Q&A: Probability
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Probability
Question
Is the probability that the lottery numbers will come out as 1,2,3,4,5,6 the same as the probability of 9,13,21,27,30,2? It seems to me that it is. It just doesn’t seem reasonable to us to get 1,2,3,4,5,6, and we’ve also never seen that happen—but we’ve never seen 9,13,21,27,30,2 happen either. This will be a question in installments; I just want to make sure I’m not making a mathematical mistake (3-unit level 😅), because otherwise the question will collapse.
Answer
If the drawing is indeed fair, every set of six numbers has the same probability. The same is true when rolling a fair die ten times: the chance that they all come up 6 is identical to that of any other specific sequence of ten results.