Nebraska Lottery, odds of 1 in a million?

[robert Ihnot]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28802581/

Headline says: "Neb lottery draws same numbers twice in a row. The odds of such an occurrence? One is a million.

To begin with it was not the lottery, it was the pick 3, the number being 196. One in a million?

 

[turbo]

If you have a 3-digit number to guess, you have one chance in a thousand of nailing it. What are the chances that you will be successful on a successive draw using ANY numbers (not just the same numbers)?

 

[lurflurf]

Clearly they are using base 100.

 

[Adeimantus]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28802581/

Headline says: "Neb lottery draws same numbers twice in a row. The odds of such an occurrence? One is a million.

To begin with it was not the lottery, it was the pick 3, the number being 196. One in a million?

Heh. The three people who won that whopping $600 must be feeling a little short changed. After all, it was a one-in-a-million event, right? We live in a magical world.

 

[regor60]

1 in a million if specified in advance of the two drawings; the usual 1 in 1000 after the first pick since they're independent

 

[CRGreathouse]

There are six draws a week: Nebraska Pick 3, and thus 312 to 314 drawings per year (average 313.04..., call it 313). The expected number of times in a given year that a drawing repeats the previous one is 0.313. The chance that it happens in a given decade is 1 - .999^3130 = 95.6...%.