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1 posted on 12/12/2002 11:02:03 AM PST by new cruelty
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To: new cruelty
"This is just amazing, astronomical," said Stanford University statistics professor Tom Cover as he calculated the probability of the double-header. "Oh brother," he muttered before announcing the odds: 1 in 23.575 trillion.

This ranks as the weirdest event in human history. Haven't there been other people who have won the lottery more than once on different occasions?

The difference between good luck and being lucky: if you win the lottery, that's good luck; if you win it twice you're a lucky person. We should be hauling lucky people into laboratories to find out what it is that is different about them. What we learn might come in handy when we go to war, etc.

2 posted on 12/12/2002 11:22:39 AM PST by Neanderthal
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To: new cruelty
No winner in last nights' Florida lottery. Jackpot now 100 MILLION!!!

Woo hoo!! Come to papa!

3 posted on 12/12/2002 11:22:52 AM PST by FReepaholic
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To: new cruelty
Two lotteries in one day? I think the fix is in.
5 posted on 12/12/2002 11:27:43 AM PST by Doctor Freeze
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To: balrog666; Condorman; *crevo_list; general_re; Gumlegs; jennyp; longshadow; PatrickHenry; ...
This one's definitely going to be posted the next time someone claims "the odds are astronomical."
6 posted on 12/12/2002 11:42:25 AM PST by Junior
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To: new cruelty
WHY NOT ME, LORD?
7 posted on 12/12/2002 11:43:40 AM PST by meandog
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To: new cruelty
The odds of winning SuperLotto are 1-in-41 million. For Fantasy 5, 1-in-575,000. But for both? . . . 1 in 23.575 trillion.

This is less spectacular when you think it through. It is somewhat misleading given its limited scope. These are the odds of any particular person winning both lotteries. And yes, those odds are astronomical. (And this is no disrespect to the lucky winner; I'd be pretty d*mn happy if it happened to me, too.)

However, the odds of some person winning both lotteries, given the millions of suckers who buy tickets, are much higher. I won't try to calculate them as I have no idea how many people buy lottery tickets in that jurisdiction. But there was a woman in New Jersey in the early 1990s who won two major lotteries within four months. The odds of that particular woman winning was 1 in 17 trillion. The odds that it would happen at all? 1 in 30.

There's a mathematical principle called the law of truly large numbers. Basically it says that when you have large enough sample sets, improbable events become common, or indeed inevitable.

Another real-life example: My grandmothers share the same birthday. It so happens it is Valentine's Day. "Wow, that's incredible! What are the odds?" someone might ask me. Easy: 1:3652 = 1:133,225. In other words, there are thousands of pairs of mothers-in-law out there with shared birthdays on February 14. I just happen to be the grandson of one pair.

11 posted on 12/12/2002 12:24:25 PM PST by RansomOttawa
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To: new cruelty
Read about the "system" here...

http://www.atrentino.com/System.html
14 posted on 12/12/2002 12:36:59 PM PST by Davis
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To: new cruelty
Clear proof the universe does not exist.
17 posted on 12/12/2002 12:43:09 PM PST by bvw
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To: new cruelty
What a crappy excuse for a newspaper article. Here, read this one in the San Francisco Chronicle
23 posted on 12/12/2002 12:52:40 PM PST by Revolting cat!
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To: new cruelty
It just shows ya that state lotteries are fixed, just like professional wrestling and the NFL games!
29 posted on 12/12/2002 1:10:53 PM PST by Revolting cat!
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To: new cruelty
Lottery = State Sponsored Covetiousness. The more we break God's Commandments the further we go into debt.
42 posted on 12/12/2002 7:28:16 PM PST by Rodm
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To: new cruelty
"The pair mused about buying a car and traveling to Italy..."

Nice work, if they can get it. I'd like to get a look at that car...

45 posted on 12/13/2002 7:51:16 PM PST by redhead
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