Org Experiment Chat Thread
 

I might just end up talking to myself in here but given I've got 4 responders in 5 minutes I need to say you guys have surprised me once again, I did wonder if the reaction would just be one of :laughat: but it's a novelty if nothing else. Thanks so much for the replies so far!

Re the question what if I win big, the chances are still the same and £500 for picking some numbers seems pretty good to me, plus if you wanted a larger share then you can play the same numbers I will at the end of it.

I did ponder the idea of an org syndicate but guess that administration alone would kill the idea.

Re: Org Experiment Chat Thread
 

i like this idea. once the numbers are chosen how about making them a regular org lottery number and have it stickied.

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This can't possibly work unless you are the Brown himself but I've put some numbers in for the sake of fun. I may even do a bit of correlation myself :)

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Sounds like an idea, but who would pay the pound each time or do you mean post them up so whoever wants to put the line on can do?

I'm really surprised by the uptake of this so far, I've added them all into an excel sheet and so far it calculates the spread and average number between the suggestions.

Spread
Min:21
Max: 46

Average
Min: 18.3
Max: 33.3

I'm not sure what criteria I'll play at the end as I'll probably do a few variations but when I decide I'll post them up with details of the selection.

Thanks guys, this is the most interesting thing on my agenda today (Does that speak more about my job or my persona?)

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On that I agree, I think the Derren Brown show was a trick as that is what he specialises in.

I don't like using lucky dip somehow as it seems open for abuse (logic says it shouldn't be as its still a game of chance but even so...)
I usually play my lottery numbers when I do play by choosing the most drawn balls, the least drawn and the longest since being drawn.

I have to have some order to it, it's my compulsion.
I've used excel previously to generate random numbers and select based on those but I thought I'd try the human approach and see what happens.

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I went to see a lecture with Richard Wiseman who is a kinda celebrity psychologist & magician & it was very interesting indeed. Sure enough he said that although Derren Brown is good at phychology / hypnosis a LOT of it is smoke & mirrors to distract from how he's actually doing the trick.

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no idea how the Brown thing worked but logic tells you its impossible. Its not like guessing the number of balls in a jar!

But still, good luck and I hope you get rich! :)

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Did anyone see his show about the lucky dog in Todmorden park?


It was prime example of how luck and superstition, or lack of it....works!

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hmm sounds interesting, sadly I missed that one.

Wow 20 lines so far and its not even lunchtime, go Org!

Out of interest, the ones posted by daveyrach, nobbylad and pencilshavings, were they birthdays? usually an indication if the highest number is not above 31. only curious, thanks for the submissions!

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Lots of response as we all like a bit of harmless fun.

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Mine certainly were, mine, my wifes and my 4 children

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added mine..

interested to see what happens..

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28 entries in just over 2 hours, impressive.
Looks like I might have to make good on my pledge at this rate. I'll probably try and do the final sums/stats tomorrow at 6ish, entry closes at 7:30 my cutoff for suggestions will be when I do the data which I will make sure won't be before 6 to give people the most time.

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Good idea on the thread, may I make one comparative suggestion?
Pick you numbers in the manor you have pledged, but at the same time compear all the other sets of 6 with those which appear during the draw. Im interested to know which line would have claimed the most from lotto HQ, had it been played.

EDIT: YES, We'd all be freaking gutted if a member had selected what appeared tomorrow as the winning numbers.

*everyone runs off to play thier numbers.

Re: Org Experiment Chat Thread
 

Quick stats update, I'd like to think these won't skew the suggestions but they may well do.

30 lines in and there are:

• 2 numbers which no-one has selected yet.
• The 5 most popular numbers have each been selected 7 times
• 23.18 is the average number selected.
• 38.9 is the average spread.
• The 1 and 49 have only been selected once so far.
• If voting stopped now the selection would be : 47, 11, 18, 21, 9, 7
• the 6th ball, (7) has 6 votes as do the next 5 numbers, choosing the 6th ball might have to be done by chronological order of suggestion or perhaps highest or lowest suggestion.

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No they werent,

Apart from 12, which is my lucky number, none of the others have any significance. I dont do the lottery and they were just the first numbers that came into my head! :)

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I'm pretty sure I can make excel work me that out, I've got them all logged in there so I'll run it through, interesting suggestion!

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Yes

Same

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Your numbers were Daveyrach's wife and kids birthdays? ;)
Sorry its been a long day and I've just had a large Costa hit. :)

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Lol!!:laughat:

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fallout: I'm not fooling myself into believing this or trying to make others think anything either, as stated there is no reason why the wisdom of crowds should work on probability but still its a bit of fun.

Almost at the 50 mark already, I'm more amused by the idea of this than I should be, some clear leaders at the moment that have been selected 10 times, every number has now been selected at least once now too.

definitely interested to test out Owenski's idea of see which org member would win biggest (if anything) I'm curious to see if you put 50ish lines on, if you would make your money back, logic suggests not but I'm not sure on the odds of 5 small wins over 50 lines, 1 in 10 doesn't sound that far out of the way for matching 3 numbers.

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Interesting way of choosing the numbers. I would've expected you to choose the 6 highest mode average numbers. How did Derren do it?

