A probabilistic analysis of the Dutch lotto

The size of the jackpot of the American powerball lottery that fell in August 2001 has generated a lot of interest in the probability of winning a lottery, both in the United States and elsewhere. Many people dream of becoming rich in a single moment. We calculate the probabilities of winning prizes, and the expected pay-off in Section 3. Before doing so, we give a brief history of the Lotto and its rules in Section 2. In Section 4 we address an important issue: are the numbers and color drawn truly random? We analyze draws of the Lotto from 1974 onwards. It is impractical to test whether each... Mehr ...