by Jason Hill
(Herald Sun, p.27, January 23,1996)
Winning Tattslotto is more difficult than advertisers would have us believe. Jason Hill found a way to help his chances.
Everyone wants to get the upper hand in the gambling stakes. Now your PC can help get you in the money.
LottoCheck Inform helps maximize the chances of your numbers coming up. It is a useful and clever program enabling you to chart, store and analyze lotto results.
The program includes the past 10 years of results for Tattslotto, Oz Lotto and NSW Go Lotto. My evaluation copy was extremely up-to-date: it had a database covering up to just two weeks before the date I received the program.
Keeping your database current is simple. You can manually enter each week's winning numbers or download them from the LottoCheck site on the Internet.
Taking advantage of the program's immense database is simple. You just enter your numbers on a playing card and let the program check them against the winning numbers in past draws. LottoCheck tallies the cost of the tickets against the prizes you would have won, showing your net profit or loss.
For example, I let the program choose a "Quickpick" System 10 (10 numbers) for me. Playing for 10 years with these numbers in every draw would have cost me more than $93,000. The biggest win I had was a second-division prize of $6,600 and my total winnings were $49,000. So after 10 years I would have lost $44,000.
Trying a different strategy, I picked the last 10 numbers (36-45) knowing that everyone picks birthdays, so I should win more money with higher numbers. My theory proved correct and I took home nearly $56,000. But that's still a loss of $37,000.
As the program searches for your numbers, it can provide statistics including the number of draws since your last win and your worst drought between wins.
Another feature allows you to test your own theories about picking winning numbers. Draw-by-draw each number is ranked according to how often the ball has been drawn. You can draw up theories that pick the most popular or least popular numbers, and then test your theories each week. To help you make up new theories, charts show you the number of wins for each number.
For lovers of statistics or compulsive lottery players, LottoCheck is a worthwhile investment. It probably won't help you to win but it will save you money.
LottoCheck Inform runs under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 (and '98). It sells for $38. Call Melbourne, 03 9344 9322 for more details. (Website: www.solidsoftware.com.au)