We have had some interest in how the Advantage Gold Smart Pick lotto numbers are determined, especially because they are not always the same as the old Advantage Plus software. We have tried to improve our lotto number selection methods for Smart Pick calculations in the new software so you have better odds of winning more lottery prizes. Because we try to give you as much control as possible, you still have the option to use the old methods.
Chart 3 – Quick Stats and Chart 7 – Hit Charts are a couple of the popular Advantage Gold charts that offer automatic Smart Picks to help you quickly and easily choose better lotto numbers to play.
ABOUT SMARTPICK CALCULATIONS FOR CHART 3: QUICK STATS
Our older Advantage Plus software used the ratio of current out divided by average skips. A single number out for a very long time would make the average for that number much higher than would be useful. To avoid skewed results, Advantage Gold instead divides by median skips, which are not as sensitive to a single big number.
We know that many of our users would prefer to keep the same method as used by Advantage Plus, so the choice of how we do this is up to the user. In Advantage Gold, the default is the new way. However, the user can easily switch to the method of their choice by using the right-click menu on chart 3: right-click on the chart and select either “Use Out/Med” or “Use Out/Avg (original)“.
DEFINITIONS
- Expected = (Draw Size * number of drawings used) / poolsize
- HitRatio = total hits / expected * 100 so it shows as a percentage
- MidRatio = middle hit ratio for the sorted HitRatio table.
- testDivisor = (Average Skips) or (Median Skips) based on chart 3 setting
HOW CHART 3 – QUICK STATS SMARTPICKS ARE CHOSEN
Arranges lotto numbers in order from highest to lowest by out/avg or out/med.
For each number in this sorted list, the number is a Smart Pick if:
- (current Out/testDivisor) is greater than .4 {the upper 60%}
- HitRatio > MidRatio {hit ratio is in the upper half}
- No more than three hits in the last 5 games. This tends to produce more correct hits when the range of drawings is limited. It seems the more drawings are included, the less effective these are.
HOW CHART 7 HIT CHARTS SMARTPICKS ARE CHOSEN
To select Smart Pick setting: Right click on chart 7 and check or uncheck “Use A+ Original picks”.
Advantage Plus “original” picks
For each number, the number is a Smart Pick if:
- Number is out 1 to 9 drawings
- Number of hits is less than 1/3rd of the smallest group drawings
Advantage Gold new method picks
AvgRatio = average of middle two ratios for this number
For each number, the number is a Smart Pick if:
- AvgRatio is at least as big as the ratio in the rightmost column
- No more than 3 hits in last five drawings
This lotto chart is sensitive to the group sizes used, but not the total range setting as long as the middle two column group sizes are reasonably small. If you use the default settings, it often produces reasonable Smart Picks.