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American Morning

Web Sites Help You Choose Lottery Numbers

Aired August 17, 2001 - 11:03   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, are you feeling lucky, Leon?

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Not right now.

PHILLIPS: Not right now. Well, hundreds of thousands of Powerball players sure are. With a huge jackpot up for grabs, folks in states from Oregon to New Hampshire are playing the lottery in hopes of winning that $120 million jackpot. Now the lines at Powerball retailers have been growing and the drawing is only one day away now and folks are choosing their numbers very carefully. If you don't have your lucky Powerball numbers already picked, well, we've got some help for you.

CNN.com's science tech editor Daniel Sieberg has some Web sites for us to check out.

Good to see you, Daniel.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN SCIENCE TECH EDITOR: Good to see you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, you going to make us all lucky?

SIEBERG: Oh, yes, I hope so, boy.

PHILLIPS: We'll all be out buying tickets, right?

SIEBERG: Right, exactly. I should say, even if you use the Internet, of course your chances are slim to none at best, you know.

What we've done is we've got some lottery sites. They help you pick numbers. They also generate random numbers. They typically use something called an algorithm, which is just a formula for generating numbers, and giving you something you want to select from. It's a -- a lot of people just use their favorite birthdays or anniversaries or that sort of thing.

And these are some sites we've found on the Web. This one's called the Virtual Lottery Number Page. And what you can do, it's got a variety of different lottos that you can pick numbers for. There's the Pick 3, the Pick 4 and, of course, the Powerball, the big ones, anything you want to get some numbers on here. It'll generate random numbers for you is what it does.

PHILLIPS: Is there any kind of analyzing that goes into this? Do these people have certain philosophies when they

(CROSSTALK)

SIEBERG: You know, I think people have their own personal philosophy, but I don't think there's very much real science. It's, you know, it's just very...

PHILLIPS: You think there can be, right?

SIEBERG: No, there just can't be, it's so random.

Now in this case, this is the Lotto Genie. This is a pay site where you can go in and it actually combines numbers from -- that you choose, maybe some random numbers. You know, again, there's no real science to this, but if you -- if you do need some numbers and can't think of something offhand when you're filling out your ticket, this is intended to give you some inspiration.

This next site is LottoGen. Now they claim to give you a 400 percent chance better of winning the lotto. Now of course you'll have to take all of these claims with a grain of salt because...

PHILLIPS: Sure, I mean where do they base -- what do they base that claim on?

SIEBERG: Well, they base it on hoping that you're going to come to their site, I think is where they get it from.

PHILLIPS: OK.

SIEBERG: You'd have to really check it out if you go to the sites just to make sure, you know, that you're not hoping for more or not getting what you want, especially when you're trying to win a lottery.

Now with this next site, this is LottoFever. This is one of my favorite sites, and this is -- this actually involves you send your money in by check to this site and they have a pool and you can choose which lotteries you want to enter and they will -- almost have a club. It's a lottery club. You choose which ones you're going to want to go into and the money comes out of your little account depending on which lotto you want to participate in.

Now this one is the California Super Lotto's generator. It's not associated with the state lottery. It does deal with California lotteries. And they've got something here called the...

PHILLIPS: Astro Lotto.

SIEBERG: ... Astro number,

PHILLIPS: Yes.

SIEBERG: ... yes, generator, which is a good one.

PHILLIPS: What is that? SIEBERG: You can type in your birthday. Now what's you birthday, Kyra?

PHILLIPS: August 8.

SIEBERG: August, so we'll go...

PHILLIPS: Do I have to give you the year, too?

SIEBERG: Don't have to give me the year, no.

PHILLIPS: OK, August 8.

SIEBERG: So we'll type in August 8 and this will give you a list of some random numbers for this upcoming draw -- for tomorrow, actually. So there's a whole bunch of numbers here you can choose from,...

PHILLIPS: Wow.

SIEBERG: ... you know, if you think your birthday is going to influence whether you win, you know, millions or not.

PHILLIPS: Now do a lot of people log onto this? Is it pretty popular?

SIEBERG: They are -- I think they are pretty popular. It's hard to tell how popular some of these sites and there's so many of them out there. This is just a handful. And I know it's quite a list for people to remember, so we do have a story on CNN.com/tech where you can go and get a list of what we've talked about today.

PHILLIPS: Daniel Sieberg, thanks so much.

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