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I remember a mathematician's advice about playing lottery (other than "don't play it") - pick numbers near the edges of the coupon, as people avoid those places
by praptak 13y ago
I remember a mathematician's advice about playing lottery (other than "don't play it") - pick numbers near the edges of the coupon, as people avoid those places. This way you minimize the chance of having to split the jackpot with someone else (and yeah "don't play it" still holds :-) )
- nly 13y agoThe same, in theory, applies to sequences like 1 2 3 4 5 6 "because that will never happen", and numbers >31 (birth days). In practice though, the number of n jackpot winners is significantly less likely than 1... and do you really care if you only win $10M instead of $20M?
- eterm 13y agoExcept 1,2,3,4,5,6 is actually bought way more (by hundreds) than would be bought by random. It's best to use a source of random numbers. Any rules you construct just makes it more likely someone else is using the same constructions.
- mistercow 13y agoExactly. Using a scheme to try to figure out a lottery number that other people won't choose is like using "ZZZZZZZZ" as a password, on the basis that anyone who tries to brute force it will try that one last.
- jaynos 13y agoAnd never play the same numbers because if you play the same numbers all the time and they are the winning numbers the one week you don't play...
- nisse72 13y agoNo worries, they might win again the following week! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6202593/Bulgarian-lottery-picks-same-numbers-in-straight-draws.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6202...