From the article (there is a near invisible more text button)
Calculating the actual odds of Ginther hitting four multimillion-dollar lottery jackpots is tricky. If Ginther’s winning tickets were the only four she ever bought, the odds would be one in 18 septillion, according to Sandy Norman and Eduardo Duenez, math professors at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
And she was the only person ever to have bought 4 tickets (birthday paradoxes and all)…
I find this, from the original msnbc article, depressing
After all, the only way to win is to keep playing. Ginther is smart enough to know that’s how you beat the odds: she earned her doctorate from Stanford University in 1976, then spent a decade on faculty at several colleges in California.
I find this, from the original msnbc article, depressing
Is it depressing because someone with a Ph.D. in math is playing the lottery, or depressing because she must’ve have figured out something we don’t know, given that she’s won four times?
The former. It is also depressing because it can be used in articles on the lottery in the following way, “See look at this person good at maths, playing the lottery, that must mean it is a smart thing to play the lottery”.
Depressing because someone with a Ph.D. in math is playing the lottery. I don’t see any reason to think she figured out some way of beating the lottery.
From the article (there is a near invisible more text button)
And she was the only person ever to have bought 4 tickets (birthday paradoxes and all)…
I did see an analysis of this somewhere, I’ll try and dig it up. Here it is. There is hackernews commentary here.
I find this, from the original msnbc article, depressing
Is it depressing because someone with a Ph.D. in math is playing the lottery, or depressing because she must’ve have figured out something we don’t know, given that she’s won four times?
The former. It is also depressing because it can be used in articles on the lottery in the following way, “See look at this person good at maths, playing the lottery, that must mean it is a smart thing to play the lottery”.
Depressing because someone with a Ph.D. in math is playing the lottery. I don’t see any reason to think she figured out some way of beating the lottery.