Abstract:

Several entities have an interest in a state lottery: the state (oversight, use of funds), the agency (administration, sales, games), and the populace (games, strategies). Basic probability and statistics questions arise in operating or playing a lottery and the talk will be devoted to some of them. In particular, attention is paid to fair draws, and to individual and collective play. Informally, there are problems of scale, various "laws" of large numbers apply, and accidents happen.