Hello all,

This is my first attempt to place real code on the site. I wanted to learn how to use HTML::TableExtract and Date::Calc, so I thought this would be a good way of trying it out. This script hits the Ohio Lottery search site and gets all of the past Super Lotto results and determines which numbers have occurred most commonly and least commonly. I am not so silly as to think this would actually work for finding winning lottery numbers (or I would not publish the code and would by now be a millionaire), but it is an interesting diversion nonetheless.

I hope you enjoy it,
Scott

---

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
#
#  OHlottery.pl By Scott Cain
#
#  Uses CPAN modules to contact the Ohio Lottery web site search page
#  and extracts the winning numbers for all super lotto drawings for w
+hich
#  there is data, which starts at the beginning of 1998.  The frequenc
+y of
#  each number's occurrence is calculated and compared to the expected
#  value, i.e., 1/47 or 1/49 depending on when the drawing was held.
#
#  Things that could be done to make this better, but that I probably
#  won't do:
#    - have the results saved to a flat file so the script doesn't hav
+e
#      to hit the web server for every past result.
#    - make it more general to allow analysis of other games.
#

use LWP::Simple qw(get);
use HTML::TableExtract;
use Date::Calc qw(Day_of_Week
  Add_Delta_Days
  Today
  Date_to_Days
  Decode_Day_of_Week);

my @start_date = qw/1998 1 3/;    # a Saturday, the first for which da
+ta is available.
my @current_date = @start_date;
my $current_dow  = Day_of_Week(@current_date);
my $delta_days;

my %lotto;
my %lottoplus;
my $lotto_count     = 0;
my $lottoplus_count = 0;

#
# properly initialize hashes
#
for my $i ( 1 .. 49 ) {
    $lotto{$i}     = 0;
    $lottoplus{$i} = 0;
}

while ( Date_to_Days(@current_date) < Date_to_Days( Today() ) ) {

    my $URL =
      "http://www.ohiolottery.com/numbers/searchresults_bydate.asp?Fro
+mMonth="
      . $current_date[1] . "&FromDay=" . $current_date[2] . "&FromYear
+="
      . $current_date[0];

    my $page = get($URL);
    if ( $page ) {

        my $te = new HTML::TableExtract( depth => 1 );
        $te->parse($page);
        foreach my $ts ( $te->table_states ) {
            foreach my $row ( $ts->rows ) {
                my @game_str = grep ( /lotto/i, @$row );
                if ( $game_str[0] and
                     $game_str[0] =~ /plus/i and #differentiates old f
+rom new lotto
                     $$row[3] =~ /(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)/
+ )
                {
                    $lottoplus{$1}++;
                    $lottoplus{$2}++;
                    $lottoplus{$3}++;
                    $lottoplus{$4}++;
                    $lottoplus{$5}++;
                    $lottoplus{$6}++;
                    $lottoplus_count++;
                }
                elsif ( $game_str[0] and
                        $$row[3] =~ /(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d
++)/)
                {
                    $lotto{$1}++;
                    $lotto{$2}++;
                    $lotto{$3}++;
                    $lotto{$4}++;
                    $lotto{$5}++;
                    $lotto{$6}++;
                    $lotto_count++;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    else {    # the LWP get didn't work
        print "Date_to_Text(@current_date) failed\n";
    }

    #
    # figure out the next day to use.
    #  (drawings are only held on Saturdays and Wednesdays)
    #
    $current_dow = Day_of_Week(@current_date);
    if ( $current_dow == Decode_Day_of_Week("Saturday") ) {
        $delta_days = 4;
    }
    else {
        $delta_days = 3;
    }
    @current_date = Add_Delta_Days( @current_date, $delta_days );
} # closes while(date) loop

#
# now do some simple statistics.
#
my $num_lottoplus_balls = 6 * $lottoplus_count;
my $num_lotto_balls     = 6 * $lotto_count;

for my $i ( 1 .. 49 ) {
    $lottoplus{$i} = $lottoplus{$i} / $num_lottoplus_balls;
    $lotto{$i}     = $lotto{$i} / $num_lotto_balls;
}

my @toptobottom = sort { $lottoplus{$b} <=> $lottoplus{$a} } keys %lot
+toplus;

#
# print fairly pretty results--
# probably could have used a sub here, but cut & paste is so convienen
+t.
#
my $expect = 1.0 / 49.0;
print 'Percentages are % deviation from expected value';
print "\nTop 8 superlotto plus balls\n";
print "for $lottoplus_count drawings\n";

for my $i ( 0 .. 7 ) {
    my $deviation = 100 * ( $lottoplus{ $toptobottom[$i] } - $expect )
+ / $expect;
    printf( "%.2d -> %+.1f%%\n", $toptobottom[$i], $deviation );
}

print "\nBottom 8 superlotto plus balls\n";
for my $i ( 41 .. 48 ) {
    my $deviation = 100 * ( $lottoplus{ $toptobottom[$i] } - $expect )
+ / $expect;
    printf( "%.2d -> %+.1f%%\n", $toptobottom[$i], $deviation );
}

@toptobottom = sort { $lotto{$b} <=> $lotto{$a} } keys %lotto;

$expect = 1.0 / 47.0;
print "\n\nOld Super Lotto results included for historical comparison.
+\n";
print "\nTop 8 superlotto balls\n";
print "for $lotto_count drawings\n";
for my $i ( 0 .. 7 ) {
    my $deviation = 100 * ( $lotto{ $toptobottom[$i] } - $expect ) / $
+expect;
    printf( "%.2d -> %+.1f%%\n", $toptobottom[$i], $deviation );
}

print "\nBottom 8 superlotto balls\n";
for my $i ( 39 .. 46 ) {
    my $deviation = 100 * ( $lotto{ $toptobottom[$i] } - $expect ) / $
+expect;
    printf( "%.2d -> %+.1f%%\n", $toptobottom[$i], $deviation );
}
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