June 20, 2018
Surprising lotto wins
The Herald has an annoyingly uncritical story about someone who claims to have a mathematical formula for winning the lottery, rather than just being lucky.
Much more interesting: BBC’s More or Less had a story about multiple lottery wins and how they might come about.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
Theres another group who use a different formula, its part spending billions in turnover and part getting a rebate like a lotto outlet would
https://www.smh.com.au/national/meet-the-joker-the-australian-who-is-the-biggest-gambler-in-the-world-20180515-p4zfhi.html
6 years ago
This guy did work out a formula for scratchies…
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/02/04/toronto_man_cracked_the_code_to_scratchlottery_tickets.html
6 years ago
Yes, the pseudo-randomisation in some lottery systems has been amazingly crap. I’m pretty sure the NSW one uses a machine with physical balls, though.
6 years ago
I didnt even know they had geological statisticians
6 years ago
Look up Harold Jeffreys on Wikipedia – you could say he was an astronomical geological statistician.
6 years ago