Lottery Manager, Version 1.00

The balls theory:

Sitting comfortably?  Good.  Before we cover the functionality of Lottery Manager, I want to tell you about its reason for existence, and the theory behind its use.  As I am in a lottery syndicate (all be it a very small one), I decided to write my own program to create lines, store them, and be able to check them quickly and easily.  This program has developed much since then, to a point where I feel it will be of benefit to other lottery players.  The one thing the system does not attempt to do is predict the next balls that are going to come out of the machine.  All of the lottery programs I have downloaded do this one way or another, and I found that they are almost always off the mark.  My program allows you to create your own wheels, or simply generate random numbers.  However, there is a method I use, called exclusions.

Although we cannot know which balls will be picked in any one draw, we DO know all of the different possibilities (i.e.; the 14 million possible combinations).  We also know that some TYPES of lines occur a lot less often in our 13,983,816 combinations than others.  

As an example, lets take lines which contain all sequential numbers.  These are the possibilities:
01-02-03-04-05-06
02-03-04-05-06-07
03-04-05-06-07-08


42-43-44-45-46-47
43-44-45-46-47-48
44-45-46-47-48-49

In all, there are only 44 lines possible that contain all sequential numbers, out of 13,983,816.  This would suggest that the likelihood of a draw containing all sequential numbers is low.  Indeed, there has never been a draw in any lottery containing all sequential numbers.  This is one type of exclusion.  In fact, you can be reasonably sure on betting that there will not be more than 2 or 3 sequential numbers in any one draw.  There are many other ways to exclude unlikely lines.  All of which are completely adjustable in my program.

What my program does is start you off with your own wheel (or you can pick one that comes with the program), then attempts to reduce the number of lines you have to play using the exclusions.  Basically, the system should be able to reduce your lines, while still keeping a reasonable amount of the wheels guarantee.  As an example, you could reduce the number of lines you have to play by half, while only losing 25% of the wheels guarantee.  This means you can actually improve how much you win for the money you put down.

The Program:

Here is a step by step guide to creating a set of numbers.  There are two ways to set up some lines using this program.  You can either use a wheel, or simply a set of random numbers, or a combination of the two.  Generally, I take a wheel, reduce the number of lines using exclusions, then fill up the spaces I have left with random lines.

Double click on the LOTTERY icon.

The load screen will appear, with a timer.  This program is shareware, if you continue to use it you must register it.  Registration is only 8.00, and can be done via the CompuServe Shareware Registration forum (GO SWREG), or by mailing me directly.  Registering your software will entitle you to the full version of Lottery Manager, which does not have a timer, contains more options, and many additional wheels.  You will also receive free upgrades for the first year of your registration.

Once the timer delay is complete, the main screen will appear.

Before we do anything else, we should pick a wheel to use for our lottery draw.  Click on File, Select wheel.

The wheeling screen should appear:
 

Simply click on the wheel you want to use, and click on OK (for this example, lets use G175.WHL, which guarantees a win of at least 10 every week).  As a note, by using the Add Wheel option, you can create your own wheels, or enter ones you have been given to use on this program.

The system will then take you to the entry screen:
 

Every wheel has a pool.  The pool is the quantity of numbers you can cover in this wheel.  The G175 wheel covers all 49 possible numbers. If you decide to cover less numbers (i.e.; 40), then you can play less lines, but of course, there is a chance that some numbers in the draw will not be in your selection.  If you want to fill in the boxes yourself, just type in each number and press TAB.  If you don't, simply click on the Random button, and the program will fill the boxes with random numbers from 1 to 49.  If you do more than one wheel, you can use the Use Last button to use the same numbers you used on the previous wheel.  The Reorganise button will simply shuffle your chosen numbers around, making a different set of numbers at the end.  We will cover the unused numbers button and the special button later, as they are not used for the first selection.

Click on OK.

The program will return you to the main screen, and will generate 175 lines using the numbers you entered:
 

Lets test this wheel out.  Click on the test button, and tell the computer you want to run it for 10 pretend draws.  The computer will run 10 random draws, and check that draw against your numbers.  You should see that each week will produce at least 10 (although each draw does cost you 175!)

Lets add some exclusions and see what happens.

Click on the white box next to the first exclusion (Remove odd numbers), so that an X appears.  You should also see that the Recalculate button has turned red.  As soon as you change anything on the screen which may affect the number of lines, this button changes colour to remind you that you have to press it.  Lets discuss what each exclusion does.

Remove Odd Numbers > 5.  This removes any line you have in your wheel that contains 6 odd numbers.  Over 95% of possible draws contain less that 6 odd or even numbers.  Click on the recalculate button, the number of lines should reduce slightly from 175, unless of course none of your lines contain 6 odd numbers.  Try changing the number to 4, and click on recalculate again.  The number of lines should reduce even more, because we are now removing all lines which contain more than 4 odd numbers.

