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April 29, 2005

Strange But True!

Q. Playing the lottery, what can you do to avoid having to split the jackpot with other winners in the highly unlikely event that you pick lucky?

A. Picks like 1-2-3-4-5-6 or 7-14-21-28-35-42 are foolishly popular, so stay away from these, says Henk Tijms in "Understanding Probability: Chance Rules in Everyday Life." Also avoid birth dates, lucky numbers, arithmetical sequences, etc. A study of Powerball Lottery "hand" picks showed that the numbers 1-12 turned up disproportionately — since these can refer to both days of the month and months of the year — and that the largest numbers of co-winners occurred when most of the winning numbers were in the lower range.


 
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