MegaMillions Experiment – Wrap Up – It was a Silly Experiment

Well, we have the data from all 5 drawings in this silly experiment and it is unimpressive. Here’s the raw results for each set of numbers in the 5 drawings.

Number Set8/168/198/238/278/30
Family NumbersNo matchesNo MatchesNo MatchesTwo 
Matches
No Matches
“Hot” Numbers (=>3x in last 20 draws)No matchesNo MatchesNo MatchesOne 
Match
No Matches
“Cold” Numbers (=1x in last 50 draws)One matchNo MatchesNo MatchesTwo 
Matches
No Matches
Quick PickNo matchesOne matchNo MatchesNo
Matches
One Match

Let’s take the sum of these to see if we can see any differences in the way we chose numbers and the results.

Number SetTotal MatchesDifference from Average% of all numbers drawn (30 total)Dollars Won
Family Numbers2No Difference6.6%$0
“Hot” Numbers (=>3x in last 20 draws)1-13.3%$0
“Cold” Numbers (=1x in last 50 draws)3+110%$4
Quick Pick2No Difference6.6%$0
Average Total Matches2

There is a small argument to be made that cold numbers did get drawn more often, but I would put this into the area of “too close to call.” It’s not a material difference in my mind. To be a material difference I would have liked to see the dollars won be higher. We could have matched three numbers in the cold draws on different days and still not have won any, so the odds of us winning (1 in 89) were just “luck of the draw” at best.

If you are really interested in these probability type problems, I recommend checking out Kevin at the Vsauce 2 channel on YouTube. I particularly like his “The Perfect Illegal Lottery” video that talks about the history of the daily numbers.

My friend Ryan pointed out early on that this is doomed to fail based on the “Gamblers Fallacy” and he’s 100% correct. Let’s think of it on a simpler basis, flipping a coin. Assuming it’s a “fair” coin over time it should come up heads half the time and tails half the time. Just because it flipped “heads” 5 times doesn’t mean the odds on the 6th flip are greater than 50/50 that it will come up heads because the coin has no memory. So there are really no “hot” or “cold” numbers in the lottery.

Here’s some background on how the lottery drawing is executed. From working at a TV station that helped put on a state lottery drawing back in the day I know there are random sets of balls used, it’s not the same set in every drawing. There’s not only one drawing either, there are practice drawings held before the real thing. There are procedures done to weigh the balls and make sure they all weigh the same. Even the camera crew is vetted prior to the drawings, so you can’t sneak someone in.

So, there is no ‘best way” to pick your numbers for MegaMillions. Does all of this mean I’ll quit playing the lottery when it gets big? Probably not, because there is still a chance and all you need it $2 and a dream.

MegaMillions Experiment – Draw 4

Cold numbers give a return on investment!

Continuing on with the silly experiment I am doing by picking “hot” and “cold” numbers in the MegaMillions drawing. Had a few more numbers hit on Friday:

Number Set8/168/198/238/27
Family NumbersNo matchesNo MatchesNo MatchesTwo Matches
“Hot” Numbers (=>3x in last 20 draws)No matchesNo MatchesNo MatchesOne Match
“Cold” Numbers (=1x in last 50 draws)One matchNo MatchesNo MatchesTwo Matches
Quick PickNo matchesOne matchNo MatchesNo
Matches

Cold numbers are still ahead after four drawings but not a material difference in my mind. This drawing did make some money back! One of the “Cold” number matches is the Megaball, so we have won 10% of the $40 investment in the 5 draws.

Final draw is Tuesday night. Read about the previous drawings here: Drawing 1 | Drawing 2 & 3.

MegaMillions Experiment – Draws 2 and 3

Continuing on with the silly experiment I am doing by picking “hot” and “cold” numbers in the MegaMillions drawing. I was out of town for the Friday drawing so let’s catch up on drawings 2 and 3, and we’ll keep drawing 1 as a reference:

Number Set8/168/198/23
Family NumbersNo matchesNo MatchesNo Matches
“Hot” Numbers (=>3x in last 20 draws)No matchesNo MatchesNo Matches
“Cold” Numbers (=1x in last 50 draws)One matchNo MatchesNo Matches
Quick PickNo matchesOne matchNo Matches

After one drawing it looked like the cold numbers would be the ones to beat, but Quick Pick jumped on the board in drawing number 2 with a match. Tuesday was a bad drawing for the lot, with no matches to the array of 24 numbers.

I did note something interesting that I had not picked up on when creating this. The “Family” number and “Hot” number set share a selection. So do the “Cold” numbers and the Quick Pick.

One additional thought I had is that if I had truly wanted to stick with “hot” and “cold” numbers for each drawing I should have reset after each drawing, but this method will work for our simple experiment.

MegaMillions Experiment – Draw 1 of 5

I outlined the silly experiment I am doing by picking “hot” and “cold” numbers in the MegaMillions drawing. Here are the results from the August 16 draw:

Number SetDrawing 1
Family NumbersNo matching numbers
“Hot” Numbers (=>3x in last 20 draws)No matching numbers
“Cold” Numbers (=1x in last 50 draws)One matching number
Quick PickNo matching numbers

So, the cold numbers at least got on the board but there’s no real advantage to any of the combinations after the first draw.

“Experimenting” with the Mega Millions

Adam Savage Meme

A famous modern philosopher once said:

“The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.”

– Adam Savage, Mythbusters 2012

So here’s the writing down to document something fun I am trying with Mega Millions.

During the big run-up to the Billion dollar jackpot, my Mom asked me to play some family numbers, which, in the grand scheme of things, have as good a chance as any other if you follow probability. It got me to thinking if I can give probablity a little nudge so I am putting $40 into an experiment. I have picked 4 sets of numbers for Mega Millions:

  • Mom’s Family Numbers
  • The 6 “hottest” numbers from the last 20 drawings according to an online site. These are numbers that have been drawn between 3 and 5 times in the last 20 drawings. So, would these numbers “stay hot” and give me a better chance of winning.
  • The 6 “coldest” numbers in the last 50 drawings according to the same online site. All of these have only been drawn 1 time in the last 25 weeks, So would these numbers “catch up” to their probability of being drawn.
  • A standard quick pick, which should be a psudo-random set of numbers.

In order to give these a bit more of a chance, I have purchased 5 drawings for each set of numbers, so we’ll see what happens after 2.5 weeks.