Counting lottery numbers

Hi, Here in Finland beside lottery we have thing called Keno and principal is same than normal lottery. I was wondering is it possible to copy all Keno numbers from last seven years to Arduino sketch and calculate possibility for each number? I need really big string or something like that and don't know how to do that.
Can somebody help me please?
Here is link to all numbers from last seven years: Keno numbers

You could, although you would need an arduino with a lot of memory to load it all simultaneously. It looks to me as though you're taking about 3 drawings of 20 numbers a day for seven years which would be ~140K. It's static, so you could put it in progmem. Alternatively, you could put it on an SD card if your analysis simply needs to iterate through all the data.

Why would you do such thing though? There's no I/O, so the computer you're using to program the arduino is much better suited to do your numerical analysis.

Whether you are doing the analysis on a pc or an Arduino, you are wasting your time. It won't make any difference to your probability of winning.

LOL now that's an interesting way to resurrect a necrothread :slight_smile:

Hi

PaulRB:
Whether you are doing the analysis on a pc or an Arduino, you are wasting your time.

Isn't that what hobbies are for?

Playing around to see if something can be done but it doesn't matter so much is it doesn't work?

I poke around with horse racing in VB...have maybe five bets per week, win some, lose some.

Over several years my records show that I lose three pounds (UK Sterling) per week, but it's a hobby that fills around an hour each day plus a few days 'programming' here and there. And it costs me a lot less than some other hobbies I could take up.

Peter

tuom86:
Hi, Here in Finland beside lottery we have thing called Keno and principal is same than normal lottery. I was wondering is it possible to copy all Keno numbers from last seven years to Arduino sketch and calculate possibility for each number? I need really big string or something like that and don't know how to do that.
Can somebody help me please?
Here is link to all numbers from last seven years: Keno numbers

If the system of generating the numbers is truly random then the probability of each number coming up is the same and you can calculate it.

If you toss a coin it can come up either heads or tails. Unless the coin or the way it is tossed is biased in some way then the chances of it coming up heads is always 50:50 each time the coin is tossed. It does not matter if the last six times you tossed the coin it came up heads the next time you toss it the odds will still be 50:50 that it comes up heads.

If you are thinking of looking at the past results to predict the best numbers to bet on in the future you are wasting your time.

If you are thinking that the past numbers are not random then you could try to detect that by looking at the previous numbers. However, unless Keno uses a very simple way to produce the numbers, proving that they were not random would probably involve a lot of serious mathematics;

ardly:
However, unless Keno uses a very simple way to produce the numbers, proving that they were not random would probably involve a lot of serious mathematics;

I would suggest its impossble to 'prove' a set of numbers, or coin tosses, is either random or not random.

You might show that a particular sequence of occurances is unlikely to a certain level of confidence, but thats not quite the same as not possible.

srnet:
I would suggest its impossble to 'prove' a set of numbers, or coin tosses, is either random or not random.

You might show that a particular sequence of occurances is unlikely to a certain level of confidence, but thats not quite the same as not possible.

I accept what you say. A truly random number generator may produce number sequences that, for a time, do not appear to be random. So you cannot look at the past data and say for certain that what produced them was not random. However if you look at the past data, speculate on a process that would produce such a sequence, and then accurately forecast future numbers you may not have "proved" that the numbers are not random but you will have won the lottery.

If you can actually prove that the numbers are not truly random, the resulting scandle will likely result in the end of the lottery.

david_2018:
If you can actually prove that the numbers are not truly random, the resulting scandle will likely result in the end of the lottery.

@tuom86 is not going to tell anybody.

But ... if you want to do it ( pointless ) try a spreadsheet on a Proper big computer

david_2018:
If you can actually prove that the numbers are not truly random

You cannot.

srnet:
You cannot.

1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128 and the next number is ?

The numbers above could be random and I agree that you cannot prove that they are not.

However let's say that the numbers above came from a lottery and they are supposed to be random but you suspect that they are not. You might devise a 'generator' where the next number is twice the preceeding one and forcast that 256 will be drawn next. Would you bet on it?

Looking at the 'random' numbers and trying to find as pattern because you think the numbers are not truly random is quite rational, it is what code breakers do.

ardly:
Looking at the 'random' numbers and trying to find as pattern because you think the numbers are not truly random is quite rational, it is what code breakers do.

Code breakers are not looking at random numbers. :roll_eyes:

Unless of course, they are looking at a OTP - in which case code breaking is useless.

Paul__B:
Code breakers are not looking at random numbers. :roll_eyes:

....

That is my point. With a code plain text is turned into encrypted text using some method, the encrypted text is not random.
If a lottery really uses numbers that are truly random then studying past results is a waste of time. If however you believe that the numbers are not random then seeking to find some pattern may be very difficult but could yield a result.

Roulette wheels look as if they should be random but Joseph Jagger thought he saw a flaw and made his fortune by finding patterns.

Thats a bit like selling books on how to win the lottery.

regardless of the theory of numbers repeating, the Arduino is not the platform for this sort of work.
you can easily read all the last 100 years of daily numbers from every country into a PC.
for an Aruino, it would fill up before you got a few weeks numbers. the Arduino just does not have the memory for such huge number crunching.

when you take in the planets angular rotation and axis tilt to the sun from and the location of mars, venus and the moon and find that 414 comes out every time the celestial alignment show 8712452.....
this is not work that you can do on the Arduino.

just to find that 8617 repeats every March is hard enough, still too much for an Arduino.