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Q In this screen you can view and adjust the current bet combination. The lower window displays the bet combination graphically. The upper window shows how the numbers in the bet combination are distributed. You can move about with arrowkeys. Pressing <Ctrl><arrowkey> will adjust the bet combination as well as the distribution. It is easy to create your own bet combinations in this screen, all the while having a visual "feel" for its behavior. Some keys: <End> - move cursor to far right <Home> - move cursor to far left <PageUp> - move cursor one page up <PageDown> - move cursor one page down <Ctrl><End> - move cursor to very top and left <Ctrl><Home> - move cursor to very bottom and right <Ctrl><PageUp> - move cursor to very top <Ctrl><PageDown> - move cursor to very bottom <ArrowUp> - move cursor up one board <ArrowDown> - move cursor down one board <ArrowLeft> - move cursor left one spot <ArrowRight> - move cursor right one spot <Ctrl><ArrowLeft> - move spot to left <Ctrl><ArrowRight> - move spot to right <Esc> - return to Analysis Options menu <CR> - return to Analysis Options menu QVarious tools available to analyze the current bet combination: Edit: Return to edit the bet combination. Quick: Probability analysis without the details. Often 10 times faster than "Probability Analysis". Probability: This is the core of LottoProf. It performs complete and exact probability analysis of the current bet combination. The computation time depends primarily on how many different numbers are in the current bet combination. Winning: To enter a set of drawn numbers and see if the current bet combination has any winners. Lottery: Check the current bet combination against the entire history of a specified lottery. Favorite: To change the numbers played by a combintaion into your favorites. Change: To change the "Upper Limit," ie., the total number of balls contained in the lottery's drawing machine. Save: Saves the current bet combination to a disk file. Add: Adds results of analysis to database. Display: Displays all elements contained in database graphically. Print: Prints the current bet combination to your printer. Adjust: Allows you to view and adjust the bet combination graphically. Player: Maintains bet combinations played in a player's program. QThe second line contains a brief description of each option. Q In this screen you define the geometric layout of a bet slip. A bet slip is composed of one or boards, each board composed of several boxes. You mark 6 boxes per board to place a wager -- each board is a single bet. All distances are to be specified in millimeters. Once a ticket is defined, and if you have an HP LaserJet II compatible printer, you can print out any bet combination directly to bet slips. This greatly helps in marking wagers without error and with little sweat. See the User's Guide for a full explanation of the quantities used to define the bet slip's geometry. Q Suppose the beep threshold time is set to 30. Then if the analysis of a bet combination takes 30 seconds or longer, your computer will sound an alarm upon completion. If it takes less than 30 seconds, the alarm will not sound. This way you can divert your attention from the computer during a long calculation but not be pestered by the alarm after swift calculations. If you want the alarm to always sound, set the threshold to 0. If you don't want it to sound at all, set it to some really big number (there are roughly 31 million seconds in a year). Q In this screen you can order the numbers you want to play. Since LottoProf handles up to 60 numbers, all 60 show. Say you play a 6/39 game and your "favorite" numbers are: 24, 12, 6, 30, in that order. So in the favorite number listing, make 24 the first, 12 the second, 6 the third, and 30 the fourth. So from the "Options" menu (beneath the "Wager" top line menu choice), you can take a generic bet combination and have it play your favorite numbers by choosing the "Favorite Numbers" option. Your favorite number ordering is saved to disk file for future use. Q LottoProf supports both Lotto-5 and Lotto-6 type games. Normally you choose the type of game you play and leave it at that, but if you need to, you can change on-the-fly. Q You may control the size of the table used to hold a lottery's drawing history (under the "Draw" menu). The default size of 1040 provides room for 20 years of weekly draws. Should you need more space you can configure the table size to a maximum of 4000 draws. You might, with 4000, get an "out of memory" error because, depending on how you PC is set up, you don't have enough conventional memory for such a large table. Experiment to find your computer's limit. Also, if 1040 is too large, you can reduce it to some smaller value. With the "Config/Memory" menu option you can tell LottoProf to display the amount of free memory available as the program runs. This gives you a feel for your computer's memory condition. Q If you tell LottoProf to "Show active free memory," then displayed in the top right corner is the number of free bytes of conventional memory still available to LottoProf. This information helps in sizing the lottery drawing history table should you need to make it bigger to hold more information, or smaller to save memory for the results of Probability Analysis. Q If you want to bypass the opening screen when you start LottoProf, select "Don't show opening screen." Q It is possible to connect up to three printers to a PC. If you have only one printer, it is probably connected to "LPT1". If not, you can choose the appropriate connection. If you have more than one printer, you can select which printer to send output. Q