and Lotto were rollovers and to what extent.

I recently updated all the details taking into account that the Euromillions had gone up from £1.50 to £2.00 and the UK lotto main draws were to double in price to £2.00. I covered two scenarios (before and after the price change and two playing philosophies).The price increase resulted in the 'demotion' of the UK lottery (especially Wednesday) in the league table if your aim was more for small wins with the hope of the big one as an outside chance.

Surprisingly if you were playing for the 'big one' and less interested in consolation prizes, the price increase made only a small change to the value for money. However the 'demotion effect' for both playing strategies was even smaller when it was a double or a triple Lotto rollover.

When going for consolation returns as a priority, the Thunderball draw leaps up the table after the lotto price goes up, overtaking the Saturday Lotto and even a triple Lotto rollover in terms of value for money.
The health lottery languishes at the bottom of my tables before and after the price change, it has to be said. Too little to win and too hard to win it for your pound.

 

[PAB]

Very interesting Frank as usual.

I was going to do a similar exercise over the weekend because of the double price looming in the not to distant future. I would be very interested in seeing your findings, either via a board post or email.

You probably gathered from my previous post that I had already put some thought into this and was edging towards putting my investment into the ThunderBall Lotto instead of the Main Lotto anyway. I will however still carry on with my ticket that I have done on a Saturday & Wednesday for many years, you never know, it might surprise me and hit the big one (who am I kidding ).

I think most serious Lotto players like ourselves will now start to analyse what is the best value for money and the best returns expected, exactly as it seems you have done already.

I don't think the "if I remember to do it" players will be drastically phased by the increase, but as I mentioned previously, I think the biggest impact will come from the syndicates, which at the end of the day, usually invest quite a lot with their workmates. They have three choices really, they either bare the brunt of the increase and carry on, they halve the tickets that they do each week, or as we have discussed, look for another more profitable UK Lotto to invest in. It will be very interesting to look at the number of winners and prize values, including the total ticket sales, after say a month of the new price coming in. That is of course if Camelot don't change the way they report the Lotto as they do at the present time.

If enough players leave the Main Lotto, this should lead to less players winning prizes and therefore increase the value of those prizes, as well as there being more Rollovers.

All this is obviously hypothetical at the moment, and only time will tell.

Regards,
PAB


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12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.

 

[Jamtrone1]

Hi PAB and FRANK

Could I please trouble you guys for asking to help me with the Moses Khan's GLS database he uploaded up in forum long ago, if you still got it? I spent the last 3 months browsing through the archives as you advised me to earlier on this year. I read some very interesting threads.

BTW to get back to what you and Icewynd advised me to look at regarding skip and hit charts, up to now I am able to get only one number prediction. Thank you for that. I am still hard at learning as I promised .

I appreciate the orientation you guys give me.

I salute you all generals

 

[blitzed]

hiya PAB, perhaps their Automated Draw Machine uses a true random number generator such as this:
http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/usb-hardware-random-number-generator/

cheers!
blitzed

 

[Frank]

Sorry I can't help you Jamtrone1, I haven't been following Moses much in this forum.

Regarding the UK lottery value for money, I'm providing a link to my spreadsheet:- http://www.mediafire.com/view/?n4misfq44fq12k7

There are four tables, two per page. On the 'Going for big money' page there are two tables (tables A). The top table is for the current situation before the Lotto ticket price increase. The bottom table is for the future, when a Lotto ticket in the UK will cost £2.00.
In order to put the lotteries on the same footing, they are each assessed on the purchase of £2 worth of tickets , the lowest common multiple of ticket costs (for however many draws the money covers).

