Many lottery players play religiously lotto combinations like 1,2,3,4,5,6

There are many lottery players who believe in 1,2,3,4,5,6-like lotto sequences. They will play also other religious-like lotto combinations. You know how probability works - consider the standard deviation as well.

Posted by Ion Saliu on July 29, 2000.

In Reply to: Lotto combination of 1 2 3 4 5 6 has a very low standard deviation posted by Frank on July 29, 2000.

Frank:

You made an excellent analogy:

“If you close your eyes and randomly throw stones at 49 bottles it will very seldom if ever happen that you will hit 6 bottles that are next to each other - the same is true of the lottery. All bottles has the same probability to be hit but the probability to hit one after another is very small.”

I thought of adding another element of difficulty, to make it closer to a Markov chain. That is, throw stones at bottles that are also moved, but not very quickly, and not for a very long time. The probability of “hitting” sequences such as “1,2,3,4,5,6” lottery combo would increase to levels equal to purely random sequences if the lotto balls were mixed for millions of hours before each drawing.
There are many who believe in “1,2,3,4,5,6”-like lotto sequences. They will play them religiously. They will play also other religious-like lotto combinations. I say forget about convincing them to convert to science. Let them play their way. You know how probability works - consider the standard deviation as well. Just follow its path and your chances are clearly better.

Best of luck!

Ion Saliu

I have read through the mathmatical justifications for the Lotto systems posted here and can't say I understand them completely. The thing that I really don't get is - what difference does it make what happened in past lotto drawings? Statistics theory as I learned it says that in an honest game every combination has equal probability, each time regardless of what happened before. If thats true why wouldn't a play of lottery combination 1,2,3,4,5,6 be as likely an outcome as anything generated by the lotto software programs?

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Comments:
: Lotto Combination 1,2,3,4,5,6: Odds, Statistics, Standard Deviation. There are many who believe in 1,2,3,4,5,6 lotto sequences. They will play them religiously. They will play also other religious-like lottery combinations. What you have said about equal probability is correct but that is only for each lotto number. When you look at the lotto combination as a whole it is anither story. A combination of say 1 2 3 4 5 6 as a whole does not have such a high probability due to the fact that they are in seqence. What difference does it make what happened in past lotto drawings? Statistics theory as I learned it says that in an honest game every lotto combination has equal probability, each time regardless of what happened before. If thats true why wouldn't a play of 1,2,3,4,5,6 be as likely an outcome as anything generated by the lotto software programs? The probabilities are equal, but the combinations are not equal Title: "Many lottery players pay religiously lotto combinations like 1,2,3,4,5,6". There are many who believe in 1,2,3,4,5,6-like lotto sequences. They will play also other religious-like lotto combinations. You know how probability works - consider the standard deviation as well.