You may control the size of the table used to hold a player's betting program (under the "Analysis Options" menu). If you need a large table to hold a player program, increase the size to the number of rows you need. If your memory condition is tight, you can reduce the table size. With the "Config/Memory" menu option you can tell LottoProf to display the amount of free memory available as the program runs. This gives you a feel for your computer's memory condition. Q You can review the shape of the current ticket definition visually on the screen, or physically with a printer. The screen review works best with a VGA display. An HP LaserJet II compatible printer is required for the print function. When printing, place your bet slips in the manual envelope feeder, the arrow pointing inward. Three spots will be placed on each board. Print out as many test tickets as required to get the spot placement exact, refining the ticket definition accordingly. QYou may configure some aspects of LottoProf, should you have the need. Printer - select the printer for output History - change size of the lottery drawing history table Player - change size of the player program table Memory - controls display of run-time memory usage Edit - define the geometric layout of a bet slip Opening - controls display of opening screen Beep - controls time threshold of the analysis completion alarm Favorite - enter the order of your favorite numbers Game - choose to play a 5-ball or 6-ball lotto game QYou may: Select a lottery with its draw history from file; or, Create a new lottery history. Q This graph displays the Center-of-mass number of all bet combinations that you have analyzed and saved to the database. (Separate databases are kept for different values of Upper Limit = 39, 49 etc.) You can move about the graph: <ArrowUp> - move up a column of points <ArrowDown> - move down a column of points <ArrowLeft> - move to point to left <ArrowRight> - move to point to right <End> - move to rightmost point <Home> - move to leftmost point <PageUp> - move to top point in a column <PageDown> - move to bottom point in a column And resize the graph: <Ctrl><End> - increases the range of x-axis <Ctrl><Home> - decreases the range of x-axis <Ctrl><PageUp> - decreases the range of y-axis <Ctrl><PageDown> - increases the range of y-axis While browsing: <Del> - will delete the circled point from the database When you are finished browsing: <Esc> - will return to the Analysis Options menu <CR> - will load the circled bet combination into the table and display its probability analysis information. Q LottoProf compares the current bet combination against the entire history of a specified lottery, extracting those draws for which you have a winning match. With the winning prize amounts for each draw, you'll know how much money would've been won in total. Compare this to the cost of all the single board wagers placed. Then you'll know how much money you'd LOSE (or, perhaps, made) had you played every draw. If you don't have all the prizes, make an estimate based on the average prize values. Q In this window you can maintain the history of a lottery -- it's winning numbers and prize values. The table holds up to 1040 entries, enough for 20 years of weekly draws. Some keys: <F2> - pops up Options menu <End> - move to right of window <Home> - move to left of window <PageUp> - the data pages up <PageDown> - the data pages down <Ctrl><End> - move to bottom of window <Ctrl><Home> - move to top of window <Ctrl><PageUp> - move to beginning of data <Ctrl><PageDown> - move to end of data Q In this option you tell LottoProf how many times per week your lottery holds draws. When you are entering new winning numbers to the lottery history table, the date is incremented by the appropriate number of days. Occasionally a lottery will change from, say, once weekly drawings to twice weekly drawing. To compensate: load your lottery, select the Frequency of Drawing option, then select "2 draws per week" then save the drawing table to a disk file. Q If you want to know which numbers have been drawn most frequently lately, this option tells you by displaying all the numbers in order from most popular to least popular. How often a number has been drawn is shown in parentheses. LottoProf normally checks the 10 most recent draws, but you can override this default value. Also, you can order your favorite numbers (listed under the "Config" main menu option) to be the same as the hot numbers. As explained in the User's Guide, this won't necessarily improve your chances of winning, but it does give you something to play with. QYou have these options with regards to the Lottery Drawing History: Edit - return to editing the history Save - save the history to disk file Hot - lists the drawn numbers by popularity Print - print out the history Display - displays the history graphically Frequency - change the number of draws help per week Add - define a new player in the system Q Before you can fill out entries in a player table, the player must first be defined. In this window, a new player is defined. The lottery that this new player will play is assumed to be the one currently loaded in the Lottery History Table. Additional information needed is: - name of player - cost of single board wager for the selected lottery - the date to begin playing Q You can print out the entire lottery drawing history or any part thereof. The range you want to print is specified by draw number. When editing, the draw number is displayed in the top left corner. Press <Esc> if you don't want to print after all. Q This screen provides a graphical display of the lottery drawing history. It's not included for "lottery trend