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From: jco@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Joao Oliveira)
Subject: Re: GA doing stock market
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Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:43:00 GMT
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Henk Van Wulpen (henk@cs.kuleuven.ac.be) wrote:
: Robert_S Blasi wrote:
: > 
: >         If many people hit the same number combination, the pot is
: > split among all them. So if you want to "predict" the right lotto
: > numbers, you should always pick numbers that other people aren't likely
: > to think of. For example, anything with repeated digits or that begins
: > with zero usually yields a greater payoff because less people play these
: > numbers.

: Last weekend's lottery in Belgium prooved the contrary : a lot of people
: choose consecutive or almost consecutive numbers. The lottery here picks
: 6 numbers and an auxiliary number out of 42. The following numbers were
: drawn last weekend : 13 14 15 17 18 19, aux: 35. Everyone probably would
: 	Henk.


	Apparently one is assuming that the numbers are always chosen by their
numeric value and not by any other factor. This is obvious in cases where one
chooses its birthday or the age of the girlfriend, or whatever. However, when
choosing randomly it is my conviction that people don't look at the numbers 
themselves but at their location in the grid. People tend to draw lines, 
circles, crosses, fill the corners, etc, or by trying NOT to do any of this. 
Therefore, it is my belief that a graphical analysis of the so-called random
combinations would prove much more interesting than a numerical one. This is
obviously not useful for any guessing of the next week numbers but to 
minimize the chances of lots of people guessing it with you (if you do). 
This has however a drawback. Lottery in Portugal has 49 numbers (7x7 grid) 
but it used to be 45 and 47. I don't know how is it in other countries but
it makes everything less easy to be analized at a world-wide level (if one
could get hold of the results).

	Does anyone agree with this?
						joao
--
+ Joao Barreto Fernandes - Intelligent Networked Computing Lab  R&D placement +
+ Hewlett Packard Labs, Filton Rd, Bristol BS12 6QZ England   +44 117 9228714 +
+ jco@hplb.hpl.hp.com   http://www-incl/~jco  http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~barreto +
+       'All points of view are my own and not necessarily HP's as well'      +
