Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Catchalotto – a new approach to win the UK National Lottery jackpot

It’s amazing how many people play the UK National Lottery without realising their odds of winning. And when some do find out (odds are 1 in 13,983,816), they do not really comprehend how incredibly miniscule the odds of winning are.

So in my experience, it’s better to relate those odds to some real-life situations. For instance, if you were told that the chances of having a SUCCESSFUL forthcoming surgery is 0.000072% (not even 1%!!!), would you go ahead with it? Probably not. So why play the lottery if your chances of winning are 0.0000072%?!

How about going to the bookies and asking to place a bet on a horse with odds of 1 to 13,983,816?! I did and I don’t think the bookie ever laughed so much in his entire life as he laughed then. But what’s so funny? Millions of people play the lottery each week at exactly the same odds!

Some people play the same combination week in week out. Statistically, they could wait 134,460 years for their combination to come up (assuming they enter their combination for both draws). If turtles could play, even they would stand little chances of witnessing their big win.

So why do people play? Well, first of all, it’s the financial freedom that can be attained if they win that jackpot. After all, they only have to spend ?1 to “be in it to win it”. Secondly, this feeling is intensified by watching other lottery winners opening their bottle of champagne, be it on TV, or newspaper, or the Internet. In psychology, it’s called the Availability Heuristic, i.e. most people assess the likelihood of an event based on how often they hear about it happening. “If they can win it, why can’t I, right?” and based on that, we go and buy a lottery ticket.

Don’t get me wrong, I play the lottery myself. I do not want to discourage you, in any way, in playing. My aim is to let you know of a better way to play the lottery. It’s an old concept of syndication or pooling, as Americans call it, with a new sparkle, called Lottorino, added to it.

Before you read any further, ask yourself this question “What would you rather – win 100% of nothing or small % of a substantial amount?” If it’s the latter, than you’re suited for CATCHALOTTO.

Catchalotto approaches lottery at a slightly different angle. The aim is to increase the odds of winning via

a) playing more unique combinations (removing duplications) AND
b) not playing combinations that appear to have some bias within them (like 1-2-3-4-5-6)

You all heard of a concept “syndicate”. Quite a few lottery tickets purchased today belong to some sort of syndicate. Whether it is a syndicate formed amongst friends, or work collegues, or family, or a mix of all, or a syndicate formed online with similar minded individuals. According to Camelot, 25% of jackpot wins belong to syndicates. So there you have it, syndicates do work. If you have been playing lottery for sometime now and not won much, then maybe it’s about time for you to try and join a syndicate and test the ground for yourself?

With Catchalotto you can join any available syndicate. You can see all the information online, it’s all interactive. You know exactly who played within your chosen syndicate, what combinations have been played, what syndicates won, how much it won and much more.

As per a) above, each combination submitted to a Catchalotto syndicate is verified in that it has not already been played within that syndicate. In the older days when Camelot used to release certain information about combinations played, apparently there were around 10,000 tickets purchased with the same combination - 1-2-3-4-5-6! Catchalotto’s thinking is why bet on the same horse twice? Instead of playing the same combination, you will be asked to play a different combination thereby improving syndicate’s chances of winning! If 10,000 different combinations played, the odds of winning become 1 to 1,398!

As per b) above, Lottorino Scoring Engine has been developed in order to sieve out combinations that appear to have some pattern within them. Combinations like 1-2-3-4-5-6 or 7-14-21-28-35-42 (all divisible by 7) are played by many, as combinations with all numbers below 31 (people tend to choose their and their relatives birthdays). If such combinations do come up, the jackpot will be split into so many parts, that you probably regret that you’d won this time round. Lottorino has been programmed so as to recognise patterns like that. When you submit your combination into a syndicate, Lottorino will quickly access your combination and let you know how random your combination appears to be.

Lottorino also includes certain filters that help improve the odds further. There has been written a lot of literature about lottery analysis. It is believed that certain combinations are less probable to be drawn. Now then, I know some people would say at this point that any combination stands the same chances of being drawn. Yes, it’s true - it’s possible for any combination to be drawn at any future lottery draw. However, certain combinations are less probable to come up. Notice the different words here – possibility versus probability.

Did you know that the same combination has never been drawn again in the UK National Lottery? Why play such combinations then? Why bet on the horse that is more likely to lose? If you look at Lottorino’s scores of all officially drawn combinations in the past, you would see that some do appear to have a low Lottorino score (i.e. Lottorino would have advised not to play it), but 95% of time, Lottorino score is 50% or above (i.e. a recommended advisable limit). So 95% of time, the odds would have been indeed improved by Lottorino.

If you want to build a clearer picture of Lottorino, please visit Catchalotto site and view Tutorial 1 (duration: under 2 minutes). You can see Lottorino at work there.

To sum up, it’s difficult to say by how much the odds of winning the jackpot improve. My personal guesstimate, backed by lottery analysts/mathematicians is with Catchalotto the odds of winning are 1 to 2,000,000, i.e. 7 times better! 7 is a magic number, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s just hope Catchalotto will perform its magic soon and prove itself for what it believes in.



lottery software

lotto numbers

No comments:

Post a Comment