analysis," since that is a hopeless quest, but "for your information." You can adjust the horizontal scale of the graph: <ArrowLeft> - moves left edge further left <ArrowRight> - moves left edge further right <Ctrl><ArrowLeft> - moves right edge further left <Ctrl><ArrowRight> - moves right edge further right To exit press <Esc> or <CR>. Q Enter filename. The suffix ".LOT" will automatically be appended. Press <CR> to accept the name in brackets. Q You may edit an existing ticket geometry file, in which case a list of all the ticket files will pop up for you to choose from. Or you may define a ticket geometry from scratch. Q The bet combinations stored by LottoProf are often in "Reduced Normal Form." That is, if a combination plays 12 numbers, say, then the numbers played are 1-12. LottoProf allows you to changes the numbers played to be your favorites. You define your favorites under the configuration menu. Sequentially - Every occurrence of the first number (usually 1) becomes your first favorite, the second number becomes your second favorite, and so on. Popularity - Every occurrence of the number that appears most often in the bet combination (not necessarily 1) becomes your first favorite, the second most popular number becomes your second favorite, and so on. Manual - You can change all or only some of the numbers, as you like it, independent of your favorite number list. Note: If you are playing a 6/39 game (Upper Limit = 39), you can't change a number to one larger than 39. Q Release Notes: What's new in this version of LottoProf. Brief Introduction: A few words explaining how LottoProf is designed. Questions and Answers: Useful information about lotteries. Q Boards generated with this option are spaced evenly apart from each other. For instance, there are 210 different boards available when number span 1-10. If you want to play a total of 10 boards then every 21st (of the 210) will be selected. You gain a good even coverage by choosing this option. Fair warning: when the numbers spanned exceeds about 32, the analysis time increases considerably. M LottoProf stands alone amongst lotto programs. Unlike the others, LottoProf does not waste your time on "lottery trend analysis". Instead, the focus is where it really matters, on the probability analysis of bet combinations. Using proprietary technology, LottoProf provides you with unprecedented information. A playing advantage found nowhere else. Briefly, you have this advantage by ... Selecting, from the "Wager" top menu, a bet combination -- it may be one supplied or one of your own design. Whichever, it will be loaded into a table for you to view and edit. When finished, select the "Analysis Options Menu". You may then instruct LottoProf to perform a winning probability analysis. Along with computing your chances in detail, a number will be assigned -- the greater the number the better your chances of winning. You may then add the results to the integrated database, and then view the entire database graphically. This allows you to visually select the best play for the price. Once selected, add it to your Player Program. If you wish, print the bet combination you've decided to play, and, if you have an HP Laserjet compatible printer, print out bet slips directly. Exit LottoProf. Wait for your lottery to hold its next draw. Draw complete? Return to LottoProf. From the "Draw" top menu, select the appropriate lottery history file. Enter the winning numbers, and if you have them, the prize values. Escape to the top menu level and from beneath "Wager" load your Player Program. Automatically, LottoProf will check the combination you played against the numbers drawn. With luck you'll be a winner. If so, the combination you played will be loaded into the table, with the winning bets specially marked. Now go collect your winnings! Q In this window you can add, delete, or otherwise modify the current bet combination. The numbers you enter must be between 1 and the currently defined "Upper Limit." The table will hold a maximum of 1000 boards. (If you need more, we need to talk!) Pressing F2 will pop up the "Analysis Options" menu. Some other keys: <End> - move to right of window <Home> - move to left of window <PageUp> - the data pages up <PageDown> - the data pages down <Ctrl><End> - move to bottom of window <Ctrl><Home> - move to top of window <Ctrl><PageUp> - move to beginning of data <Ctrl><PageDown> - move to end of data QKeys avialable: To move about: <arrowkeys> <Home> <End> <PageUp> <PageDown> To select: <CR> To delete: <Del> To exit: <Esc> Q This allow the numbers in the current bet combination to be mapped onto (changed to) another set of numbers. After making this change, you will be placed in the editing window. This feature allows easy translation of a combination. With printed bet combinations often sold by "Lottery Buster" organizations, you have to manually translate each number to the ones you want. QAll manipulation of the Player Program is done through these menu options: View - return to viewing the player program table Enter - enter current bet combination as a play Nullify - nullifies a play Copy - copy a play to another row or range of rows Print - prints the player program Load - loads a play type into the Bet Combination List Information - view information created when a player is defined Recalculate - calculates winnings for all plays (useful when any mistakes in draw history are corrected) Q You can copy a play type from one row to another row, or range of rows. Past plays cannot be affected. Q For the range of draws you specify, the bet combination currently loaded will become designated as the one you want to play. Past plays cannot be affected. Q