Abstract
Summary. The winners of many lotteries are determined by selecting at random some numbered balls from an urn. This paper discusses the use of Pearson's standard goodness-of-fit statistic to test for the equiprobability of occurrence of such lottery numbers, whether taken individually, in pairs or in larger subsets. Because the numbers are drawn without replacement, Pearson's statistic does not follow a simple χ2-distribution, even for large samples of draws. In fact, it can be shown that its asymptotic distribution is that of a weighted sum of χ2 random variables. An explicit formula is given for the weights, and this result is used to check the uniformity of winning numbers in Canada's Lotto 6/49 over a period of nearly 20 years.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series D (The Statistician)
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