Edit: I hear you in the post above. It's definitely an interesting investigation into trends and popular numbers at least! I want my £500 though!!! :-P

Re: Org Experiment Chat Thread
 

They are the 6 highest mode, I just probably wasn't very clear about it. Derren's thing was getting the people to watch lottery broadcasts for a couple of weeks and concentrate on the numbers, predicting each week, then by the 3rd I think it was, they got it spot on.

Here's a quick snapshot of the results table so far:
http://www.brettnet.co.uk/temp/orglotteryongoing.png
I think its interesting on the side sorted by ball number that the numbers with just a single showing so far are scattered reasonably regularly through the range, I expected them to be in the higher section given peoples tendencies for familiar numbers like birthdays etc.

just to be absolutely clear, although I throw in the odd phrase I know **** about probability and the mathematics behind it all, I'm just playing with the numbers in an excel sheet. I'll try and show my working when I post the final selection of numbers I'll play. As I say I'll likely play a few lines, highest mode, lowest mode, random variation including average number and average spread perhaps, meaningless but ultimately its all arbitrary anyway as it is supposed to be random.

I'm always open to suggestions too, and of course the numbers are there for everyone to see so if you want to work it out and weight it a particular way then feel free to grab the numbers and play a line, I'm not trying to monopolise this at all. I just wanted as large as possible sample size of human suggested numbers and I don't have many friends :rolleyes:

Plus as we all know, there is nothing the org can't do ;)

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The only strategy I know of that is based in logic is to attempt to select the least popular numbers. The logic being that, your chance of winning is exactly the same, but your chance of having to share it with someone else is reduced. I would imagine there will be a lot of people who just play 1,2,3,4,5,6 (for whatever deranged reason) and if you win with those numbers, you're going to be sharing it with lots of people.

So perhaps your best bet is to choose numbers with the lowest occurrence. Same chance of winning, but probably less chance of sharing.

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I hated probability with a vengeance when I did maths.....it gave me nightmares at school.


Just pic some random numbers, and stroke a lucky dog statue, and believe it will give you luck ;)

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Morning All, more waffle from the educated idiot (phrase coined because I've managed to pick up enough terms to make it sound like I know what I'm talking about but I have only a slight grasp on how to use them and I don't want to mislead people, although I'm sure none of you will mistake me for a genius :takeabow:)

Right, after 4 of the last 5 submissions have been what I consider "birthday" lines, where no numbers are higher than 31, the table colouring looks like this:
http://www.brettnet.co.uk/temp/orglotteryongoing2.png

The only number above 31 that has a high enough representation to show green is 36. I'd imagine given a 10x sample size even this little wrinkle in the data would average out.

Next on my plan for playing with numbers is to stick them into some graphs, yes I am that sad. But the neat thing here is it is real data from real people, virtual lottery tickets will be at the ready tonight and I'll try and post up the results tonight, should be done and dusted by 9:30 looking at the tv schedule.

I haven't watched a draw in years, I play online by subscription so I just get informed when I've won £10 every 8 months as it usually is ;)

Re: Org Experiment Chat Thread
 

Right, I think what I have constructed now is infact a fully operational lottery simulator. with a few tweaks(randbetween in the results, a loop, counter and break) it could probably be set to run and find out how many weeks it would take before one of us hit the jackpot but I haven't gotten that bored yet and my macro skills suck.

So, if anyone wants a look at the sheet, the grey cells are calculation or don't need editing cells. The light orange cells are "input" cells, so inputting the guesses and then the actual results.

The rest is calculated, I've haphazardly applied some conditional formatting so that the numbers which match a main ball on the submission list turn green, those that match a bonus ball turn red. This was great for a quick glance I thought but then created some columns that check for matches and the end result is summed up in column W, labelled result. Match 3 turns green, Match 4 turns blue, match 5 turns dark cherry, match 5 plus bonus turns brighter red and Jackpot turns the brightest red (with text to match the criteria of course)

http://www.brettnet.co.uk/temp/OrgLottery.xlsx
Just over two hours left if anyone else wants to put some numbers forward.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far people! :cheers: :smt115 [-o<

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Cant seem to see that.

So what numbers are you going with?

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Right, the ticket has been purchased, I placed 5 lines:

• Org most popular selection
• Org least popular selection
• Actual most drawn
• Actual least drawn
• Longest undrawn

http://www.brettnet.co.uk/temp/orglotteryticket.png

Best of Luck people! [-o<
Thanks for the help and amusement :)

Re: Org Experiment Chat Thread
 

I cannot be bothered to check. So tell me did you win ?.

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Still waiting on the draw, I'm not holding out much hope as I did turn the spreadsheet into a simulator earlier and over 31000 lottery runs playing EVERYONE'S numbers I'd ended up £1.3m down.

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Right, the results are in, not even a tenner.
Infact the only one of the 56 lines, only one won anything.

so, the org winner, matching 3 numbers was Tomor!

Thanks for the entertainment at least! Satisfied my curiosity.

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Lol, heard the phrase....get a life ?

:D

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He works in IT ;)

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Anyone giving Brett's numbers another go ?. I cannot be bothered to think of more numbers so I will.

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Not too surprising really. You have to remember that the average value of a lottery ticket is 50p (prize money divided by tickets) so any simulation which has you winning is probably flawed (or you have a very small sample size and got lucky).

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Made a tenner anyway, org power.