Friday, October 19, 2012

can statistics and mathematics help win the lottery

You can win the lottery with the help of mathematics?

Joan R. Ginther, 63, is considered by many to be the luckiest woman in the world. Do you know why? The U.S. has won the lottery four times. However, this is not just a matter of luck ... Joan is a former professor of mathematics doctoral level similar to post-doctorate in statistics from Stanford University, according to a report published by the magazine Harper's.

Life luck in Las Vegas, however, all prizes were won in Texas, including three scratch cards were purchased in the same market. According to the report, Joan used his knowledge of statistics to predict the algorithm that determines the location of winning tickets submitted. From there, it became a simple task to determine the best time to buy tickets. However, the math teacher, Vanderley Cornatione also gives his opinion - I cannot believe this is possible. To me this is fraud or luck.

Residents of the town of Bishop not suspect any kind of manipulation, we really believe that luck is a feat of Joan blessed. The Texas Lottery Commission has the same opinion, saying the unusual lucky winner. However, there is no suspicion of fraud.

Another case is that Mohan Srivastava Canadian statistical consultant, who told a magazine on suspicion of winning cards were not randomly distributed, as they have a section with visible numbers between one and 39, where hidden numbers might match the visible. The belief was that the results were obtained from "pseudo-random".

In short, he learned to predict the lottery tickets were winners, the study of letters. Thus, it was found that certain tickets with numbers appearing only once were almost always rewarded. Know what he did? He bought dozens of lottery tickets, chose the winners and sell the rest. Twenty tickets which saw the winners, 19 were.

Another mathematician also used the theory of pseudo-randomness and earned about $ 20 million. However, techniques that produce truly random sequences such as the selection of the balls eliminate this susceptibility.

According to Vanderley Cornatione obvious that you can win the lottery, the application of mathematical calculations. However, see the following example how would this be possible:

Example: In Mega-Sena, the largest lottery in Brazil, you can get 50,063,860 combinations of six numbers chosen from one to 60. Of these, only one result is valid, ie , the probability of succeeding is one in 50,063,860. You would have 50,063,860 different games to be sure of winning. However, you would spend more to close all possibilities of whom would win the prize.