The bet combination of the play number (not draw number) you specify, will be loaded into the Bet Combination List table. To view it, escape out and select "Edit" from the "Analysis Options Menu". Q For the range of draws you specify, the bet combination to be played will become nullified. It does not disappear, but simply marked that you do not want to play for that draw, as indicated by the 0 in the play column. Past plays cannot be affected. Q For the range of draws you specify, that portion of the Player Program will be printed. If you have more than one printer, you may select from the "Printer" option from the "Config" menu. Q In this this window you can view the state of the loaded player's program (no editing applies). The number on the left indicates which draw you are playing. If the draw has been held, its date will appear in the second column; otherwise the date field is left blank. The "combo" number is used to identify which bet combination is being played for a given draw. The combinatations are stored inside the player file. The winnings profile will be all zeros for future draws, but for draws already held it shows the type and quantity of prizes won. The 3 rightmost columns show the cost of the wager, its winnings, and a running total of your expenditures/income. Some keys: <F2> - pops up Options menu <End> - move to right of window <Home> - move to left of window <PageUp> - the data pages up <PageDown> - the data pages down <Ctrl><End> - move to bottom of window <Ctrl><Home> - move to top of window <Ctrl><PageUp> - move to beginning of data <Ctrl><PageDown> - move to end of data Q See the help for "Quick Analysis" for the left hand side. The right hand side lists all the different ways you can win, and hence, differing amounts of money you might win. For instance: Prize 6 5 4 3 Chance Fraction 1 1 0 3 0 4 0.00000123 2 0 2 2 0 24 0.00000736 Here you have 4 chances (out of some big number) to win the jackpot plus 3 4/6 prizes. And 24 chances to win two 5/6 prizes plus two 4/6 prizes. Usually, your highest probability prize will be zip. (Sorry.) QPrize Chance Fraction 6/6 4 0.00000123 <-- sample results 5/6 768 0.00023539 4/6 26102 0.00800031 3/6 259160 0.07943302 <3/6 2976589 0.91233005 6/39: 3262623 2.09614473 <-- total, and "center-of-mass" Here, the chance of winning the 4/6 prize is 26,102 out of 3,262,623; or, when expressed as a fraction of 1 -- 0.008,000,31. "6/39:" indicates that this was computed for Upper Limit = 39. The number "2.09614473" (in purple) is a "center-of-mass" calculation. The number can vary between 2.0 and 6.0. The bigger the number the better your chance to Win Big. By reducing an entire bet combination down to one number, different combinations can be ranked. Please be aware that this number does not factor in the cost of the wager. Q For the number of boards you specify, LottoProf will fill the boards with numbers generated randomly. No duplicate boards will be filled. You also control the range of numbers that the randomly generated boards may span -- from 1 to 24, for instance. Fair warning: when the numbers spanned exceeds about 32, the analysis time increases considerably. QThere are two types of pre-defined bet combinations: File: Combinations saved in disk files. They have the form "*.BET". Bet combinations you create can be saved to file. Internal: LottoProf has a suite of bet combinations defined in the program itself. Many of these were extracted from a hand-held computer, no longer for sale, called "Lotto Master." QLottoProf will generate your choice of system bet. System 5: Not so often offered by lotteries. You choose 5 numbers and the 6th varies through the rest. In a 6/39 Lotto game, 34 boards will be generated. Fair warning: it takes a long time to do probability analysis on this system. System 6: Simply a single board bet. System n: Where n=7,8,9... You choose n numbers and LottoProf generates all 6-number combinations. The number of boards generated depends on the value of n. Q Upper Limit corresponds to the number of balls in the lottery's ball drawing machine. If you play a 6/48 lottery, change Upper Limit to 48. Note that when you are in the "Bet Combination List" editing window, numbers larger than Upper Limit may not be entered. Also, you'll find it interesting to change Upper Limit, then repeat Probability Analysis. Observe how your chances improve as Upper Limit decreases. QLottoProf revolves around the probability analysis of bet combinations. There are five ways to choose a bet combination for analysis: Select - select a pre-existing combination Construct - create a new combination yourself Generate - LottoProf will generate evenly spaced boards Random - LottoProf will generate random numbers System - LottoProf will generate various "system" combinations Q Enter up to 8 characters for the filename. The suffix ".BET" will automatically be appended. Q You can print out the current bet combination in two formats: 1. As a listing of numbers. 2. As spots on a bet slip, which you can then play. An HP LaserJet II compatible printer is required for the second option. When printing, place your bet slips in the manual envelope feeder, the arrow pointing inward. More than one bet slip will be necessary if the bet combination is big. Best results occur when slips are inserted individually. This ability, unique to LottoProf, of printing bet slips without error, greatly aids the serious lottery player. Q Enter the winning numbers (0 for bonus number if your lottery has none), and then press F2. LottoProf will determine how many boards in the current bet combination hit for prizes. Q See, help is everywhere. But really, what help do you need for a yes/no prompt?