Interesting news from South Africa where a lottery's winning numbers came up as the numbers 5 through 10. (source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55154525). It's not impossible that this really happened purely as a matter of chance. In fact, assuming a fair lottery, it's no more/less possible than any other combination of 6 numbers. Yet, for some reason, people jump on it and declare it a scam, rigged, not a coincidence, fraudulent etc. Or immediately call for an investigation. Why is that? Why do some people see one thing incredibly unlikely and call it a fake, yet happily accept something else that is equally as incredibly unlikely? Would the same people calling it fake have considered a winning combination of numbers 7, 12, 24, 28, 32, 39 to be fake? Yet they are equally as (un)likely, are they not? One could argue that the odds of such a recognisable pattern arising by chance are so low that one would not expect it in a million years of lottery draws, so for it to happen warrants investigation. But this surely holds true of every combination, whether a pattern or not. So what is it in the human psyche that identifies occurrences of patterns in randomness, patterns that have every right to occur, but deems them suspicious. Now, it may well be that the lottery in this case really was a scam, a fraud, rigged, etc. But the question(s) above remains.
My lottery playing is below 5 times Agree with all you say. Also strange are jackpot lotteries. The higher the jackpot gets the more buy tickets hoping to win more To much math for me to work out but more in, to me, seems more chance someone will pick same numbers as you Think some people do pick numbers like 1 2 3 4 5 6 thinking IF they do come up they will win all Never seems to occur to them others could be thinking same way Must be nice to own a lottery system. Punters give you money - you print tickets etc using their money for those expenses - pick winning numbers - give the winners the loosers money - and pay yourself Neat Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
At the same time, apparently quite a lot of people play that exact set of numbers every week. What's up with that? They can't simultaneously believe that if their numbers ever came up it must be due to fraud AND that they should play those numbers every week. UNLESS, of course, they believe they are likely to benefit from the fraud. Well okay, that makes some kind of sense. *insert appropriate South-African insult here*. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
They could have been actually paying a fraudster who was going to arrange the fraud and finally managed it Is there a link between the winners? Did it start with one playing those numbers? grow to 2? grow to 5? explode to 20 as word of mouth spread the info Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I'm not sure what playing the same numbers every week has to do with it. Presumably those that had played that winning combination every week would not be part of those claiming it a fraud. In fact I doubt that any winner would ever consider their win to be a fraud unless they actually knew it to be so. No idea. On any of those points. My point with this thread was not to explore whether the specific lottery in question was indeed a fraud or not, but to look at why it is that some are quick to jump to the accusation of fraud for something that is, in a fair lottery, just as likely as every other possible outcome? Why is it that some see a discernible pattern and assume that it is there by design, rather than simply as a matter of probability? And on that last question - if one accuses fraud, does that mean that one sees design in all such outcomes of what might otherwise be probability - or is the lottery a specific case? But hey, I guess this thread will crawl in whatever direction it does. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