Remove Even Numbers > 5.  As above, but for even numbers.  I bet you didn't guess that one!

Remove Seq. Numbers > 2.  In any draw you rarely get a line with more than 2 sequential numbers.  Click on this, and alter the number if you like (alter it to 3 to be even safer).

Remove Range < 20.  This removes any line where the difference between the lowest number and the highest number is less than 20.

Remove Last Weeks if > 2.  This removes any line that contains more than two numbers that appeared in last weeks draw.  Have last weeks draw numbers to hand if you want to use this!  Before you use this, click on the ? box to the right of the option, this allows you to enter last weeks numbers.

Play every ? number.  This isn't an exclusion as such, if after all your other exclusions there are still more lines than you want to play, clicking on this will simply play every other line (or if you change the number, every third line etc.).

Remove Same Column > 3.  In the UK, tickets are laid out in so many rows and columns;
1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15
.
41	42	43	44	45
46	47	48	49
Again, the chances of more than 3 numbers being in the same column is low.

Remove Same Row > 2.  As above, the chances of more than 2 numbers being in the same row are limited.

Sum Between 85 and 215.  The sum is the total of each of your 6 numbers on each line.  Most lines are between the two numbers offered.  Increase the gap to encompass more draws. (minimum is 21, maximum is 279)

Remove Gaps > 20.  This simply removes any lines where there is a gap between two adjacent numbers of more than 20.

Set expected A,B,C,D,E,F.  this sets the expected range for each of your 6 numbers individually.

In order to actually see what your exclusions are doing, you can test them.  Ensure all of the boxes contain an X (except the Play every ? Number one).  Click on recalculate.  Your number of lines to play will drop, probably between 100 & 150 depending on your settings and numbers.  Click on the exclusions button, and a new panel will appear in the centre of the screen.  Click on Test, type in 100 and click on OK.  The program will then create 100 random draws, and check these against the exclusions you have set.  You will see the percentage passed and percentage failed columns adjust accordingly.  Each individual exclusion is checked, and the line marked as a pass or a fail.  The total at the bottom of the screen shows how many of the lines passed all exclusions, and how many failed.  As you adjust your exclusions, these numbers will change accordingly.  Note that to properly test your exclusions, you should run it through more that 100 lines (try 1,000,000 and leave it running overnight for an accurate assessment), although you will find that the averages are reasonable on a test of about 500-1000 lines.  Basically, this test shows how many possible draws pass all of your exclusions successfully, and how many fail.  If you have more fails than passes, change your exclusions!  The idea is to be able to reduce your lines, but try and keep the pass % as high as possible.  Click on the cancel button to remove this panel (note that even when this panel is visible, you still have access to the exclusion settings.  This means you can run the test, alter your exclusions, run another test etc.).

Once your happy with your exclusions, let's think about your lines.  These 175 lines you created are based on the order in which you entered your 49 numbers.  Changing the order of those numbers will almost always alter how many lines there are after your exclusions.  Here we have to think about our methods.  There are two ways to set the system up.  Using MINIMISE, the program will keep regenerating the 175 lines, running through your exclusions, and checking the number of lines, and will take the set that result in the LEAST number of lines.  Using MAXIMISE, the program will regenerate and keep the set that result in the MOST number of lines.  Maximising your lines means you can keep close to the original wheels guarantee, with the added bonus that your lines pass all the exclusions, and are therefore more likely to match with the draw.  Minimising your lines decreases the guarantee, but not as much as you decrease the number of lines.  Use minimise if there are too many lines for you to play.  Use maximise if you are willing to pay more for a better guarantee.

To run minimise or maximise, click on the Regeneration button.  First enter the type.  >= is for maximise, <= is for minimise.  Press space, then enter a number.  If you enter '>= 150', the computer will regenerate until the number of lines after exclusions is >= 150.  If you enter '<= 100', the computer will regenerate until the number of lines after exclusions is <= 100.  Ensure you do not enter too high or low a number, or the program may never finish (you can of course click on cancel, the system will use the best set of lines it has come up with in the meantime).  If you enter '>= 0', or '<= 0', another screen will appear, asking for the number of regeneration's. Rather than trying for a set number, the computer will go through the number of regeneration's you specify, and use the best set out of those lines.  This is the best method to use in my opinion.  Best thing is to set it to a high number of regeneration's (depending on the speed of your machine, I tend to set it for 100000), and leave it running overnight.

Once you have a set of lines you are happy with, click on the add to list button.  This adds the lines to the list of lines you are going to play.

