Question:  I have an Excel spreadsheet that contains the winning numbers for a lottery. I'd like to count the number of times a pair of numbers occurs in the various draws. How can I do this?

Answer:  This can be done using VBA code to generate the matched pair counts and then the VLOOKUP function to move the results into a matrix.

Let's take a look at an example.

Download Excel spreadsheet (as demonstrated below)

In this example spreadsheet, we have a sheet called "Draw Data" that contains the winning numbers for several draws. On this sheet is a button called "Update Pair Stats" that calls a macro called UpdatePairStats.

When the macro runs, it will populate a sheet called "PairStats" with the matched pair counts as follows:

When the macro has completed, the following message box will appear:

On the sheet called Pairs, you will see that the matrix has been filled in with the matched pair counts (based on a VLOOKUP formula).

The matrix uses the following formula (cell C2 contains the following formula):

=IF(ISNA(VLOOKUP(Pairs!$A2 & "." &Pairs!C$1,PairStats!$A:$D,4,FALSE)),"",VLOOKUP(Pairs!$A2 & "." &Pairs!C$1,PairStats!$A:$D,4,FALSE))

What this formula does is perform a VLOOKUP for the concatenated numbers (separated with a "."). If no match is found, it returns an empty string ("").

You can press Alt-F11 to view the VBA code.

Macro Code:

The macro code looks like this: (and is found in Module1)

Sub UpdatePairStats()

    Dim LRange As Variant
    Dim LRows As Long
    Dim LCols As Long

    Dim C As New Collection
    Dim LItem As Long
    Dim LDesc As String
    Dim Counts(10000, 4) As String

    Dim i As Long, j As Long, k As Long

    On Error Resume Next

    'Select sheet where data resides
    Sheets("Draw Data").Select

    'Data range (where draw information resides)
    LRange = Range("C2:H1151")

    LRows = UBound(LRange, 1)
    LCols = UBound(LRange, 2)

    'Loop through each row in LRange (find pairs)
    For i = 1 To LRows

        'j and k create the pairs
        For j = 1 To LCols - 1

            For k = j + 1 To LCols
                'Separate pairs with a "." character (smaller number first)
                If LRange(i, j) < LRange(i, k) Then
                    LDesc = LRange(i, j) & "." & LRange(i, k)
                Else
                    LDesc = LRange(i, k) & "." & LRange(i, j)
                End If

                'Add new item to collection ("on error resume next" is
                'required above in this procedure because of this line of code)
                C.Add C.Count + 1, LDesc

                'Retrieve indexnumber of new item
                LItem = C(LDesc)

                'Add pair information to new item
                If Counts(LItem, 0) = "" Then
                    Counts(LItem, 0) = LDesc
                    Counts(LItem, 1) = LRange(i, j)
                    Counts(LItem, 2) = LRange(i, k)
                End If

                'Increment stats counter
                If Counts(LItem, 3) = "" Then
                    Counts(LItem, 3) = "1"
                Else
                    Counts(LItem, 3) = CStr(CInt(Counts(LItem, 3)) + 1)
                End If

            Next k
        Next j
    Next i

    'Paste pairs onto sheet called PairStats
    Sheets("PairStats").Select
    Cells.Select
    Selection.Clear
    Cells(1, 1).Resize(C.Count, 4) = Counts

    'Format headings
    Range("A1").FormulaR1C1 = "'Number1.Number2"
    Range("B1").FormulaR1C1 = "'Number1"
    Range("C1").FormulaR1C1 = "'Number2"
    Range("D1").FormulaR1C1 = "'Occurrences"

    Range("A1:D1").Select
    Selection.Font.Bold = True
    Selection.Font.Underline = xlUnderlineStyleSingle

    Columns("A:D").EntireColumn.AutoFit
    Range("F1").Select
    Range("F1").FormulaR1C1 = "Last Updated on " & Now()

    Sheets("Pairs").Select

    MsgBox "Pair statistics have been updated."

End Sub

Please note that you will have to customize the LRange variable to match the number of rows and columns for your data.