How to win Lotto … sort of
From today’s Herald …
Choose carefully, $23m is at stake
Today’s $23 million Big Wednesday draw is the fourth-largest prize in Lotto history.
And while there is no secret way to guarantee hitting the jackpot, a mathematician says you can boost chances of not having to share any cash you do win.
Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Auckland David Scott said: “There’s no way of increasing your chances of winning but it’s possible to increase your chances of getting more money and not having to share it.
“Avoid the numbers of 1 up to 30, where people choose their birthdays.”
Read the rest of the story here.
Atakohu Middleton is an Auckland journalist with a keen interest in the way the media uses/abuses data. She happens to be married to a statistician. See all posts by Atakohu Middleton »
At least they had the decency to acknowledge you can’t really increase your chance of winning in total.
12 years ago
About a dozen years ago, the first prize in Lotto was shared by over 30 winners. All numbers were in the 30s and these people thought they were being same by “avoiding the numbers 1 to 30 where people choose their birthdays”. So as the full article says, it is more complicated than that – maybe. I guess most people allow the system to choose randomly for them (as guess based on no data whatsoever!).
12 years ago
I think the thing with the taking ‘all numbers” between 31-40 is a little different to only including 1 or 2 of those numbers in your lines. I waiting for the 1-2-3-4-5-6 combination to be drawn to see how many people have a winning ticket.
12 years ago