Question I don't play the lotto, but recently there was a MA lotto with a really big payout and two friends got tickets. The one friend said to the other, "I let the machine pick and I got really bad numbers." I said, "What makes numbers bad?" She said she got numbers that are close together and some are sequential. I argued that it didn't matter and the probability of her numbers being successful was just as good as any other set of numbers. She said I was wrong.
It's been a long time since my undergrad probability classes, so please help. Is the probability of choosing some set like {65, 66, 69, 82} less than the probability of choosing something like {26, 43, 59, 72}?
Thanks.
Answer megan -
you are of course quite correct. any particular set of five numbers is as likely to occur as any other. altho your friend may have some superstitious feelings about how random events occur - there is no basis for them in fact.
another example of a 'superstitious' feeling is in roulette. if 'red' has come up five times in a row, some feel that 'black' is now more likely to occur on the next turn. this is not true. in this context - past occurrences have no effect on what is yet to occur.
