In a state lottery where 6 numbers are drawn from a total of 36, I am told, and I believe, that if you pick the 6 numbers 1,2,3,4,5, and 6, you have the same chance of winning as say 5,7,12,25,31,and 34. However, it would seem that there are more random sets of numbers than there are ordered sets, so you're better off picking something else besides 2,4,6,8,10,12 or some other ordered group of numbers. Is this incorrect?

Your first statement is correct. It makes no difference. "Random" is a rather slippery concept in this context.

If the lottery uses, say, numbered ping-pong balls in an air-popper style device, how could it possibly "know" what constitutes an "ordered" set?
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07-04-04, 12:44 AM
methos
As Professor says, the ping-pong balls don't know the difference between an ordered set and any other, so all combinatiosn are equally likely (or unlikely, depending on how you look at it).

There is, however, one tip that I know of that can increase your chances of winning more. In this type of lottery, there are often multiple winners, meaning that the cash is divided between them. Because a large number of people choose dates of one sort or another as their number, you are more likely (should you pick the right number) to have the winnings to yourself if a few of your numbers are over 31.

07-04-04, 08:54 AM
Professor
Shrewd thinking, methos. I'll have to remember that if I ever become crazy enough to buy lottery tickets.

07-04-04, 11:49 PM
gerry

quote:Originally posted by Professor:

If the lottery uses, say, numbered ping-pong balls in an air-popper style device, how could it possibly "know" what constitutes an "ordered" set?

It couldn't, but if there are more unordered numbers than there are ordered numbers, then the unordered numbers have a better chance of winning. It's like picking one ball in a bag of 10 balls, 9 black and one red. Now obviously the air popper doesn't know red from black, but if I were a betting man, I'd choose black, wouldn't you??

07-04-04, 11:54 PM
coldfuse
Gerry, is that not like saying you would bet on a 400 in 4000 chance over a 1 in 10 chance? Both seem equally probable to me.

07-05-04, 12:17 AM
methos
But there aren't 9 red balls and one black. A better comparison: 7 balls and yoiu have to pick the order. There are only two "ordered" choices : red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet and the reverse of that. There are (if I've done my math correctly) 5038 unordered choices. You might conclude that you should pick an unordered sequence, but, in fact, blue, red, indigo, orange, yellow, violet, green has exactly the same chance as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, i.e. 1 in 5040.

If you were betting on whether it would be ordered or unordered you would want to bet for unordered, but you are not. You are betting on a specific combination, and each individual combination, whether ordered or not, has exactly the same probability.

07-05-04, 07:06 AM
gerry
Methos..

Thanks, that does clear it up nicely for me. Now if I could just convince my wife that her numbers have the same chance of winning as 1-2-3-4-5-6, I'd be headed for Hawaii with the money saved!

07-05-04, 10:00 AM
babthrower
Gerry, when people ask me if I've bought 'my' ticket, I say I don't buy them. Then later I nonchalantly mention what I plan to do if I win.

Predictably, the person will pounce: "You can't win if you don't buy a ticket."

This is the opening I'm waiting for. I answer, "Practically speaking, I have as much chance of winning without a ticket as you do with a ticket, plus I'm $10 richer than you are."

Smirk, smirk. Try that one on your wife.

In B.C. we call buying a lottery ticket 'paying the "stupid" tax', because the profits go to social services. The idea is that it's stupid to pay more tax than you have to.

07-05-04, 11:26 AM
Professor
In the 1970's I was living in Chicago and bought a 50¢ ticket for the Illinois lottery, which won me $20.00. I decided at that moment to retire from the game (all lotteries) permanently, knowing that I was way ahead of mathematical expectation and extremely unlikely to ever do better than that. Smile

07-05-04, 12:00 PM
babthrower
Perfesser,

I bought a ticket for a 'good cause' once on the promise from the seller that he would never again ask me to buy a ticker. I won. Next week, there he is, bouncing up and down, "How many do you want this time? 2? 10?"

I gave him my killer glare: "I thought we had a deal."

"Yeah, but you won!"

And he couldn't believe I'd never buy another. Smile

07-05-04, 03:51 PM
FredPuli
There was one man here back in the 1960s who was given a free bet by the promoters of a football pool. It won him the equivalent of one dollar so he had another go,the next week, as he was up Smile. That won him about $ 10 so he had a third go with part of that the next week. That won the sterling equivalent of $ 500,000. At that point he gave up in case he got wasteful and bet another few shillings and it didn't win Big Grin. You may not be surprised to learn that he was a farmer; nobody is as careful with their savings or money generally as a farmer is.

07-08-04, 10:02 AM
FlyingHellfish
Lottery:

A tax for people who are bad at math

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