Semi interesting occurrence re NZ lottery this week

[cullennz]

This might be boring

If so I apologise

Probably the most common thing with lottery some people seem to not get is the chances of it being the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 are the same as any other group of numbers, and assume it is not possible.

This week ours was nearly the next best thing

3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13

I will assume you can see the pattern here.

40 people won and shared by the way, which is the most by a country mile.

I'm no psychologist, but would imagine it is because every one except 13 can be someones birth month and they are all under 31 so cover days as well.

So think it tends to show people still use birthdates to pick their numbers

 

[GnaGnaMan]

This might be boring

If so I apologise

Probably the most common thing with lottery some people seem to not get is the chances of it being the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 are the same as any other group of numbers, and assume it is not possible.

This week ours was nearly the next best thing

3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13

I will assume you can see the pattern here.

40 people won and shared by the way, which is the most by a country mile.

I'm no psychologist, but would imagine it is because every one except 13 can be someones birth month and they are all under 31 so cover days as well.

So think it tends to show people still use birthdates to pick their numbers

I remember an article about which numbers get played. Unfortunately a quick google on gets me info about which numbers are drawn.

What I remember is that patterns are very commonly played. There is an astonishing number of smartasses actually playing 1,2,3,4,5,6.

 

[lionking]

Pretty straightforward. 11 is a “lucky” number. 13 is perversely viewed the same way. When you see 11, 13 and 8 (the Chinese lucky number) in a lottery draw you can bank on a heap of winners.

Although I can’t prove it, my guess is that when people choose birthdates for lotto, it’s the day rather than the month. I recall reading that there are fewer winners when numbers higher than 31 are drawn.

 

[CORed]

This might be boring

3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13

I will assume you can see the pattern here.

Not really, but there is something odd about those numbers.

 

[rjh01]

Top tips.
1. Do not play.
2. Pick a large number of numbers above 30. If a large number of such numbers are drawn then your prize could be bigger than normal as fewer people have picked these numbers.

 

[Dr.Sid]

I remember reading article about what numbers are picked in local lottery (like 20 years ago), which has 6 of 49 numbers, in 5 columns (last cell is empty).
And the stats showed that people write it as a letter, first some numbers in the first row, then very little in second .. then some numbers around third and forth row, but getting less and less toward the end .. except lower right corner had another bunch of hot cells, like a signature.
It was based on wins only, so the pattern analysis couldn't be properly made, but it was certainly interesting.

 

[Armitage72]

3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13

I will assume you can see the pattern here.

40 people won and shared by the way, which is the most by a country mile.

In the US, a lot of people seem to buy tickets with numbers in patterns. Back when I worked at a store that sold the lottery, people who wanted to play the daily three number or four number drawings, and wanted 123, 1234, 2468, or something similar, would usually have to buy them a week in advance to get them before they were sold out.

 

[Roboramma]

I remember reading article about what numbers are picked in local lottery (like 20 years ago), which has 6 of 49 numbers, in 5 columns (last cell is empty).
And the stats showed that people write it as a letter, first some numbers in the first row, then very little in second .. then some numbers around third and forth row, but getting less and less toward the end .. except lower right corner had another bunch of hot cells, like a signature.
It was based on wins only, so the pattern analysis couldn't be properly made, but it was certainly interesting.

I don't understand at all what you are saying here.

 

[Dr.Sid]

I don't understand at all what you are saying here.

It is lottery where you pick your own numbers, by checking them in the ticket (6 out of 49).
The ticket has cells with individual numbers, the current version looks like this:

https://777cz.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Sportka-sázenka.jpg

And the most picked numbers make pattern which looks like a letter. Greeting on the top left, some text in the middle, and farewell in the bottom right. At least that's what the old article said.

 

[angrysoba]

This might be boring

If so I apologise

Probably the most common thing with lottery some people seem to not get is the chances of it being the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 are the same as any other group of numbers, and assume it is not possible.

This week ours was nearly the next best thing

3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13

I will assume you can see the pattern here.

40 people won and shared by the way, which is the most by a country mile.

I'm no psychologist, but would imagine it is because every one except 13 can be someones birth month and they are all under 31 so cover days as well.

So think it tends to show people still use birthdates to pick their numbers

As mentioned above, the most common selection is 1,2,3,4,5,6 (so it doesn't seem unlikely that a lot of people just choose a series of odd numbers) but of course, because it is just as likely to turn up than any other combination, you shouldn't pick those numbers because of how many others you will have to share your winnings with.

That said, this realization is what stopped me playing the lottery. For me, it was a nice illustration of just how unlikely any combination has of being picked.

 

[Ron Swanson]

I won $1200 from a "pay cheque poker" game at a big job I was working on back in the 1980's ... After that i stopped buying any lottery tickets, and almost ALL gambling.

