Originally Posted by
pa3lsvt
A common fallacy among non-statistician types is that the presence of unlikely events is evidence of a non-random selection process - yet Powerball has winners when the odds of winning are greater than 180,000,000:1. Except for the few examples where the selection process was manipulated by cheaters, lottery ball systems are designed to be truly random.
Your lottery example is spot on. To add to the mystery of random selection: Some people win the lottery multiple times:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york...e-gas-station/
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lo...y_history.html