Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: syhprum on 06/11/2014 19:13:28
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I would not dream of buying a lotto ticket or even filling in a number on an un entered one in case by some mischance it proved to be a winner.
Out of curiosity I listened to the spiel of a conman selling books for $99 telling you how to win and got curious as to how the numbers are computed.
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They aren't computed in the UK National Lottery, but drawn from a fancy bingo ball machine.
Premium bond numbers used to be determined by the rate of arrival of cosmic rays in a neon diode but are now generated from thermal noise in a transistor: the actual numbers are generated by computing hardware but the "seed" is truly random and therefore the output cannot be anticipated.
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... books for $99 telling you how to win ...
If they actually knew how to win the lottery repeatedly why do they have to sell anything ?
"lotto/bingo" scratch-cards are different from true "lotto/bingo" chosen by random bouncing balls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery_machine) : the winning scratch-cards are known to be winners when they are printed, and the organisers attempt to distribute them evenly-ish across the country.
Apparently a mathematics prof has worked out a distribution strategy ...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kiriblakeley/2011/07/21/meet-the-luckiest-woman-in-the-world/