So a co-worker was talking about someone’s stupid plan to always play the previous winning lotto numbers. I chimed in that I was pretty sure that didn’t actually hurt their odds. They thought I was crazy, pointing out that probably no lottery ever rolled the same five-six winning numbers twice in a row.
I seem to remember that I am correct, any sequence of numbers has the same odds. But I was totally unable to articulate how that could be. Can someone help me out? It does really seem like the person using this method would be at a serious disadvantage.
Edit: I get it, and I’m not gonna think about balls anymore today.
In: Mathematics
You flip a coin. It’s heads. Now what are the odds that heads also appears on the second flip? on the third? fourth? no matter how many times you flip the coin, there is always a 50% chance it lands on heads. It’s exactly the same concept with lotto numbers, but instead of 2 possible outcomes, there are hundreds of millions.
Latest Answers