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
Humans suck at probability because we think things are connected when they are not.
The chance to roll a 6 is 1/6. The chance to roll a 6, after you have rolled 6, 6’s in a row is still, 1/6.
The chance you actually roll 6 6’s in a row, is 1/(6^6), but that’s only because we put the stipulation in a row. In a set of independent rolls, every number has a 1/6 chance, every time.
Every lotto number has a 1/(total #’s) chance to get pulled. Every lotto event is an independent event from the previous one or the next one as the results do not depend any other drawing so the chances to win remain soley based upon the # of tickets you purchased for that 1 event, not the # of events you participate in, i.e., its better to play 10 numbers 1 time, than 1 number 10 times.
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