PowerBall gives Macintosh Users an intelligent approach to a lottery game where five balls get randomly chosen from a group of forty-five balls numbered one through forty-five without replacement. Although PowerBall was designed for the Iowa State Lottery, many of the features of PowerBall still apply to other lotteries - or write the author specifying a different configuration.
A collection of winning strategies found within PowerBall's menus increase a player's chances of hitting the jackpot. PowerBall allows you to manage the winning numbers of up to forty-five different lottery games. These previous winning numbers provide a basis for numbers likely to re-appear in future drawings, hence, increasing a player's chances of winning the game. PowerBall also controls game parameters which reduce the size of the lottery pool. By reducing the size of the pool, fewer numbers remain possible. PowerBall can quickly tell whether a specific numbered series lies within the pools numbers after applying reduction strategies. PowerBall also gives quick, reliable indication about the effectiveness of number pool reduction. Play PowerBall and become an expert lottery player.
Menus
About PowerBall - PowerBall Game display screen.
File Menu
Quit - Exit PowerBall Game.
Manage Menu
Lottery Numbers - Manage lottery numbers. Record previously drawn lottery numbers in the Lottery Numbers Window to store previously drawn numbers. The top row of numbers represent lottery games one through forty-five, allowing PowerBall to manage forty-five different games. Clicking on "clear" will erase all numbers previously recorded for that game selection.
Click on the lower set of numbers to record lottery numbers. Select space, backspace and return whenever necessary to format the numbers. The lottery numbers entered here allow PowerBall to determine the best picks possible.
Play Setup - Selecting the "All Games" Radio Button stipulates that all Lottery Numbers recorded in each of the forty-five different games gets used to determine the best picks. Selecting the "Latest Game" Radio Button tells PowerBall to consider only the Lottery Numbers found in the highest numbered game.
Select the "Save All Numbers" Radio Button to save all numbers to the text file. Select the "Save 1000 Numbers" to save a reduced set of numbers (either the default value of 1000 or a number you provide). A text file with today's date will appear in the same folder that PowerBall resides in.
Choose the "Play Ball" Button to start a PowerBall Game. PowerBall will first reduce the size of eligible numbers as determined by the parameters contained in the Reduce Menu, and then preference these remaining numbers according to their frequency of occurrence. Cancel a game in progress by holding down the command key and pressing period. When the game finishes, open the text file with today's date and discover the lottery numbers PowerBall considers the best play(s).
Reduce Menu
Explicit Removal - Parameters suggested as a starting point in reducing the size of the lottery pool. These parameters (with the exception of ∑) insure that normal random distributed series remain in play, while more skewed series get removed from consideration. Change these parameters to anything you feel comfortable with. The ∑ parameter considers the sum of the digits of a numbered series and removes series where ∑ of digits {0,5,6,7,8,9} exceeds two or falls below one. For instance, the numbered series {5,11,18,32,44} would play but {5,11,18,30,44} would not play because three digits belong to the digit set.
Look at the frequency of digits from a pick five game with a high value of 45.
The distribution shows that digits 1 through 4 occur almost four times more frequently than the other digits, and hence the basis for this reduction strategy.
In addition, five even numbers (ex: 4,12,22,26,34), five odd numbers, five numbers series divisible by three get removed will because they almost never get selected by a lottery drawing. These parameter settings remain hidden from the user.
Implicit Removal - User supplied parameters to further reduce the size of the lottery pool. These parameters use different strategies to reduce the lottery's size and you may choose to set all, some, or none of these reductions.
Remove Series Sums… Every lottery number has a sum that equals the total of adding all five balls together. Lottery numbers get removed from consideration falling below and above the sums you provide here. In our game, the highest sum equals 215 while the lowest equals 15. In our game where five balls get chosen without replacement and a ball's highest value equals 45 (the midpoint of (215+15)/2 or 115), 115 represents the sum of highest frequency. Since our game's distribution falls under the "normal curve" as our reduction parameters move further from either side of 115, less and less numbers will get removed. Keep this in mind when using this reduction strategy.
Remove Series With All Balls… Each lottery number's high ball and low ball value that fall above and below the numbers specified here get removed from the pool of numbers remaining in play.
Remove Series With All Balls Between… Any series of numbers that falls between the numbers specified here get removed from the pool of numbers.
Difference Among Five Balls Below… Subtract the high number from the low number to get the difference. Lottery numbers that fall outside the range of the high difference and the low difference get removed from play.
Click on the Play Ball Button to find out how effectively you have reduced the size of the lottery pool. PowerBall will consider about 1,249,000 series of numbers and remove those numbers from the pool that fall outside the conditions specified from the Reduce Menus (see Blind Luck Below). Note: the reduction parameters entered into the Reduce Menu Dialog Boxes remain in effect while playing other portions of the PowerBall program even if you did not click on the Play PowerBall Button.
Blind Luck - These parameters play with greater risk. In "Dear Lord - Last Weeks Pick Not…" you provide up to five numbers automatically removed from consideration when forming the lottery pool. You may also remove four of five even and odd series by clicking on the appropriate selection. When you select remove even series or odd series, the four of five even or four of five odd radio button becomes highlighted because these choices remain subsets of the original reduction.
Removal Results - Becomes enabled after selecting the Play Ball Button from within the Implicit Reduction Dialog Box. A screen displaying the effectiveness of each of the reduction parameters gets displayed. Click on one of the colored bars to get more information about that particular reduction. The last colored bar contains the sum of all reductions which gives a quick indication of the effectiveness of reduction.
Verify
Number - Determines whether a specific number remains in the lottery pool after scrutinized by the parameters specified under the Reduce Menu. Also, click on "Draw It" to see how many tries it takes the computer to randomly draw the number specified here. Hold the command key down and press period to quit these processes.
Reductions - Determines how many random numbers were found remaining in the Lottery Pool after under-going scrutiny by the parameters specified under the Reduce Menu. This gives a quick indication of reduction effectiveness.
PowerBall 1.0 remains ShareWare. You send me what its worth and I promise to enhance the game.
Obtain other game configurations for a small fee by writing the author. You can request the Variable PowerBall Lottery Game where you can specify the number of balls drawn in the game and the ball's highest value. This game will run pick four, five and six games under one roof. Or, if you want a customized number keypad like the one in this game you will receive a customized game for the game you specify (i.e. pick 6, high ball 55). I will send you the lottery game for that specific configuration. I already have customized games for Colorado and Iowa.
Mac, Mac Plus, Mac Classic, and Mac SE B&W PowerBall Lottery Game also available upon request.
Thank you for playing PowerBall. If you have comments or suggestions for making PowerBall a better game please send them to me at the address below. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.
