Re: Down with the lottery!!

[Doug Craigen <dcc@cyberspc.mb.ca>]

On Wed, 30 Jul 1997, John Mallinckrodt wrote:

> Doug Craigen writes:
>
> > My LOTTO 6/49 (Canada's national lottery) numbers are 1 2 3 4 5 6.
>
> I may have some bad news for you.  Constituting a surprisingly strong 
> case for a more rampant numeracy than we usually find evidence for, I 
> have heard that 1 2 3 4 5 6 is, in fact, one of the most *commonly* 
> chosen sets of lottery numbers.  Nevertheless, assuming that this is not 

Yes and no.  I know that they are the most commonly chosen numbers, but I
don't think they are usually chosen as a set.  The 6/49 stats show that in
general people tend to favor lower numbers.  There are exceptions, such
as 13.  So if one wanted to get the best chance at a good prize split they
should play something like 13 49 48 47 46 45 in 6/49.  Except for one
thing.  There are lots of books by numerate people cashing in on 6/49, and
this would be a common piece of advice.  So it wouldn't surprise me if the
*least* common numbers are the *most* common to be chosen in sets.  For
this reason one may end up splitting any prize even more with the less
common numbers.

The history of 6/49 is such that an average set of numbers would win a
couple of $10 prizes per year (no benefit from uncommon sets there) and
one prize in the ball park of $80.  The common range from prize splitting
for the latter is only approximately $20, which is lost in the noise of
the $10 totals.

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| Doug Craigen                                                 |
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| If you think Physics is no laughing matter, think again .... |
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