ChatGPT thinks it knows the number that the Christmas Lottery Jackpot will win: 03695. Several media outlets echoed the prediction and the tenth sold out in a matter of hours.. But, in reality, neither an artificial intelligence nor a person can predict what the winning number will be, according to several mathematicians consulted by EL PAÍS. And what about other games such as pools or sports betting? Is artificial intelligence useful to bankrupt a casino?
“ChatGPT stated that 03695 would be the winning number, observing from lottery history which numbers are most frequent in each position. That is to say, most of the time Gordo has finished in 5, in the penultimate position there has been a 9…” explains Jose Ameijeiras Alonso, researcher at the Galician Mathematical Research and Technology Center (CITMAga) and professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela.
But in reality, all Christmas Lottery balls have the same probability of coming out regardless of what has happened historically. At least assuming that all of them are identical in weight and volume and are mixed sufficiently, as indicated by Begoña Vitoriano, president of the Statistics and Operations Research Society (SEIO). “Another thing would be if the same balls were always used and they were not perfectly calibrated or that they do not move enough in the drum, which could be detected in a historical analysis, but this hypothesis seems hardly credible,” he points out.
Therefore, if the lottery is done correctly, “it is not possible for an artificial intelligence to guess the number awarded to the Gordo any more than anyone can guess.” Humans also cannot predict what the winning number will be. “If it were possible to predict the winning number, all mathematicians would be millionaires,” says Luis J. Rodríguez Muñiz, professor of Didactics at the University of Oviedo and second vice president of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society (RSME).
The lottery is “a process without memory,” as highlighted Anabel Forte Deltell, professor at the Department of Statistics and Operations Research at the University of Valencia. That is, the fact that a number has appeared more or less times does not influence the next result. The only “trick” to make sure you win the Fatso is to “buy all the numbers.” “But then, yes or yes, you would lose 30% of the money bet, since only 70% of the proceeds are distributed in prizes,” says Forte, who insists that “neither artificial intelligence nor statistics can help you choose.” the winning number.”
Despite this, some generative artificial intelligence models make their predictions. Google Bard indicates in advance that “it is impossible to know with certainty which number is going to win the Christmas Lottery.” But he immediately points out that “there are some predictions that can be made based on the results of previous draws.” According to Bard, the number that has won the most times in the Christmas Lottery is 5, followed by 1, 2 and 7. “Numbers that end in 0 are also quite common, such as 03, 10, 20 and 30″, he says before predicting several numbers that could be awarded.
Both Bard and ChatGPT give different answers when asked several times. “Do not give up. The lottery is a game of chance, but with practice and luck, you can increase your chances of winning,” Bard once says. Forte assures that neither practice nor luck can help: “Well, luck is superstition and I don’t get involved there…”. Furthermore, he highlights that it is of no use to always bet on the same number: “Although it may give the false sensation that this brings us closer to winning, it is just a psychological bias.”
The only way to increase the odds is to buy more numbers, according to José L. Torrecilla, permanent labor professor of Statistics and Operations Research at the Autonomous University of Madrid. For him, it is important to be careful with the operation of these systems. “Tools like ChatGPT or Google Bard are generative natural language models that are trained to simulate dialogues and give plausible responses, but not to make predictions or inference with the data”
What can lead to confusion is that “they give answers that sound plausible and they give them with complete confidence, regardless of whether they are true or false.” “That chats can lie quite naturally is something that we already have a strong assumption in certain areas, where we have seen them invent mathematical demonstrations or describe in detail articles that do not exist,” he says.
Pools and sports betting
What happens with pools or other sports bets? They are not games of pure chance in which all results have the same probability, according to Vitoriano. “Each participant who enters the bet has certain characteristics and they are also dynamic, they change over time, and at the moment of the bet, factors come together that mean that sports performance at a given moment may be higher or lower,” he comments. . In this case, “it does make sense that statistics and data science studies can help better predict the results.”
“I can’t help you predict specific pool results,” ChatGPT states before giving several tips to “improve your chances.” Google Bard, on the other hand, assures that it can do so and even suggests a pool (see below). To fill it out, he says he has looked at the history of confrontations between the teams and the physical condition of the players, in addition to their possible lineup.
“This pool has a 20% chance of winning, according to my calculations. Of course, there is no guarantee that you will win, but this is a good bet to start with,” she notes. With just a glance, it is possible to identify some inconsistencies in your pool for November 29. The first match it includes is one between Madrid and Barça, despite the fact that the next match between these teams is scheduled for next year. In addition, it includes a supposed match between Granada and Elche, which does not even play in the first division.
| Game | Result |
|---|---|
| Real Madrid – Barcelona | x |
| Atlético de Madrid – Seville | 1 |
| Valencia – Villarreal | 2 |
| Real Betis – Athletic Club | 1 |
| Real Sociedad – Celta Vigo | 1 |
| Osasuna – Mallorca | 1 |
| Elche – Granada | 1 |
| Alavés – Cadiz | 1 |
Ameijeiras considers that a good model trained with sufficient information could outperform even a person who has a great knowledge of football. But he points out that so far not even the most renowned experts in sports prediction have managed to develop a model effective enough to win more money than they would lose.
Go bankrupt a casino
Some users on the internet say they have used artificial intelligence to “break a casino.” Something that in reality would not be so simple, according to the experts consulted. “If this video is viewed“It doesn’t break anything,” says Vitoriano. “What counts is a famous rule of probability, or of stochastic processes and specifically of martingales, but for it to be a winning strategy it is necessary to bet on each play at least everything that has been lost so far and have infinite money for it.”
Casinos have many games. Forte highlights that in some, such as 21 blackjack You can count cards, while in others like roulette there has been a lot of talk about “machine failure” in reference to the values that tend to come out more than others. “The physical casinos make sure that this is not something predictable by changing the numbers of sites and that kind of thing, and it would take a lot of observations to reach the correct conclusions and, after the legend of Los Pelayos, I think they are doing well.” upon notice,” adds Forte.
For years the Los Pelayos family was a headache for multiple casinos. This is indicated by a news article published in EL PAÍS in 2000: “When they see them arrive, the dealers start to tremble and the alarms go off. And it is no wonder: its members exhaustively study the game of roulette and, using computers and a meticulous calculation of probabilities, they achieve million-dollar profits by betting on the numbers that mathematical laws reveal as winners. Their winnings caused several casinos to take action to counter their strategies and ban them from entry.
It seems difficult to Vitoriano that in games of pure chance in online casinos there can be any winning strategy—not even with artificial intelligence—beyond those already known in physical casinos. “Another thing are games in which you play against other players, such as poker, which could benefit from the use of statistics and data science models to detect behavioral patterns of the rest of the participants or, although more difficult, patterns of a machine”, he concludes.
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