Posted by Ion Saliu on April 14, 2000.

This post is in response to a message on the guest book (it might disappear because of the profanity attraction). What's best, or, at least, better? Playing the lottery or gambling in a casino? From a probability theory perspective, considering the odds, the casinos offer far better odds than the lotteries. Moreover, the house advantage or house edge (or player's disadvantage) is much more...favorable to the player in a casino. On the other hand, casino gambling is far more dangerous because it is fast-paced. Casino gambling also gives the tempting impression, the get-drunk-with-illusions feeling that it is the path to riches. The odds are good, the house edge is good, right? It can be, but only for the best trained professional. There are few and far between real professional gamblers. The main reason is lack of mathematical knowledge. Also, lack of a mathematically solid bankroll, if you ask me...

• If you don't use a math-based system, play the lottery only and for fun only. That is, play now and then as many tickets as you can afford. It's far better to skip drawings and save money. If you saved and earmarked the money for play, throw all of it in one draw. Read further, please.
• • Casino gambling without math-based systems is a no-no. Even if the odds are far better than playing the lottery, gambling is a fast-paced action. An amateur player is guaranteed to lose significantly on a daily basis. If you get some gambling system, first check if it has a formula at its foundation. Then check its validity without playing with real money.

1. The casual lotto, lottery player
If you don't bother with systems or wheels, you play random numbers, or quick picks, or lucky dips, etc. But your chances will be far better if you use the tools offered for free at this web site. You can find here the best ever, bar none, numbers, combinations generator. It covers a big territory: pick 3, 4, lotto, keno, powerball, mega millions, even euro millions, even horse racing trifectas!

You can run also the generators in other freeware packages you'll find here: the UTIL-?32.EXE programs. Select the option “Simulate” to simulate lottery or horse racing combinations.

Run the random generators several times before playing. The mathematical truth is that it takes some time to get the winning combinations. You only run the software, but do not pay anything, because you don't play! You accomplish a sort of time compression. You can save lots of money.

The most powerful and comprehensive lotto, lottery, gambling software of all time can do all of the above, plus a whole lot more. The software is known as MDIEditor and Lotto WE. For starters, the program can generate random but optimized lotto, lottery combinations. It can accomplish much, much more if you are willing to invest extra effort and time.

Casual lotto, lottery player you can follow these links in confidence:

Online Odds, Probability Calculator & Random Numbers Combinations Generator: Lotto, Powerball, Lottery, Horse Races, Roulette, Sports Betting, Soccer, Pools, 1X2; The best that ever was!
UTIL-5/6/3/4/horses - New software/utilities for lotto, lottery, and gambling.
The full-blown version of "MDIEditor and Lotto WE" v1.3 is now freeware.

The lotto wheels can make you lose more money faster. Still, you can get here the very best lotto wheels: balanced and randomized.

2. The casual, non-system casino player
You ain't no gambler. You are in a more dangerous situation than the casual lottery player. Contradiction? You know, the casino games offer much better odds than the lottery and especially the huge-odds lotto and Powerball games. The casino games offer probabilities close to coin tossing (close to 50-50). Further, the casino games offer a much more humane 'house advantage' or 'percentage advantage'. The American roulette, considered to be one tough form of gambling, has a house advantage of 5.26%. On average, that's almost 10 times better than the lottery (with a 50% percentage advantage). There are lotto games with an outrageous 90% percentage advantage (or player disadvantage).

There are caveats, however! Casino gambling is a very fast-paced action. You may be seduced by a quick small win. You go bigger and soon lose all your money! It's especially true as far as the slot machines are concerned. The atmosphere in casinos is designed to “bamboozle” the player, to make you feel tipsy. Casinos also employ subtle deception. The real odds are not always presented, but false surrogates, such as in the case of slot machines. The lotteries are under more strict control, therefore fraud has a significantly lower probability. By contrast, cheating by casinos is a real possibility. Also, this author strongly believes that the chips inside the slot machines are rigged. Read more: The Philosophical Science Of Winning And The Law.

You must seriously consider the mathematical presentation you find on these pages:

Casino, Casinos: Gambling, Gamble, Win, Winning in Casino.
Gambling, Probability, Mathematics, Theory, Gamble, Games.

It is the best mathematical casino gambling strategy (approach) for non-system players. The probability is real that the gambler can be ahead at some points during a gambling session. The player must have the strength to put an end to a winning streak. Leave that game and go to another one. You'd better read carefully the two pages. It can save you a truck of money.

• Ion Saliu's Paradox Applied to: Lotto, Lottery, Gambling

'Ion Saliu's Paradox of N Trials' is presented in detail at saliu.com, especially the probability page and the mathematics of gambling formula. If p = 1 / N, we can discover an interesting relation between the degree of certainty DC and the number of trials N. The degree of certainty has a limit, when N tends to infinity. That limit is 1 - 1/e , or approximately 0.632…

If you play 1 roulette number for the next 38 spins, common belief was that you expected to win once. Not! Non! Only if you play 38 numbers in 1 spin, your chance to hit the winning number is 100%. There is an interesting table, which includes also 'The Free Roulette System #1" presented at the main roulette site.

If I play 1 pick-3 straight combination for 1000 drawings, my chance (degree of certainty) to hit the winning combination is approximately 0.632 (63.2%). On the other hand, if I play all 1000 pick-3 numbers in one draw, the chance is 100% that I'll hit the winning number. Of course, I still lose money because of the (monstrous) house edge. Things look very different now. The gain is 100 – 63.2 = approximately 37% when playing all the combinations in one drawing as opposed to playing one combination in 1000 draws.

Let's say one persistent pick-3 lottery player plays 10 tickets (straight combinations) each and every day of the year. The individual probability is now p=10/1000 = 1/100. The total cost amounts to 3650. What is the probability to hit at least one winning combination in one year (365 trials)? You can run my freeware SuperFormula.EXE, option 'L = At Least M Successes in N Trials'. The degree of certainty is 97.4%. It's not 100% yet! It's for real that none of 10 numbers you select hits on a particular day. But let's consider the degree of certainty 100% — therefore one success. Meanwhile, if I play 1000 tickets a draw in 3 drawings, I'll be assured of 3 successes.

There is a clear advantage of playing selectively 'more in few'. There is a mathematical advantage of playing lotto, lottery strategies as outlined at this web site. There is an indisputable advantage in skipping draws and saving the money for playing selectively relatively few drawings. This is the worst type of gambling: Spread one's bankroll over relatively long sessions. Casino gambling, in general, doesn't allow playing selectively. If you are at the table, you must play every roulette spin, the player is warned. But the player is allowed to increase the bet — the smart gamblers do so at rare but optimal moments. The worst of the worst is to piecemeal one's bankroll. Like blackjack players I've seen opening their wallets with over $1000 and chipping in for just $100. Then $100, and again, and again… They would have had a far better chance if chipping in at $1000 right from start!

The lotto and lottery systems that can be applied with my software follow Ion Saliu's Paradox of N Trials. The player waits for special moments when a strategy has a higher probability to come to life. The player does not play every drawing. Money is saved; the increased bankroll is spent more efficiently on occasions that prove to have a mathematical advantage.

Here is an illustrative table of 'Ion Saliu Paradox'. It's founded on undeniable mathematics that even school children should comprehend.