Most people have a set amount they want to spend each week, such as syndicates.  The exclusion system means that you're never sure how many lines you're going to have to play.  This is why there is an 'Add to List' button.  Once you've used that, you can go and choose another completely different wheel, run that through your exclusions, and add that to your list as well, until you have the number of lines you want.  To make this job easier, there is the Random Numbers wheel.

Click on File, Select wheel.  Click on ARANDOM.WHL and click on OK.  Again you have to enter all numbers in the pool.  However, you will notice that it will say 'if you want to use the unused numbers option, there are ?? unused numbers'.  Whatever wheel you use, it's probable that you haven't covered every number between 1 and 49.  What if one of those numbers comes up in the draw?  What you can do is set the pool to match or be greater than the number of unused numbers.  Click OK.  Now you have to tell the computer how many lines you want to play (obviously, this is the difference between how many lines you have so far, and the number you want to play altogether).  On the pool entry screen, click on the unused numbers button.  This button will put any numbers you haven't yet played in the list.  If there are any remaining spaces, it then puts in the numbers that have been used the least in your selections.  When generating random number wheels, you can also use the special button.  Click on this.  The option 'try to use all pool numbers equally as often' is there.  Click on this.  What this does is ensure that however many lines you generate, all the numbers in your pool are used the same number of times.  This gives a good even spread of numbers.  Click on OK, then OK again, to return to the main screen.  You should see the number of lines you selected appear on the screen.  Note that unlike other wheels, the random lines never change in number, if you asked for 10 there will always be 10.  They do, however, all match the exclusions you have set.  Click on add to list again.  You should now have the number of lines you wanted to play.  Click on list, to see all the lines together:

 

Here I'm playing 200 lines, 153 from my Guaranteed wheel, the other 47 were random number generations.  You can use the test button here, this works in the same way as the test button on the wheel screen, just enter the number of pretend draws, and watch the money roll in (OK, trickle in).

Clicking on the Save button puts your numbers to disk.  You can name the files,  so you can run more than one set of numbers each week (i.e.; your own numbers, and your syndicates).

I hope you can guess what load does?!

Analysis - this simply totals up how many times each number has been used, and which numbers haven't been used at all.  You can guess how well or badly you've done when the draw happens from this list, if all the drawn numbers match your left hand list, and those numbers have been used a lot  in your lines.

Print, surprisingly, prints your lines to the default printer.

Check.  After the draw, run to your computer, enter the numbers, and pray.  The computer will tell you how each line that has matched three or more numbers.









Other options:

ASEQUENT.WHL.  For seriously rich syndicates only!  Like ARANDOM.WHL, this is not a normal wheel.  This option asks you for the number of digits in your pool.  It then generates ALL the lines required to cover every possible combination for that pool  (i.e.; enter a pool of 49, the computer will generate 13,983,816 lines!).  If all six numbers fall within your pool, you will be guaranteed the jackpot.  The following list tells you how many lines will be created for each pool:

Pool		Lines
6		1
7		7
8		28
9		84
10		210
11		462
12		924
13		1,716
14		3,003
15		5,005
16		8,008
17		12,376
18		18,564
19		27,132
20		38,760
21		54,264
22		74,613
23		100,947
24		134,596
25		177,100
26		230,230
27		296,010
28		376,740
29		475,020
30		593,775
31		736,281
32		906,192
33		1,107,568
34		1,344,904
35		1,623,160
36		1,947,792
37		2,324,784
38		2,760,681
39		3,262,623
40		3,838,380
41		4,496,388
42		5,245,786
43		6,096,454
44		7,059,052
45		8,145,060
46		9,366,819
47		10,737,573
48		12,271,512
49		13,983,816

Don't forget that the exclusion options will reduce these lines, but not by enough for my pocket unfortunately.  If you play these, expect a delay on your computer!


Menu options on the main wheel screen.
File:
	Preferences	This allows you to set how much you can expect to win for each set of matched balls (i.e.; 3 = 10).  These shouldn't need altering unless for another country than UK, or you feel you want to me more optimistic/pessimistic about the results.  The Auto Recalc option:  If you switch this on, then every time you make a change in your exclusions, the lines are immediately recalculated.  Not worth using unless you have a small number of lines.

	Test Exclusions	Simply calls the Exclusion tester up.

	Goto List	Simply goes to the list of your selected lines.


Well, that's it.  Even if you don't use the exclusions, you should find that the system is handy for storing and checking your numbers.  All comments and bug reports are welcome, questions can be mailed to me at the CS number shown below and on the start-up screen.  Don't forget to register, it's not expensive and you get a lot in return for your money.

This shareware program can be distributed freely, as long as it is in it's original state, with all files (including this one) included.  The registered program is not to be distributed.


Dale Reed
100612,2532