New York lottery winning numbers: 9-1-1

CNN ^ | 9/12/02

[Mr. Mojo]

ALBANY, New York (AP) -- On the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, a date known as 9-11, the evening numbers drawn in the New York Lottery were 9-1-1.

"The numbers were picked in the standard random fashion using all the same protocols," said lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman. "It's just the way the numbers came up."

[El Sordo]

Spooky.

[jmc813]

Creepy...Also note that on the day of the Flight 587 crashes, the afternoon numbers were 875 and the evening numbers were 587.

[Desdemona]

Well. Did anybody win?

[Pokey78]

[Romulus]

The odds against this appear to be one in a thousand. Uncanny, perhaps, but not beyond the realm of possibility.

[bootless]

Whoaaaa.... I had heard about yesterday's numbers on the news - the anchor was sort of in awe when he announced it. I had not heard about 587/875.

[TBall]

I wonder if Congress will hold an investigation?

[alisasny]

There is a maximum amount of tickets per number sold per day. The daily number usually sells out every day. Therefore a unch of people have won cause they always play the daily date...: ))

[mdittmar]

1000 to 1 you win,odds of 911 coming up on 911?

[Mr. Mojo]

I forgot if it happened on the day of Clinton's '92 election victory or on the day of his innaguration, but I clearly remember the California "Daily Three" turning up 6-6-6 on a very big day for the Traitor-in-Chief.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

1000 to 1 .

[Sloth]

Statistical *bump*

[mdittmar]

Hmmm,thought it would be higher,how do you get that.

Math was never my forte.

[Mixer]

I would think it would be 899 to 1 odds since there are 899 numbers between 100 and 999 and it is a three digit game????

Now I am all confused : )

[Conservative til I die]

The odds against this appear to be one in a thousand. Uncanny, perhaps, but not beyond the realm of possibility.

Well, if my high school math is correct, a straight 9-1-1 would be 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000. If we box it, so that 119 and 191 are worth some $, the odds would be 10 x 9 x 8 = 720, right?

But the real question is not the odds of pulling 911, since the odds are the same on any given day. What makes this so spooky is determining the odds of pulling 911, in that particular order, on this particular day of the year. I would think the odds would increase by 365 times? So would 1 in 365,000 be close to correct?

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

Lottery officials won't know until Thursday morning how many people played those numbers or the total payout, she said.

Maybe there will be 911 winners.

[Mr. Mojo]

No, it's 1000 to 1.

000, 001, 002.....all the way to 999. That's 1000 possible combos.

[Mixer]

Thanks I knew I was forgetting the obvious : )

[mdittmar]

I'm with barbie,"math is hard."

[mdittmar]

What makes this so spooky is determining the odds of pulling 911, in that particular order, on this particular day of the year. I would think the odds would increase by 365 times? So would 1 in 365,000 be close to correct?

Don't know if your right but that was my question exactly.

[Thinkin' Gal]

New York lottery winning numbers: 9-1-1

Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews = 911

[TBall]

What were tonight's numbers?

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Yeah, the odds for 911 to appear in that order on any day at random would be 1000:1. The odds to have 911 come up precisely on 9/11 should be 365,000:1 by my math. YMMV

[Mr. Mojo]

What were tonight's numbers?

I have no idea; I live on the other end of the country.

[Allrich Towing]

I heard about that. Wasn't that something?

- Gin

[AmishDude]

It's easier than you think. They pick from three different buckets, each with balls numbered 0-9. Therefore, it gives you a 3-digit number (if you include the leading 0 for two and one digit numbers). And, every number from 000 to 999 is possible and just as likely as any other number. 1000 possible numbers, 1000 possible outcomes.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

No the odds of 911 coming up on 9/11 are indeed only 1000-1

[AmishDude]

See #27. If we box it, the chances are 3/1000. That's why you don't want to box any duplicate numbers. If you box 123, your chances are 6/1000.

Here's a good probability question:

Suppose I tell you that I have a class of students big enough so that the chances that two of them have the same birthday is better than 50/50. How many students could I have? (You can assume 365 days in the year.)

