Thread: Lottery pick-3 odds? View Single Post
 2017-05-05, 06:38 #19 schickel     "Frank <^>" Dec 2004 CDP Janesville 2·1,061 Posts So the real reason I posted this was to check how crazy I was for trying a system that I came across while looking for some pick-3 tracking software (nothing that I found that was really recent or too capable, especially without having to plunk down $50 or more to try it out.) If there were bias to be found, 14,448 draws might be enough to have it start to show. Anyway, I found this blog with a couple of progressive systems; basically a martingale system where you play until you win, increasing bets when you lose, though the progression isn't "keep doubling until you win", since the odds on the game are not 50:50. For some reason I didn't choose the box prize side of things (maybe the prize wasn't big enough to tempt my reptilian gambling brain enough) so I jumped right in with the straight prize side of things. Starting back in February I played a bunch of Daily 3 games. The suggestion is to play either the afternoon or evening games only, but it's way easier to just play striaght through and use the advance feature. After three wins, I wanted to get a feel for what kind of risk I'm really running. Baesed on the chart, you can tell how far I was based on the amounts I was risking. First run, amount played:$1260, win: 3 @ $579=$1737, net win: $477 Second run, amount played:$290, win: 1 @ $409, net win:$119 Third run, amount played: $760, win: 2 @$572=$1144, net win:$384 So after three wins in 3 months, I am up $980 over the series and this was with the same 10 numbers for the whole run. Also, since California pays all prizes parimutuelly, the first and third prizes were more than would have been wom with a fixed prize amount. And I could have netted slightly higher by playing each day, rather than using the advance draw feature noted above; all the wins were about in the middle of the series of 14 games you can play ahead, so I may have left$50-60 on the table by being lazy. (The really nice thing is that the first win was 3 prizes under the cashing limit for a retail location, so no waiting and no 1099 at the end of the year!) Looking at the cummulative probability quoted in the thread above, it looks like I was really fortunate that I didn't get myself in a really deep hole, but I should quit while I'm ahead, huh?