I still go to the casino every 3 or 4 years but just bring $20

 

[Dr.Sid]

Lotteries are nice .. it's cheap, and the prices are huge. It's not likely to ruin you. You are not likely to win, but IMHO it's fun if you are in and you are watching the draw. The ratio of fun vs. price seems to me lot better than in casinos, which are mostly around 50:50 chance. If I'm lucky, I get double. To gain a lot, I have to risk a lot. With lotteries the risk is marginal, and the wins can be life changing. Well .. another questions is if for the better, but that's different topic.

 

[dann]

With lotteries the risk is marginal, and the wins can be life changing.

Do you make a living selling lottery tickets?!
The risk is marginal if you buy only one cheap lottery ticket. And the chance of winning any significant amount is infinitesimal, so why contrast the "huge" life-changing prizes if you win when you know with 99.99999....% certainty that you don't?
That's what all the lottery commercials do!

the odds of winning the jackpot are 1:95,344,200.
Eurojackpot (Wikipedia)

 

[Dr.Sid]

Do you make a living selling lottery tickets?!
The risk is marginal if you buy only one cheap lottery ticket. And the chance of winning any significant amount is infinitesimal, so why contrast the "huge" life-changing prizes if you win when you know with 99.99999....% certainty that you don't?
That's what all the lottery commercials do!

The local lottery I was talking about has winning chance 1:14 million. Yes, it's little. But almost every week someone wins some high price. Jackpot streaks, where nobody wins the top price, so it goes to the next, are not very long. It is entirely possible to win.
And no, I don't sell it. I'm just saying that I like my chances more with lottery than in casino. Making $200 out of $100 just doesn't seem worth it. Winning $1.5M for $1 seems much more fun, even if the chance is near to zero.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I'm just saying that I like my chances more with lottery than in casino. Making $200 out of $100 just doesn't seem worth it. Winning $1.5M for $1 seems much more fun, even if the chance is near to zero.

I agree. I had the best poker game of my life and walked away with about 10-15 times what I put into it. (Second place in a tournament of about five to seven tables.) That is when I stopped paying to play poker.

I'll still play the lottery every now and again, although I don't think I have in over a year or so.

 

[Roboramma]

The local lottery I was talking about has winning chance 1:14 million. Yes, it's little. But almost every week someone wins some high price. Jackpot streaks, where nobody wins the top price, so it goes to the next, are not very long. It is entirely possible to win.

The chance of someone winning is related not just to the chance of any individual winning, but also to the total number of people playing. If you had 10 times as many people playing it wouldn't alter your chances of winning at all, but it would change the length of time between anyone winning a jackpot. That suggests to me that your metric is flawed.

What's important isn't whether or not anyone wins, but what your chances of winning are. And 1/14,000,000 is very small, regardless of how many other people there are playing the game.

If you have some reasoning that suggests the price is worth that tiny chance of winning, it should be based on those two things (the price and the chance of winning) and not dependant on a third irrelevant quantity (the number of other people playing).

And no, I don't sell it. I'm just saying that I like my chances more with lottery than in casino. Making $200 out of $100 just doesn't seem worth it. Winning $1.5M for $1 seems much more fun, even if the chance is near to zero.

Except that your chances of winning are very relevant to both of those games. If you had 99% chance of turning your $100 into $200 you'd probably think it was worth it. If you had a 1/10¹⁰⁰ chance of winning the lottery you'd probably think it's not worth it. So clearly the probabilities are important.

 

[cullennz]

Not lottery but gambling and odds

I have an admission to make

I almost became a gambling tragedy.

My first ever experience with slot machines was when I was younger and at a pub waiting for someone and put 2 dollars in a slot machine, playing the lowest amount.

People around me were putting in 20 dollar notes.

There was a kind of cummulatitive jackpot thing that went off and I won $800

After that I used to spend $2 every time in a pub. Then a fiver. Won a bit. But obviously not more out than in.

I put one $20 in before I realised I was being a bit of an idiot and haven't gone near them ever since

 

[dann]

I almost became a gambling tragedy.

That's probably very far from becoming a gambling tragedy, but I know too little to calculate the odds!
I congratulate you on your choice, however!

 

[dann]

But almost every week someone wins some high price. (...) It is entirely (!) possible (!) to win.

Notice the tricks you're playing on yourself despite your knowledge of the facts!
Roboramma's "1/14,000,000" tells you how close to zero you are. In my book, it equals zero for all practical purposes.
That "every week someone (!) wins some high price," is what the lottery sellers tell you over and over to persuade you to buy more lottery tickets. It's entirely unlikely that that someone will ever be you.
At least, I can rest assured that that someone won't ever be me!

 

[Nova Land]

3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13

I will assume you can see the pattern here.

Yes, it's a pretty obvious one: all of those numbers are factors of 135,135, and they are the only factors of 135,135.

What puzzles me is why the people who bought that ticket were so devoted to the number 135 that they wrote it down twice and then used it to select their winning numbers.

The most logical possibility is that they're a group of 135-year olds in a retirement community and they were picking what they considered the most important factors in their lives, but the linked newspaper story doesn't make that clear so I'm only guessing.