Lottery...Enterer

Discussion in 'Neopets Program Discussion' started by Zack, Jan 25, 2009.

  1. Zack

    Zack Level II

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    I don't know about anyone else, but the main reason I never enter the lottery is the time it takes to fill out the numbers and buy tickets. So if there were a program that could buy x number of tickets with either randomized numbers or numbers you choose (could keep them in a text file) and you just run it each day to buy your tickets for you. I don't think it would be terribly complicated, as the lottery system is just a bunch of text boxes and a button, but my VB skills are pretty fail. My computer science teacher never really taught us to make anything useful :p So i'll leave this one up to the pros, if any of them think this is a good idea.
    Also I'm not sure if theres a limit on how many tickets you could buy, cuz if there's a low limit, that would render this idea a lot more useless... But if not you could buy like 100 every day XD
     
  2. krilas

    krilas Level II

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    This might be useful, I read in a post somewhere that it is possible to win the lottery if you choose random numbers and increase them by 1 throughout the rows, however you will need a few accounts for this to work. Not sure if it actually does work since I've never actually bothered to type out the combinations one by one myself.
     
  3. Heya_old

    Heya_old Level IV

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    limit is 20 per day, so you'd need to do multi-account...
     
  4. Zack

    Zack Level II

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    yeah that's why i was asking
    20 isn't completely horrible though, I thought it might be like 5
    this is just an idea for the uber lazies though
    and krilas there are like hundreds of thousands of possibilities, so im not sure what you're saying... this wouldn't guarantee a win or anything
     
  5. Zer0

    Zer0 Level IV

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    Ok, I might make one of these for my trainer
    -adds to todo list-
     
  6. krilas

    krilas Level II

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    I will just briefly quote what I saw on the other forums cause I'm going out right now and won't be back till late:

    Basically one of the reason why there aren't as many combinations as people would think there is, I think, is because no repeated numbers are allowed. Maybe someone can read through the lengthy post and see if it makes sense to you too.
     
  7. Heya_old

    Heya_old Level IV

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    If that is true, then this program could be a. too dangerous to be released, or b. an auto ice... either way, it wouldn't end well... i find it hard to belive there can only be 40-100 different combos possible...
     
  8. Zack

    Zack Level II

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    Yeah there's definitely more. Otherwise people would only need to buy like 40-100 lotto tickets in real life to win millions...life's not that easy
    I don't have the patience to read that long message but when I'm feeling more energetic I'll find something wrong with it XD
     
  9. Hally

    Hally Level IV

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    The person who wrote that on the other forum is sadly quiet misinformed about the way numbers work.

    Ignore the fact that the numbers are chosen in ascending order.

    If there are numbers from 1-30 here's what you're choosing:

    1 number from 30.
    1 number from 29
    1 from 28
    1 from 27
    1 from 26
    1 from 25.

    30*29*27*28*26*25
    Or 30 P 6 (a Permutation). Which is equal to 427 518 000

    Oh wait, i lied. You're really doing the Combination (as opposed to permutation) 30 C 6, basically, out of 30 numbers choose 6 of them.

    You take the permutation of 30 P 6, and divide by 6! because there are 6! different ways to assign the 6 numbers (thus getting rid of he different order fiasco)

    The answer is 593 775.

    That's how many possibilities there are. Now, to get 4 numbers correct, take 30 P 4, and respectively the same for 5 numbers correct.

    Ask for details if you need.
     
  10. Zack

    Zack Level II

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    Yeah this is the number I got originally, although I didn't know the math behind it i just used an odds calculator i found on google, so thanks for that hally :p
    So you'd need to run this on about 30,000 accounts (and it would cost about 60mill) for a guaranteed win hahaha. Like I was saying it isn't meant to guarantee a win, its just a convenience thing, like a daily doer.
     
  11. Epsilon5

    Epsilon5 Level I

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    I agree that this would be beneficial. I think it'd be well worth the 2k NP daily to have a shot at however many millions the prize is every day. To have a program fill it all in for you would be the next logical step. I like the idea!
     
  12. krilas

    krilas Level II

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    Hmm yeah I guess that's true. Although it might be useful to have an algorithm for the program to follow in sequence rather than just going in random.
     
  13. Hally

    Hally Level IV

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    Haha AP statistics is probably the most useful math course I've ever taken. I'm glad google agrees with me, I haven't done any sort of math in like 8 months now because I've been out of school for so long.

    I'm IP banned for neo. How often do people with with 5 numbers or 4 numbers? And when that happens, does it have to always be the last or first few numbers? Could someone let me know so I could calculate the odds. Winning with 4 numbers would definitely be much easier than with 6.
     
  14. Heya_old

    Heya_old Level IV

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    i doubt many win with 4... that'd be hard to win with 4... just think how many play it each day...

    idk how to calculate odds for that at all though, its weird...i'd say just 30*30*30*30, but i'd be wrong, lol
     
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  15. Zack

    Zack Level II

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    This will only really answer your first question, as neo doesn't show what numbers the winners had, but it couldn't hurt to have a visual:

    http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/6257/neolotterytb6.png
     
  16. Zer0

    Zer0 Level IV

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    The odds of getting 5 numbers correct is 1 in 23751
    A rough average of your winnings for getting 5 numbers correct is 500k NP
    So if you have a thousand shell accounts to spare, you can earn about 300k everyday :yup:
     
  17. xProphet

    xProphet Level III

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    Thank You!
    This numbers are winners?
     
  18. BobaFett

    BobaFett Administrator
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    Looks like I'm in luck then!
     
  19. Zack

    Zack Level II

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    erm..no, we're discussing the odds of winning
    I wish we had the winning numbers...although I guess if we all knew them we'd each only get like 1k :D
     
  20. ricothegreat221

    ricothegreat221 Level II

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    See: The rules on suggesting ideas ;).

    I went about calculating expected value a different way, and honestly, the lotto isn't worth the time you put into it. Each ticket can only expect to make (5,000 / X) where X is the number of tickets sold --- because TNT throws in 5,000, the rest of the pot comes from ticket sales.

    So, unless (as you previously noted) you're able to buy basically every single ticket, this script isn't really worth the time / effort / cost / risk.