In the case of lotto plus 5 that would be 10 tickets, for example but for Euromillions it would be only one ticket. Note that the inclusion of Lotto plus 5 is purely for interest, since when the lotto price goes up Lotto plus5 will be discontinued hence its absence in the bottom tables.
The modified odds are calculated based on how many tickets can be purchased, and all the potential prizes are expressed in millions of pounds.
Because the hotpicks are fixed odds with no consolation prizes they are included here despite the potential winnings being relatively low. For big money puroses they could have been ignored.
Whilst the tables do contain odds of any prize, this information is not used on this page, since the emphasis here is on the top prize.
Estimates from past history have been used to represent various rollover prizes and used in the calculations. The last column K is the resulting factor which when sorted ascending, puts them in order of value for money according to the criteria I set. Currently a Lotto Triple rollover or better beats everything including a Massive £135 euro Jackpot. This changes when the ticket price increases, and Lotto triple rollover is demoted, and if we ignore the hotpicks it still beats Euro £85 million rollover.

The other page, 'going for return' adds an extra calculation into the mix and takes into account the odds of winning any prize in addition to the odds of winning the various levels of jackpot. The two tables B on this page show the results, again top is current and bottom is after the price rise.
I took hotpicks out of this one as being fixed odds they have no differing 'odds of any prize' so dont qualify on this page.
The last column L contains a factor which when sorted ascending, I believe represents the order of value for money, under this criterion. Note the actual figures in this column have all been multiplied by 1000 just to bring them all into more comfortable readable integer ranges, so the actual values are meaningless, its the comparison that matters.

There are some notes alongside the tables which might help. Note that the Euromillions UK millionaire draw and the proposed lotto 50x £20,000 raffle winners have been considered in compiling the tables, but after considering the odds I disregarded them as they would change little except on special occasions when the number of winners of the raffles might be significantly increased, for example 100 UK millionaires in one Euromillions draw has happenned. that would have changed things.

Note that this is just one way of calculating value for money, one could apply weightings to various playing strategies, more bias to smaller prizes and less to the jackpots and this might change the order of things.

The tables are only of use to people who dont lock in their numbers to a specific lottery for weeks ahead, If one can shop around during any week and ask the questions, is it a Lotto double rollover ? Does the next Euromillions draw have a jackpot over £85 million, then one has a choice. What is clear is that in future, the Wednesday or Saturday non rollover draw and Euromillions triple rollover or less don't look good if you want to get rich with your ticket(s). Thunderball can produce some nice smile money easier.

 

[PAB]

Hi Frank,

First of all, THANK YOU for uploading and sharing this with us, it is appreciated
I have just had a look at the data, which it is very thorough and informative indeed.
I must admit that I only purchase a Euromillions ticket after a few rollovers, and the one I purchase is just a random one generated by the Lotto machine in the shop.
It does appear that after the increase in the Main Lotto that the smart money needs to transfer to the ThunderBall, which is as I suspected, but thanks to your hard work seems to clarify this.
I will look at your tables in a bit more detail tomorrow because I can see that you have put a lot of time and effort into this and it needs to be fully appreciated.
Once again, thank you for sharing this with us all.

Regards,
PAB


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12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.

 

[Frank]

Thanks PAB,
I'm going to have to make some hard decisions as I currently play 8 lines on the Saturday Lotto and two lines on the Wednesday one. Camelot are banking on superstition forcing people to continue with the lines they have had for the past 19 years in case they come up, but that won't work with me. Prior to the Lotto I played The Football Pools for 20 years, and gave that up in a flash. I will probably ditch the normal non rollover Wednesday Lotto, play 4 lines on Saturday (rollover or not) plus any Euromillions £50m plus lotteries ocurring that week. My priority is The big one, so even though I'm tempted by Thunderball I'll see if I have any spare cash for that !

 

[PAB]

Hi Frank,

I'm going to have to make some hard decisions as I currently play 8 lines on the Saturday Lotto and two lines on the Wednesday one. Camelot are banking on superstition forcing people to continue with the lines they have had for the past 19 years in case they come up, but that won't work with me. Prior to the Lotto I played The Football Pools for 20 years, and gave that up in a flash. I will probably ditch the normal non rollover Wednesday Lotto, play 4 lines on Saturday (rollover or not) plus any Euromillions £50m plus lotteries ocurring that week. My priority is The big one, so even though I'm tempted by Thunderball I'll see if I have any spare cash for that!

I know what you mean.
I will still do the one line that I have done for donkey's years on a Saturday & Wednesday, but that's it.
I will have a more serious dabble with the ThunderBall than I have done in the past and hope for the best.

