http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/12/ar911.sept11.lottery.ap/index.html

I heard this on Ron & Fez last night, but didn't believe it. I guess it was true. Who's good at math that can figure out the odds on that?

IANAS, but I'm pretty sure that would be a flat 1 in 1000 chance if you asked the question "what are the odds that on 9/11, the lottery number in New York would be 911."

But factoring in the fact that it's the first anniversary, and it happened in New York, etc. etc... It's pretty damn crazy.

Yeah they had it on the news here in Oz last night. They tried to claim 1 in 350,000. I guess something to do with 365 days in the year times the odds.

As far as I am concerned though it's only 1 in 1000 since they are the odds on any day. Are my statistics correct?

uhh, i don't really think thats correct. if its worded "the chance that 9-1-1 would happen on 9/11", then its (1/1000) * [1/(365.25)] or 1 in 365,250.

but if you word it "the chance that 9-1-1 would happen on 9/11 at NY", then it would be 1 in (365,250 * x) where x is th e number of cities that hold similar daily lotto games.

uhh, i don't really think thats correct. if its worded "the chance that 9-1-1 would happen on 9/11", then its (1/1000) * [1/(365.25)] or 1 in 365,250.

Rubbish. I thought about this more driving to work. As far as I am concerned it really is only 1 in 1000. They are independent events. The chance of 911 on any day is 1 in 1000. The chance of 911 on 11/10 is still 1 in 1000.

but if you word it "the chance that 9-1-1 would happen on 9/11 at NY", then it would be 1 in (365,250 * x) where x is th e number of cities that hold similar daily lotto games.

How does having another lotto game in another city increase the odds?

How does having another lotto game in another city increase the odds?

Wouldn't this depend on whether you consider them mutually exclusive events?

Isn't asking "what are the odds of 9-1-1 happening in NY" different than asking "what are the odds that of all cities with lotto, New York will draw 9-1-1". Am I right?

No, because New York is the only city in which it is significant. So the odds of getting 9-1-1 on that day are no different than getting those digits on any other day. You can't compare it to any other cities.

Absolutely right. 1 in 1000. You have to word it differently like "what are the odds that the lottery is 911 ONLY in NYC out of x cities' lotteries?" Or "what are the odds that the lottery is 911 in NYC ONLY on the day 9/11 out of 365 days?" Then it is no longer mutually exclusive.

Actually, I think the odds are probably even better than that, if you think about it.

If New York is anything like California, the state-run lotteries have multiple sub-games involving numeric draws. For instance, I think the three-digit draw cited in the news is probably one of the sub-games rather than the main "big jackpot" lottery (too few digits for a big lottery). So I would guess that the odds are even better that the digits 9, 1, and 1 would come up in a single draw of any one New York State lottery game.

See, you could say that the odds are X that those digits came up in that particular game. Okay, sure, but if the digits had come up in another game, then the OTHER game would have gotten all the attention (post-hoc reasoning with regards to odds). So you can't really exclude the other New York games from your odds calculations.

And if you count all the other places in the state where numeric-draw gambling is taking place, I would imagine that those digits appeared many times over during the course of the day, and in fact, any day of the year.

Maybe I'll go ask the guy at www.thewizardofodds.com if he's got any opinion on it (maybe he's already got one posted)...

Yup, I just checked, and they've got multiple numeric-draw games, with different numbers of digits. For instance, there's a four-digit game, a five-digit game, a 5+1 game, etc., in addition to the three-digit game that got all the attention.

And get this... the three-digit game has two draws each day. So even if you only count the three-digit game in New York as significant, the odds are better than what was already quoted because there were actually two chances to get that digit-set that day.

There is a thread on this very topic on my company's internal newsgroup. It looks almost exactly like this thread, except a lot more statistically detailed and stuff. Gotta love engineeers (enginerds?)

Good thinking. I was firmly in the 1-in-1000 camp before you pointed that out!

or you could go with the old statistics teacher's nightmare and say the the odds to everything is really just 1 in 2 or 50%.

either it happens, or it doesn't.