ITWeb`s Software provides professional twist to lottery luck story regarding JMR Software`s lottery prediction and management software, the Eazy Lottery system, prompted a violent response from some of our readers.
Many believe that such systems are "Snake Oil" and some feel the company is misleading the public by promoting the ideal of beating the odds on a totally random draw.
JMR denies this allegation, although it does admit that it cannot guarantee that anyone will win the lottery. "I believe it increases your chances," says Mike Richards, director, JMR Software. "One user told us that every week that he has used our system he has won, and last week he made R4 000."
Dr Chris Crozier, director of Cirrus Techvue, counters the software`s usefulness: "The most prominent claim, of helping to predict winning numbers, is arrant nonsense. One of the secondary claims, that the system produces statistics from which `useful reports` can be produced, is likewise complete nonsense. There are no conceivable statistics on historical data relating to the lottery that are of the slightest use to anyone in predicting future winning numbers - unless you are claiming that the draw is biased, which is a very serious allegation indeed," he says.
"The way the number is chosen is completely random," agrees Richards. "The software will not predict the winning number, but through bankers and permutations you can increase your chances."
Disclaimer
The disclaimer on the software reads: "JMR Software, its directors, employees or any of its affiliations accept no liability whatsoever for any loss, damage, expense, whether direct, indirect or consequential arising from the use of or reliance upon, the information provided in this program, and does not warrant the truth, accuracy or completeness of the information provided."
What JMR`s software will do is help users manage ticket purchases and track winnings. "If someone is looking to purchase thousands of entries then a software tool to manage those entries could be useful," concedes Crozier. "There the usefulness ends."
Uthingo, the lottery operator, also has a software solution for its customers. The Uthingo Java script is a random number generator, which is in place purely to help Lotto players choose numbers. Uthingo says it doesn`t promise increased odds at all. The lottery operator plans to implement this process at its retail point-of-sale machines.
Uthingo is neutral to programs that use current history and statistics to predict numbers that stand a better chance of winning. It says that as the national operator, it has a responsibility to remain unbiased and not to violate public trust by doing anything that would jeopardise the "randomness" of the draws.
Wheeling and dealing
Other software companies and players have developed different systems. Aleksander Radovanovic is a co-creator of LottoGenius.com, a South African Web site dedicated to a practice known as "wheeling". Radovanovic describes wheeling as "a net made of numbers", which improves your chances of winning at lottery games.
"Wheeling systems that give you all possible combinations of numbers are called full wheels," says Radovanovic. "However, it is not possible to play the full wheel of 49 numbers, even if it guarantees that you will collect all prizes, simply because it is too big - almost 14 000 000 combinations - thus, too expensive. So, Lotto players make wheels with the smaller amount of numbers. Such a full wheel gives you a guarantee to win the jackpot if the officially drawn numbers all appear in the group of numbers wheeled. For example, if you choose 20 numbers, you will collect the jackpot if all six officially drawn numbers all appear in the group of 20 numbers you played.
"Even smaller full wheels are still expensive to play, so most of the Lotto players use another kind of wheel," Radovanovic explains. "If the wheel aims for a specific lower prize, such as second or third prize, it is called the abbreviated wheel. It contains fewer games to play, so you can play a large amount of numbers at a reasonable cost, and still have a win guaranteed. For example, you can guarantee three matches if you play 13 numbers in three games only. If you wish to play all 49 numbers, your wheel will have 165 combinations. Applying certain filters can further reduce wheels.
"The program excludes probability and statistics. Simply, it always guarantees the prize you have chosen," he says.
Do-it-yourself
Anyone with the right skills can write their own lottery prediction program. Paul Leroy, a solutions architect for The Internet Solution, wrote a Perl script based on probability theory in his private capacity that he describes as "really small and really simple".
"It took me two days to write, in between my normal work, and about a week to get it fully functional. If the results are the numbers chosen, then the probabilities increase from 1:10 000 000 000 to about 1:2 100 000, using current history," says Leroy.
"I must say that even with the software the chances of getting the right numbers are still very slim. In the last game there was only one number selected as being of six most likely in the game and the previous week, only two numbers. For the next game my script predicts only six numbers with the highest probability. This means that if highest probability numbers all appear in the game I will win."
Leroy explains that his prediction game is more an exercise in curiosity than anything else, because of the huge probabilities involved. "I think that it is just a game and should be enjoyed as such. If you want to make money, you`ve got to work for it."
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