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The statistics of the national lottery

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 21:45 authored by John Haigh
Some methods to test the randomness of the numbers drawn in the UK National Lottery are described. The data for the first 96 draws are consistent with the numbers being drawn at random, both in terms of the individual frequencies and of the waiting times for successive appearances. The number combinations chosen by gamblers are shown to be far from random, as a whole: data from the UK and other countries demonstrate that certain combinations are much more popular than average, and thus the skill to identify unpopular combinations can increase the mean return. Families of models of gambler choice are described, but, despite some encouraging indications, they all have significant deficiencies.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A

ISSN

0964-1998

Publisher

Royal Statistical Society

Issue

2

Volume

160

Page range

187-206

ISBN

0035-9238

Department affiliated with

  • Mathematics Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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