What's going on here!?!?!?!

Reply #6

Irvin — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 09:36:35 GMT

Also dont pick all your numbers in the same decade. There was a draw in New Zealand with all the numbers drawn in the thirties. The end result 38 division 1 winners.

Reply #5

four4me — Fri, 30 Jul 2004 09:31:53 GMT

It's because of lot of people play birthdays, so if all 5 numbers are 31I have a ticket like this I play sometimes using birth dates when I think it might hit. Lots of young kids in my family.I have another ticket simular to this i play. Good part is i play their ages not there exact birth dates. And the numbers are in every range 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50 with a bonus ball of 52

Reply #4

four4me — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 22:51:29 GMT

Many people who buy lottery tickets like mega and power ball haven't a clue as to what they are doing they fill out the ticket while standing in line many times. Lots of people play numbers like 2/4/6/8/10 and 10/15/25/30/35. Pick numbers in patterns, all on same line, shapes. crisscrosses, X's, and every other conceivable way. They don't know or care about the odds. They never used particular methods. In fact many players are first time players having heard about the jackpot or heard chit chat... [ More ]

Reply #3

RJOh — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 22:08:10 GMT

I've read on the websites of Gail Howard and others that players should avoid playing all lower numbers because many people play birthdays and if they win, they will likely have to share the winnings with other players. I wonder if all those winners are thinking about that now?RJOh

Reply #2

Zeno — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 21:52:37 GMT

I guess you're right Todd. That's pretty interesting. So, conversely when the numbers are high then the number of winners will probably be smaller than what was expected. Fascinating...

Reply #1

Todd — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 17:00:02 GMT

It's because of lot of people play birthdays, so if all 5 numbers are 31 or below the chances become very great that there will be several people who match all the numbers. In this case all 5 numbers were 24 or less, greatly expanding the number of winners.

What's going on here!?!?!?!

Zeno — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 16:42:37 GMT

Anybody else notice this? The number of $175,000 winners for the drawing on 7/27/04 was WAY more than what was mathematically expected. The probability of there being 34 winners is given a good approximation by the Poisson distribution formula.260,317 * 43 = 11,193,631 tickets sold. So n = 11,193,631n*p = (11,193,631/2,649,920) = 4.224 expected number of winners.So the probability of there being 34 winners is: ((4.224)^34 * e^-4.224)/34!which is 9.3323 * 10^-20 or 0.000000000000000000093323It... [ More ]