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
They don’t take the number out of the lottery when it wins, so it’s not any more or less likely to win again.
If I put 1 red counter and 9 blue counters into a bag and tell you to pick one without looking and you take out the red one, then I put it back into the bag and tell you to pick again you have the same chance of picking the red counter a second time. The fact you picked it last time has no effect on your next turn when all the counters are returned to the bag before you pick.
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