Playing the Lottery?

Question

Statistically speaking, which is more likely to win a lottery: hand picked or computer picked numbers?

Answer 1

All numbers have an equal chance as the winning group of numbers is randomly selected. What you must take into consideration is that with personally selected numbers there is more chance that you will pick a sequence (1,2,3,4,5 - 2,4,6,8 etc.) or a famous birthday or national celebration date. These sorts of numbers are picked by tens of thousands of people each time and so if that number does come up (and it will do on average once in about every 250,000 years) you will be sharing the prize with hundreds or thousands of others who had the same idea so the winning sums involved will be very small. Best to let the computer pick a number because it is nearly impossible for the brain to pick a truly random number (we see patterns in numbers even when we do not realize it) and that way will have the best chance of winning THE BIG ONE!!!

Answer 2

From a mathematical point of view it really doesn't matter. You have to match your numbers to the draw no matter how those numbers were picked.

Although they probably track how winning numbers were picked, you'd also have to know what percentage of people pick their own and what percentage take the computer numbers.

With odds at nearly 150m-1 I doubt it is statistically relevant.

Answer 3

Tough question...
A computer may have more chance of working out the probabilities of certain numbers turning up.
But human random luck may win on other occasions!

Answer 4

Save the money and spend it on a jet in a few years.

Answer 5

hand
bkoz when computer picks every 1 thinx that it is cheting

Answer 6

computer