Dr. Daniel M Look
Support
How does the lottery drawing system work? Is it true that the winning numbers, as well as each individual digit, were chosen at random? This project uses R Studio to investigate two of New York’s most popular lottery drawing games to see if the numbers picked are as random as the Lottery Commission claims. This was achieved by applying Chi-Square of Goodness test to determine p-values and identify whether or not there is evidence that the numbers are not drawn randomly. The data utilized to investigate the distribution of winning numbers are the winning numbers for the New York Daily Numbers and Win 4 since the 1980’s. The Daily Numbers are three-digit numbers drawn between 000 and 999, whereas the Win 4 numbers are four-digit numbers drawn between 0000 and 9999. The numbers are drawn one digit at a time, so we are investigating the numbers as both 3 (respectively 4) digit numbers, and the individual digits. Along with determining whether the probability of winning is equally distributed, the expected value was also calculated to assess whether playing is worth it.