Regards,
PAB


-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-
12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.

 

[PAB]

Well, after nearly SEVEN weeks from writing to Camelot I have finally got an answer to my questions as stated in my initial post and that I have posted below:-

On the back of that email I have asked what Algorithm is used for the ADM, is it a bespoke random Algorithm written by one of their programmers, or is it one based on a known author of Algorithms such as Fisher-Knuth for example. I have also asked if they could explain to me what they mean by Automated Draw Machine, whether this means it is just a case of pushing a button on a computer and the program randomly chooses 6 Main numbers and a Bonus number. I have also asked that if this is the case, what code (language) it is written in.

I am awaiting a reply and will keep you updated.

These are the answers to the above questions and is a direct quote from Camelot:-

The Automated Draw Machine (ADM) that is used by Camelot is supplied by Gtech (www.gtech.com) and is a standard model that they supply to many of the Lotteries they are involved with worldwide. Regrettably, we cannot comment on the algorithm as this is covered by Gtech's Copyright. You may wish to approach Gtech to enquire whether they are willing to divulge any relevant information. For the same reason, we are unable to comment about the the code or operating system used by the ADM.

In basic terms, the ADM is configurable to generate different quantities of numbers within different ranges of numbers dependant on what product the ADM is going to be used for.

Well, I think that says it all!

Regards,
PAB


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12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.

 

[Icewynd]

Why didn't they save some words and just reply: "We don't know and we wouldn't tell you if we did."

Their reply wouldn't lead me to expect fair results but, perhaps, after a couple of years Frank can run his Chi-squared analysis to see how closely the numbers are conforming to expected.

Lottery managers are the same world over. You would think in Canada we might get better treatment, since they are our "public servants" who run the lottery, but no.

 

[PAB]

Hi Icewynd,

Why didn't they save some words and just reply: "We don't know and we wouldn't tell you if we did."

Exactly, it probably took sooo long to answer because of all the Solicitors that had to proof read it first .

Their reply wouldn't lead me to expect fair results but, perhaps, after a couple of years Frank can run his Chi-squared analysis to see how closely the numbers are conforming to expected.

Unfortunately, this particular game stops in the Autumn when the new price increase structure starts.
Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Regards,
PAB


-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-
12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.

 

[Icewynd]

It does leave the question of why so many Lottery administrations are moving towards Random Number Generators. From my reading on the web, I know that they are not popular with lottery players who suspect that the algorithms do not match 'natural' randomness. I can't imagine that the RNG technology would be much cheaper than the old-style ball machines, as I am sure G-tech and their like are charging a good whack for their proprietary software.

This goes hand-in-glove with the move away from televising the draws. Once it was the norm to be able to view the actual draw, but not so much any more. And once you don't have anyone watching you might as well just "push a button" rather than fuss with the machines, the auditor, etc.

This may be being done in the name of cost-savings or some such excuse, but the end result is a dramatic reduction in transparency.

Ah well, perhaps I'm just a traditionalist!

 

[newb2]

The advantage with software RNGs is that it gives the Lottery operators a chance tweak the winning numbers and players wouldn't have a clue.

For some strange reason the UK Lotto Plus5 results the winning numbers are in ascending order while the normal Lotto results are in number drawn order.

 

[PAB]

Hi newb2,

For some strange reason the UK Lotto Plus5 results the winning numbers are in ascending order while the normal Lotto results are in number drawn order.

Nobody knows exactly how the numbers are drawn other than there are 7 numbers drawn by a non human force.
Perhaps the machine doesn't draw them in what we call a recognised format, like the first number first and output that number, then the second number second and output that number etc. Perhaps the machine picks each number individually and stores them in memory and then once all 7 numbers have been picked it sorts them in ascending order and then outputs the results.
All this will become irrelevant soon anyway when the Lotto Plus5 is disbanded for the new structured £2 a line Main 649 Lotto.

Regards,
PAB


-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏-∏
12:45, restate my assumptions.
(1) Mathematics is the language of nature.
(2) Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers.
(3) If you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature.