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Comment by Fellshard | Hacker News Reader

Better to win a partial pot than none at all, yes?

But if two numbers have an equal chance of being drawn, it's better to choose a pot you won't have to share.

But the suggestion in the article, reasonable in my opinion, is that this sequence was in fact favored for some nefarious reason.

The drawing of these numbers is under question, but you would expect a significant proportion of players to select sequences such as this, even if it's not in their best interests to do so.

Right, which IMO makes it less likely that someone is cheating. If you are going to cheat, why share?

you have to share. A single person couldn't pull this off. A bunch of lottery officials got together and picked these numbers. They had to pick an obvious sequence, because it would not be credible for 20 people to pick a non-obvious sequence.

That's just my theory, of course.

But why would they choose this incredibly specific set of numbers? If you can influence the draw, why influence it in the only way that riles up every human looking at the result? Why not just have it pick something that looks random?

Any combination of numbers has the same probability of showing up in a fair lottery. Why would you choose something like 1 2 3 4 5... that has basically same chance of happening but almost guarantees you will have to share the pot with a bunch of other people?

yes, but that's not the right framing of the problem.

if all outcomes are equally likely from the machine, but humans are more likely to choose numbers with personal significance.

Therefore more tickets will be sold with 1-31 in them vs. higher numbers, and the expected value of your ticket will therefore be higher if you include numbers above them.

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