Playing Powerball: Tips for Picking Powerball Numbers

My oldest son is in high school and is totally interested in math. The other day he was doing his homework, graphing functions and calculating the outliers of a group of numbers, when my friend from our lottery group called me and asked me for the Powerball numbers that I would probably pick this week. My son overheard the conversation and after I hung up, he looked at me with that adolescent “oh boy” look, if you know what I mean. Then he asked me if I really think that by picking random numbers I could win. He said use some statistics to define the outliers and go with them. I just looked at it and said “that’s none of your business, Mr. Smart” Later that night I did some research on the web and couldn’t believe what I found.

When it comes to statistics, the name of Carl Friedrich Gauss, a German mathematician from 1800. He has contributed significantly to the development in the fields of number theory and statistics. Carl Gauss is one of the most influential mathematicians in history.

He invented the Gaussian theory. Most people also know this as the bell curve. The mathematical function of his probability theory defies common thinking. Normally, we ordinary people would pick the most drawn numbers as they appear more frequently, or the least drawn numbers, thinking that since they haven’t appeared in a long time, I will pick them in case they are finally chosen. I mean even a broken watch is right twice a day.

What mr. Gauss’s theory states that all numbers must first line up on a bell-curve type graph. To create a bell curve, we must line up our historical winning numbers. What this research showed was that if you took, say, all the winning numbers from the last 2 years, you would get a curve where 64 is the most drawn number and 1 and 45 are the least.

These types of powerball strategies say that in the example above, the number 64 is the most chosen, while at the edges, the number 1 and 45 are the least chosen. The point is that now we need to get numbers that are not coming from the top or the sides, but rather we need to overlap a rectangular box in the middle where most of the combinations are. You see, they claim that the odds of being 64 and a 1 or 45 are so slim, it only makes sense that numbers that appear quite frequently are more likely to be correct.

I’ll take a closer look at this and other articles, I think there may be something to this. I know that one does not get rich by sheer luck, but perhaps this logic will eliminate “Luck” and we will have pure victory!