This would be a good question for you staticians out there. Cause as I understand it, there is just as much chance of the same lottery numbers coming up as there is for any other combination.
But has that ever happened? Has the same lottery numbers ever come in a row? It might have happened at least once. And while we’re at it, what are the chances really of that happening?
:):)
It’s happened quite a bit for pick 3, but I imagine that’s not what you are asking about.
For a 6 number lottery, it’s reportedly happened once in Bulgaria.
The odds of repeat numbers obviously varies with the game. So, it’ll depend on the game.
I’ll add one note though. The chance of a specific set of numbers coming up twice in a row is the same as two specific sets of numbers coming up one after the other.
What I mean is this: 13-23-24-55-61 has the same probability of coming up twice in a row as 2-3-15-23-25 followed by 11-19-22-29-41.
But the probability of any combination coming up twice in a row is much bigger. We don’t care if it’s 1-2-3-4-5-6 or 15-22-23-31-36-45 or any particular outcome. We just care that they come up twice in a row. Using dice as an example, we don’t care if it’s 1-1 or 6-6, we just care that the dice match. With dice, that happens 1/6 of the time. But a specific result, like 1-1, only happens 1/36 of the time.
The odds of a game repeating the numbers two draws in a row are the same as the chances of winning the game. This shouldn’t be hard to see, but if you can’t see it: the results of the previous draw are independent of the current draw, every set of numbers are equally likely to win, and you’re allowed to play the previous winning set of numbers. Thus, the probability of you winning is equal to the probability that they’ll repeat.
I only do the lottery two or three times a year. I usually just do a Quick Pick (random computer-picked numbers) but occasionally I’ll hand-select a ticket with the numbers:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for the special Mega number
It has the same chance as any other combinations of numbers* and it’s entertaining to have the store clerk tell me I have no chance of winning with those numbers (as if I had a shot with any set of numbers!).
Plus, if I actually won it’d be cool to see people freaked-out by the winning numbers. Real Fire and Brimstone stuff. And I wouldn’t have to split the pool because who would ever pick those numbers? (Actually, I’m sure there’s a number of them out there).
*The same probability of coming up but not necessarily the same cash expectation. E.g. numbers under 32 are more likely to be chosen than 32 and higher because of birthdays hence more likely to result in a split jackpot.
Actually, you’d likely have to split the pool with a large number of people. 1,2,3,4,5,6 is the most commonly picked set of numbers in pick-6 lotteries. According tothis UK article from five years ago, 10,000 people play those numbers in the UK lottery every week, so given a typical £4 million jackpot, they would each only get £400.
Imagine that - your numbers come up and you think you’re a millionaire, and you end up winning less than a week’s wages. Talk about a disappointment.
nm misunderstood question
Yep, I’ve heard the same thing about American lotteries. Anything with an obvious pattern, and it’s likely somebody else is also playing it thinking “nobody’s gonna play these numbers.” My dad would do this when I was a kid, play 1-2-3-4-5-6, and I would just roll my eyes and look and him and say “really, you think you’re the only one who came up with this idea? If you thought of it, there’s hundreds if not thousands of other people who have thought of it.”
In the Powerball lottery, one combination: 15, 22, 24, 32, 39 and Powerball 18 came up twice: in 1993 and 2000.
Note that when the game is not pari-mutuel, the numbers don’t matter.
E.g., a week ago the numbers in North Carolina’s Quad (pick 4) lotto came up 0-0-0-0. Two thousand people had picked it. Each gets the same payout based on their bet. NC is out $7.8M on that draw. (The old record for the game was when 1-1-1-1 came up.)
The logic of “no one else will pick those numbers” shouldn’t apply. It’s probably just the quickest way to get a ticket. (Although there should be an option for a random “quick pick” chosen by the lottery’s computer.)
On the upside, you could buy a really nice piece of locking luggage for £400, and the passcode writes itself!
I don’t think so. It’s people being “clever,” IMHO. As you said, there’s “quick pick,” which every lottery since I’ve been a kid in the 80s has had, so if you wanted a quickly play the lottery, you would choose that. Or you’d rattle off “random” numbers off the top of your head, which is not going to be four repeating digits, as humans don’t find that “random.” ETA: Or “lucky” numbers, in which case, repeating digits may be quite popular. But it’s not just “I couldn’t think of a number so I picked 0-0-0-0.”
There was a lottery here in Aus several years ago, where, instead of the usual 2 or 3 winners, there were over 100. No one could work out why - the numbers didn’t seem to have any connection.
This was in the days when you crossed out your chosen numbers on a form using a pencil and handed it to the guy on the register to enter. Someone eventually noticed that if you crossed those particular numbers it formed a lovely pattern on the entry form.
I recall a story about something similar happening in the U.S. It turned out that the winning numbers matched the lucky numbers in a fortune cookie - the numbers, of course, having been inserted into numerous cookies.
I recall a story from ~ 30 years ago where a US state lottery had “rolled over” several times, creating what was - up until that time - the largest US lottery prize pool ever. Interest was intense and people bought huge numbers of tickets for the next lottery. A popular number won, and there were (IIRC) 76 winning tickets.
Media interest was high, and included a TV interview with a man who showed up with one of the winning tickets. The TV reporter of course asked “How does it feel to have won the biggest-ever lottery prize?” It turned out that he was part of an office “pool” of 25 people that had bought several hundred tickets, of which one was a winner. So her question should have been “How does it feel to have won one nineteen hundredth of the biggest-ever lottery prize?”
As mentioned the odds for a particular game is the same as the odds of winning. For a pick 3 it is 1 out of 1000. For Powerball in US it’s 1 out of 292,201,338.
There is a common statistics question that is like: there are 23 students in a classroom, what is the probalitity that two of them will share the same birthday? The answer is that there is about a 50-50 chance.
The same equation would apply for this. However, since the odds of winning each individual game varies, it would add complexity.
But, if we knew the number of times the numbers were called and the odds of winning the game, there is a formula that would give the probability that it has happened.
Oops… How do you edit a post? (new here) I was thinking of a different situation on my previous reply.
There’s only a 5 minute window after you post when they can be editted. Sorry, you’ll just have to make another post.
Okay… I think the right answer for probability that two numbers would come up in a row for all loteries would be:
Take the probabilies for each lottery of it NOT being the same number (this would be very close to 100 percent)
Multiply them all together
Then the answer is 1 minus that number.
I made up numbers:
Odds of winning the lottery is 99,999,999 out of 100,000,000
Total lotteries is 416,000 - which is 200 lotteries a week for 52 weeks for 40 years
So it would be 1-(99,999,999/100,000,000)^416,000
The answer was about .004
Meaning that there would be about a half of one percent chance that two numbers would come up in a row for all lotteries based on my made up numbers.
Is my answer right?