Range Probability

[Peter]

Cheers Frank and thanks for that response and I totally agree with what you've said regarding prediction. I've been playing with these numbers since I downloaded the csv file from the merseyworld site 4 weeks ago. I came to the same conclusion that over a large amount of time, everything will seem to average out and in the short to middle term there will be those variations you talk about.

My main question to the seasoned analysts here is about the law of averages. Is it worth the paper it's written on? I've been thinking about another way today and you've probably been there and wore that t-shirt too. Take ball number 22 - according to my spreadsheet, it hasn't appeared for 36 draws. Now, I've been tempted to say, "the law of averages says...blah, blah, blah", but I should be saying, what is the probability of a number not being drawn 36, 37 or n times in a row and doing the maths to see if I can get any hints. But it all hurts my head. As it's random, each ball still has the 12.245% probability of appearing in the next draw and 87.755% of not appearing at all.

If all balls adhered to the theoretical, ball 22 should have come out 4 times over since it's last appearance, which is like flicking a fair coin 8 times and getting tails each time. I don't know what it that's telling me to pick heads next!

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Forgot to ask, is your website still current? Do you mind giving out the url?

Cheers
Pete