Bit of advice required.
The girl who runs our lottery syndicate in the office decided that as we were having no luck with lucky dips, that we should each pick a line of numbers which we will use every week.
Anyway, I picked a line of six consecutive numbers. Her response was 'there's no chance of six consecutive numbers coming up'. Obviously I tried to explain to her that my set of numbers stood exactly the same chance as any other permutation of six numbers. Unfortunately she couldnt handle this. She said it was a waste of a line.
I tried a numberof ways of explaining chance and probability. I asked her to imagine that these numbers were just like a label hiding the actual identity of the ball. I suggested that the balls may all have names underneath their numbers and that this may seem more random. Anyway to cut a long story short she was not convinced.
Can anyone suggest a simple analogy to explain this to her or should I just give up and choose another line? Of course my original line would then come up and I would be kicking myself forever.
Choose another line and if your original numbers come up … kick her!
PS. And stop being such a smart ass. I feel sorry for the poor woman.
I'm sure there was a comedy on tv where someone picked 1,2,3,4,5,6 and the numbers 7,8,9,10,11,12 came up. Can't remember what it was though....
This is just another example of how intuition leads to false conclusions.
Humans are actually rather poor at chance, probability and spotting randomness. A sequential choice of numbers looks too 'ordered' to happen by chance and people assume that randomness would produce numbers that are 'spread out'.
There are more spread out sequences than random ones of course but the chances of any particular sequence coming out is exactly the same (14,000,000 to 1 against). This means that you can't increase your chances of winning by the numbers you pick but you can reduce your chance of sharing the win (should you be so lucky) with others by picking number sequences that other people avoid.
People often go with 'lucky numbers' like birthdays etc. so picking a lot of numbers over 31 is a good idea, for example.
A rather unusual sequence that 'feels' wrong is probably a good idea to use as others will also avoid picking such a sequence for the same reason.
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She's right it's a wasted line but the reasons she's given are wrong. Your selection has as much chance of coming up as any other. However the goal when picking lottery numbers is to make a selection that you will share with as few other people as possible. Given that they will come up in one form or another eventually you want to maximise the payout on those occassions. This often means avoiding ordered patterns like a row of consecutive numbers. As people tend to notice when consecutive number come up and suspect that this happens more often than chance allows. Thay are of course wrong but avoiding those combinations will help you maximise your winnings.Originally Posted by Monkeyhanger
Bit of advice required.
The girl who runs our lottery syndicate in the office decided that as we were having no luck with lucky dips, that we should each pick a line of numbers which we will use every week.
Anyway, I picked a line of six consecutive numbers. Her response was 'there's no chance of six consecutive numbers coming up'. Obviously I tried to explain to her that my set of numbers stood exactly the same chance as any other permutation of six numbers. Unfortunately she couldnt handle this. She said it was a waste of a line.
I tried a numberof ways of explaining chance and probability. I asked her to imagine that these numbers were just like a label hiding the actual identity of the ball. I suggested that the balls may all have names underneath their numbers and that this may seem more random. Anyway to cut a long story short she was not convinced.
Can anyone suggest a simple analogy to explain this to her or should I just give up and choose another line? Of course my original line would then come up and I would be kicking myself forever.
http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Strategy.html
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=074...3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
A good reason to do a lucky dip is that you never get into the situation where your numbers come up and you haven't put a ticket on. The chances of being in that situation are probably quite low though
Of course, they aren't really 'your' numbers.
However if your numbers did come up and you hadn't put a ticket on - you'd be as well putting them on again, because they have the same chance of coming up as any other combination.
I don’t do the Lottery.
Hands up those who do.
Have you ever won anything?
I've won a tenner a few times. I only play occasioanlly and only when there's a big jackpot (in excess of £14 million). I then pick numbers in combinations designed to be unique amongst those used by other players. With the advent of lucky dip not only is this less possible but rollovers are less frequent with less clustering in the popular selections. Obviously it'd be self defeating to publicise my method of picking "unique" selections but I can assure you that it's not very good at it ;-)
There was a time when I was ahead, having won £30 but spent less than that. I'd estimate that I've now spent about £100 on the national lottery and Euro millions since their inceptions. I've won an extra tenner in that time so I'm ahead of the game in expected winnings but not by any improbable amount. I'm far from profitable.
It's just a bit of fun and it allows me to dream of being a multi millionaire. I know that the odds would be more favourable with a 6 horse accumulator but have little objection to the difference going towards good causes.
Matt,
Your method is safe with me. lol
I don't do the lottery myself but I do buy lucky dips on occasion. I put them in Birthday cards and Christmas cards to family and friends.
Don't worry, there is method in my madness. I don't believe I will win but other family members are more optimistic. Who am I to disillusion them.
And besides, it would just be 'Sod's Law' that I gave the ticket to someone and they won, and remembered me. lol
Thankfully, I don’t care about the money I’ve spent. I see it as me doing my little bit in helping all those charities that the Lottery help.
I’m a nut job. Right?
I do the lottery. Got 4 numbers on a line once but only got about £30.
I don't expect to win but at least the chance of winning the jackpot is non-zero if you put a line on, which makes the chances of winning infinitely higher than not having a line on.
I don't play the Wednesday draw as I don't think the odds of winning are worth disrupting my routine for- so I don't take it seriously.
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Well, for all of you who do the Lottery, I would just like to say……….. Break a leg!
and don't go doing this.....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770
A father was in hiding from his furious family after tricking them into thinking he had won the Euro lottery jackpot.
Lying Fergus Frater, 46, duped his relatives into believing he had scooped the massive win as a practical joke, promising to share the winnings.
Mr Frater promised his son Jordan, 25, a £5 million share of the jackpot, and told his sister Lorraine that she would get a £1 million cut of the winnings. He also fooled the local newspaper The Argus, who splashed the story on their front page.
.......
I would have no idea what to do with £35M. I don't need it - I'd probably give most of it away. I really wonder if it will make the recent winner happy.
But I'll never have it as I very rarely try the Lottery.
Keeping it quiet would be your only chance of a happy life, I fear it is probably too late for her.
I'd probably give half to UK Skeptics...
Me too. "Probably"Keeping it quiet would be your only chance of a happy life, I fear it is probably too late for her.
I'd probably give half to UK Skeptics...
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