Numbers in pure maths and theory have equal chance, and totally random, not in a mechanical see through drum that spins and loads of balls with numbers do not behave as in theory. Just a fraction of minute differences and neither are all the balls the same exact size down to a nano meter. So this explains why some numbers tend to come more often which in theory they shouldn't, I understand the very nature of random can also mean the same number could come up 100 out of 100 times.
I was asked to make a machine called (Staff Random Selector)that where odds can be selected between 1 in 1 to 1 in 100, this was to stop store staff when leaving they press a button and if they are unlucky, a red light comes up and they have to stop for a search, if they were lucky a green light comes up and the automatic door latch opens up and the staff is free to go, when it comes to Red, the staff must surrender for a search of their bags, this was to stop store security picking on any particular person leaving the store.
Unfortunately, at times it would stop at red time after time and I was told that there must be something wrong with it, and I then had a job explaining that it is the nature of randomness, that one cannot predict what number/colour it will land on. Of course to prove that my machine had no fault, when selector was turned to 1in 1, it stopped at red every time and when set to 1 in 2, it was as expected 3 green and 7 reds, in the first 10 attempts, and over a 100 attempts it was more evened out i.e 49/51
as an example, i used a counter that counted between 0 and 99, 0 would be allocated Red and 1-99 would be allocated green,, so the counter is always counting and no one can predict what at any given time the count is, so when store staff leaves, they strike the hit button, not knowing what number the counter is pointing to, so when a staff strikes the button, if the counter was at 0 it would go red, the frequency of the counter was approx 10Khz, fast enough to make it harder for the next person in the queue not to work out exact timing when to strike again in order to get a green, this is how the client (store ) could set his odds by shifting the ring counter termination setting, so you could set it to terminate at say 25 by selecting numbers from two decade rotary switches. this way the ring counter counts from 0 to 24 and on 25th pulse it resets to zero or jumps to zero and continues. This would give them odds of 1 in 25..you might ask why the store not search every staff when leaving, a large store employing over a 1000 workers cannot afford the time to stop all their staff and search everyone leaving, this is to do with loss prevention.
But don't forget, for national lotto, all I had to get was 3 number match to get my tenner back, for every £10 i spent, I got most of it back, often winning 4 number match, overall I was not making much, some weeks i would lose a few quid, but as I said it gave me a chance to go for the big wins which stands the same chance as anyone else just placing 6 random numbers.
The biggest draw back in my program was updating it automatically, so if I was sampling the randomly selected set of 6 numbers, i had to compare this with the actual results of the past say 20 weeks, so each week goes by, I need to remove 21st week's numbers and replace it with the latest results, this involved a lot of typing, such as line number 1020 a=03: b=16: c=21: d=35: e=42: f=43: g=14 go to 680
and so I had to retype all of the above manually, I made so many lottery analysing programmes to actually work out the odds which apparently were very close to theoretical figures when just asking computer to select any 6 random numbers without comparing it with any past results.
I also did perms, and won lots of money whenever I got 3 matches or 4 matches,
since in perms of 7 numbers if you win a 3 number match you would win 4 winning combinations, and if you got 4 numbers out of 7, you would win 3 wins of 4number matches, as well as 4 ins of 3 number matches. I spent hours and hours and I am glad i got that big contract that diverted me from lotto, who knows I might have ended up losing big time, or who knows it might have been the other way.
of course what i did was calculated gambling.
By the way when you tell people that lotto only allows you to choose 6 numbers out of 49 (based on original system not the current one with 59 numbers) I used to tell them that do you know you can actually choose 7 numbers if you want, or even 8, or even 10 or even more and as many numbers as you want, people didn't believe me, they said not that was not possible, and I used to end up explaining to them how they could select 10 numbers if they so wished but at a cost, and so i prepared charts to reveal how much it would cost them if they were to play 7 numbers and 8 and so on, here is a little brief based on original lotto games:
6 numbers cost £1.00
7 numbers cost £7.00
8 numbers cost £28.00 (if you match 3 numbers you win 10 times, 4 num.match you win 6 times and 5 number match you win 3 times
9 numbers cost £84.00
10 numbers cost £210.00
11 numbers cost £462.00 ( If you win 3 numbers out of 11, you would win 56 wins of £10.00 and this gives you maximum chance, besides if you happen to match 4 numbers, you would win 21 times of 4 number matches! and 5number matches will get you 6 times. (bear in mind, if you were to fill 462 boards that would be approx 100 game cards to be punched into the lotto machine and so you would frustrate the lotto retailer! unless lotto allowed you to do so many online tickets)
12 numbers cost £924.00 to play. (but now the 3 number match will only occur 84 times, which means if you got 3 number match out of 12, you will only get £840 back, and lose £84.00, but equally it gives you a higher chance to match 4 number win, that will occur 28 times, and if you were lucky and got 5 number match, though odds are still high for that, but it would occur 7 times.
So before anyone says anything, i have done my homework, you stand a good chance of winning more from 11 numbers each week winning more than you would lose some weeks, and those weeks you lost, you will soon make it up by huge wins from a 4 number match! You might say it averages out, it doesn't and why do you think National Lottery has made it harder now! there must be some reason why they raised the stake to £2.00 and introduced 59 numbers.
I have absolutely no idea what the current loto costs and all I know is that it has increased the pool of numbers from 49 to is it 59, but i have no idea what it now wins you.
You could test my theory, choose 11 numbers, and see how they favour each week, numbers must be odds and even spread evenly, and see how you would have done, but choose those 11 numbers that have higher frequency, i.e. that have been coming up more regularly during the past say 25 to 30 draws.
another thing you will notice, there is nearly always one number from a previous weeks draw, more than often. this defies theoretical odds.
secondly if people realise what a chance of winning jackpot (1 in 13.9million) really means, it means almost impossible, so in that case no one would actually play lotto, but they do and nearly every week someone wins a jackpot! thats a fact.
(please don't gamble if you cannot choose the frequently occurring numbers, would anyone bet a lot on a horse that has never won a Derby? )