September 24, 2018
And while we’re talking about Lotto …
Our very own Liza Bolton was summoned to TV show The Project last week to reveal how to minimise the chance of sharing a First Division Lotto win with heaps of other 
people.
The invite came after last Wednesday’s Lotto draw, where 40 people shared the first division prize, getting only $25,000 each rather than something with one or two extra zeroes.
Liza had 90 seconds to share her top five tips – the first one is on the image.
Watch the clip 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 »
The trouble with advice against a ‘pretty pattern’- which likely means choose
your numbers randomly, is that having an ‘equal chance of being drawn’ doesnt mean it works that way over 1788 lotto draws, nor should it.
A frequency distribution ( may not be correct one!) shows #1 has been drawn 302 times and lowest frequency of draw was #6 with 243 times
6 years ago
Unless there’s reasonable suspicion that the lotto machine is somehow biased, the best advice remains “choose randomly”. (And if there is such suspicion, Internal Affairs would surely want to look into it.)
If we had information on the number of other people choosing each number, then perhaps a blacklist would help, or perhaps not as all the stats geeks rush for the same six least-used numbers.
6 years ago
“Choose randomly and try again if you get a pretty pattern or a date” is a very slightly better strategy. On the other hand, it’s more work than just getting a random pick. On the other other hand, ‘more work’ may be a feature if you’re doing it for entertainment value.
“Choose randomly from numbers over 12 that didn’t win last week” might well be an incremental improvement.
6 years ago
Has there been any work done on the mathematical expectation of the various forms of gambling?
6 years ago
Two of the 40 people got $2,525,000 (or perhaps one got twice that) so not all the 40 care that much that the first div prize was only $25k.
6 years ago
Is there a link that does not involve logging into Facethief?
6 years ago