I'll entertain guesses. :)

[Chesterbelloc]

Its been a while since math classes, but we would want p = number of people:

1 - (365 * 364 * (365-p+1)) / (365)^p >= 0.5

I think it was around 22-23 people.

[AmishDude]

Yep. 23 does the job. You need some ellipses in your calculation there:

p=364*363*...*(366-n)/(365)^(n-1)

where n is the number of people in the class. There's an estimation that allows you to simplify the calculations considerably, but if you have the patience, you can verify that 23 is the right answer. It's always fun to ask people for their birthdays on the first day of class and then reveal this little tidbit.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

That is the odds for the numbers coming up at *any* time. Those odds don't account for the day, of which 9/11 only occurs once this year out of 365 days. To get the odds for 9-1-1 showing up *and* the date that this occurs to be 9/11 and only 9/11 is 1:365,000.

To understand this phenomenon, realize the chances of 1) the stock market crashing in the next year and 2) the stock market crashing tomorrow at exactly 12 noon, ET. They are not the same odds, yet 2) fits in the larger parameter of 1).

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

That is the odds for the numbers coming up at *any* time. Those odds don't account for the day, of which 9/11 only occurs once this year out of 365 days. To get the odds for 9-1-1 showing up *and* the date that this occurs to be 9/11 and only 9/11 is 1:365,000.

ROFL... They'll love you in Vegas. Under your gambler's fallacy theory, the chances of me flipping a coin and it coming up heads on 9/11 are 1:730. :-)

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Bad analogy. The odds of a coin flip are independent of the date it happens. You are mistakenly arguing that the chances of the stock market crashing tomorrow at 2:32 pm ET are no different than the odds of a market crash in the next 50 years. Do you see where I'm going with this?

You have to adjust the odds for each *dependent* variable in the parameter space.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

The odds of a coin flip are independent of the date it happens.

No kidding. You almost got it now.
What are the odds of 911 being tonights lottery number? 1:1000 or 1:365000? Definately 1:1000 or someone's rigged the lottery.
What are the odds of 918 being picked tonight? 1:1000 or 1:365000
Well since today is 9/18, you are saying the odds suddenly dropped to 1:365000
I better not play that number then huh? :-P
Chance has no memory!

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

The math is easy, but I'm thinking of this as a parley. If a team has a 50-50 chance of winning its game and another team has the same, and you parley them both to win, you are now talking about 4:1 odds, correct? And if you make a 3rd parley for another team at 50-50, it goes to 8:1. Am I then making a mistake by saying that a 1000:1 chance parleyed with a 365:1 chance is not 365,000:1?

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

The math is easy, but I'm thinking of this as a parley. If a team has a 50-50 chance of winning its game and another team has the same, and you parley them both to win, you are now talking about 4:1 odds, correct?

Exactly. And in order for the odds of picking 911 on 9/11 to be 1:365000 it would have to be made date dependent through two bets. And the only way to do that would be if the lottery commission had decided to hold the lotto on a single random day of the year. Since the chance of them holding a daily lottery on 9/11 are/were 1:1 it doesn't influence the bet.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

Oh here's another interesting thing.... the odds of 911 coming up in the NY daily lottery on 9/11/2005 are probably 0%. I may be wrong, but I think the NY daily lotto doesn't run on Sundays.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

[Under the Radar]

http://innumeracy.com/

[Mr. Mojo]

There was a 1 in 365,000 chance that the lotto #'s 9-1-1 were chosen on September 11th. Pretty damn incredible that it did. So what's your point?

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

There was a 1 in 365,000 chance that the lotto #'s 9-1-1 were chosen on September 11th. Pretty damn incredible that it did. So what's your point?

Are you sure? You forgot to correlate those odds with it being in New York state, exactly one year after, not to mention what are the chances that it was a lottery run on the same planet that the bombing occurred on? ;-)

On a serious note...while this is a rather harmless sort of speculation, this is the exact same sort of logical trap that those who believe in conspiracy theories fall into.

[Mr. Mojo]

To be clear, I don't find anything mystical, theological, or conspiratorial in this story. I just find it .....entertaining :)