Governments are full of corruption. It doesn’t get anymore corrupt than (corrupt) government running a monopoly business.
I always find it funny when the government tries to crack down on gambling while they run the biggest gambling scam in the world.
the winning numbers for yesterday’s texas lotto included 37-38-39…
come on…do you realize how unlikely that is…
I really don’t think so.
Whatever the outcome the State is always the winner, they can afford the luxury of leaving the winning numbers to chance.
PS: there’s a funny story about the lotto. When Eugene de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s stepson, was sent as a viceroy to Italy the first letter he sent to his imperial stepfather contained a request to abolish lotto, on the ground that it corrupted the morals of his subjects since it lulled them into thinking they could get rich through chance instead of hard work (not joking). Napoleon’s reply was typical of the man “Absolutely not. Lotto gives me a million francs from the Kingdom of Italy alone”.
The monopolization of numbers games is itself corrupt, there is no further need for corruption.
Clayton -
Whatever the outcome the State is always the winner, they can afford the luxury of leaving the winning numbers to chance.
To be fair, all games of chance are desgined so that, over the long run, the ‘house’ comes out ahead. Professional Casinos couldnt operate if they routinely lost money on their games. However The Lottery has the worst odds of any game…so it probably is safe to say its corrupt, or at least has severely tilted odds.
As likely as 36-42-50 is.
The P of a sequence of 3 consecutive numbers is quite low… but the P of a sequence of numbers being related in some subjective way (2 4 6 8, 5 5 5 5, 1 3 3 7) is quite high.
I agree with scineram, it is the specific numbers that matter, if they use 00-99, using only 2-digit, ie 01, 02 etc, each number has a 1/100 probability of being chosen, for the first spot, a 1/99 for the second, etc, if you are looking for a specific number. If you are just going for any 3 numbers, it is 1/100, but say 37-38-39 is 1/1001/991/98 for 1/970200, but for any random 3 digit, it is 100% that you will get 3 numbers.
Or if you are concerned with consecutive numbers, there are 98 sets of those, going 00-01-02 to 97-98-99, and for any 3, there was 100^3, for any 3, assuming replacment, or 970200 for non-replacement, so 98/970200 for any 3 consecutive, better than a specific 3.
I may have gotten the math wrong, I may have taken stat, but it was “If a man is 50in tall, and the median height is 69.5” with standard deviation of 1.5", what percentile?" the median and sd was so used, that that was committed to memory, and graphing calc was allowed, so I might not be 100% right.
Most “jackpot” lottos only bet on which numbers will be drawn without worrying about the specific sequence. This paticular draw order was 37-51-46-39-6-38; the chance of 38 being drawn was the same as any other remaining number.
“Most “jackpot” lottos only bet on which numbers will be drawn without worrying about the specific sequence. This paticular draw order was 37-51-46-39-6-38; the chance of 38 being drawn was the same as any other remaining number.”
but the thing is…consecutive numbers seem to happen alot with lotto numbers…especially…2 pairs of consecutive numbers…
like 36, 37…and 42,43 in the same lotto drawing…
it happens very frequently…
@limitgov: Humans are notoriously bad at accurately evaluating statistical properties of random sequences with intuition alone. I recommend you take a sequence of lotto numbers from your state and run them through the Diehard battery of randomness tests. If you think you see a pattern, but Diehard doesn’t pick it up, then you’re just imagining things*.
Clayton -
*Please note that I’m not implying that no form of non-randomness can get past Diehard, just not any kind of non-randomness you think you can see just by looking at a random sequence
I heard a rumour that they are or were managed. As in, they will repeat the draw if they are not happy with it in order to ensure that there is a winner this week, or that there isn’t one. Whatever they think will help the sales.
Don’t think they are fixed though.
one way to think about it is, imagine that each of the balls have a random shape on them. Now pick 6 “shapes” , now when the results are called no matter what combination are picked your brain wont find an apparent pattern.
you might as well pick 1,2,3,4,5,6. the problem is a bunch of smarty pants stats students will have done the same to prove a point and your prize will be split more then you think 
I’m a bookie, and I offer fixed-odds betting on the outcome of 2, 3 or 4 lotto numbers at payouts far above what you’d get in the general pool. Believe me, if it was a game you could in any way “fix” or predict I wouldn’t do such a thing. The government doesn’t need to meddle in this one… Basic math does the trick.