Was watching a podcast recently where a girl called another girl dumb for choosing all 6 for a lottery ticket saying that after one 6 is chosen, the probability of each subsequent 6 being chosen decreases. I.e you’re better off choosing 10 random numbers than 10 6’s.
The other 2 in the podcast called the girl an idiot because each six is chosen separately. So the probability of arriving at all 6 is the same as any other combinations. This seems to make sense to me. Rolling 10 dice, the probability of one 6 doesn’t magically effect the other result of the other di.
However I seem to vaguely remember being taught something similar to the supposedly idiot girl when I was a kid.
So basically, who’s right and why?
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It really depends on how the lottery numbers are selected. Lotteries and their televised ball machines make it possible to see the actual system, but it will depend on how they do it.
If there’s one giant collection of balls and you pull out a number from the collection each time… Like, if there are 10 of each number (100 numbers/balls total) and you pull out a `6`. Well now there are only 9 of the number `6` in the machine and 10 of each other number. So the number `6` is less likely to come up next time. It gets worse as each subsequent `6` is drawn, if they are. So the all-`6` ticket is statistically speaking least likely to win, and a ticket with all unique digits has a slightly higher chance at winning.
If there are several collections of numbers, isolated from each other, then each drawing of the number `6` means nothing to the others and so all `6` tickets are just as likely as any other combination.
So I’d have to see how the lottery numbers are selected before deciding who’s right.
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