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
The chances of any particular combination coming up in the lottery are always the same.
Previous results don’t effect subsequent draws. Thinking it does is just superstition.
If a particular number came up in the last draw, that has **no impact at all** on this weeks draw.
So logically you might think not that playing the same winning numbers two weeks in a row gives you an advantage… but it doesn’t.
The chances of last weeks numbers coming up a second time are astronomically small, but the chances are exactly the same as any other set of numbers.
To put it a different way, there’s no such thing as a ‘system’ for playing the lottery. Playing last weeks numbers, consistently playing the same numbers like your kids birthdays, or entirely random numbers have exactly the same chances of winning.
It doesn’t matter, the chances are the same.
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