# how to win the lotto

Firstly let me be clear, I don't play the lottery or even follow draws, but something going round in my head for some time are the possible results of a lottery draw, The chance is roughly 1 in 13,983,816 but that is also a big odd against any pattern to emerge, for instance, its very unlikely that 1 2 3 4 5 6 will ever occur, for that matter so would 2 3 4 5 6 7 or even 1 3 5 7 9 11 This brings me to my question, is there a way to describe all possible "ordered" results and subtract that from the total odds? Wiki entry

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The result (1 2 3 4 5 6) is as probable as any other. –  leonbloy Jan 25 '13 at 20:34
What do you mean by ordered results? –  MSKfdaswplwq Jan 25 '13 at 20:35
Are you asking about the number of possible rising sequences with 6 items? If so then any unique sequence can be arranged in a rising manner. Or does the order they actually appear matter? Then out of all the ways to get some 6 numbers (6!) only one is a rising sequence therefore 1/6! of the total results are rising. –  Guest 86 Jan 25 '13 at 20:35
I struggle to accept that that an ordered sequence of numbers like 123456 has as much chance to occur as a random group, it feels wrong –  peterretief Jan 25 '13 at 20:37
Why don't you throw a set of three dice a sufficiently large number of times to convince yourself that the sequence (1 2 3) is just as likely as, say, (5 1 4). –  Eckhard Jan 25 '13 at 20:40
Were the lotteries use abstract symbols such as $$\bullet\qquad\times\qquad\oplus\qquad\circ\qquad\ddagger\qquad\nabla\qquad...$$ to diversify the balls, all the numerical "coincidences" would just disappear proving what they really are: psychologically induced illusions.