Predicting Lotto Numbers

Claus Bjørn Jørgensen, Sigrid Suetens and Jean-Robert Tyran
Additional contact information
Claus Bjørn Jørgensen: Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen

No 11-10, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: We investigate the “law of small numbers” using a unique panel data set on lotto gambling. Because we can track individual players over time, we can measure how they react to outcomes of recent lotto drawings. We can therefore test whether they behave as if they believe they can predict lotto numbers based on recent drawings. While most players pick the same set of numbers week after week without regards of numbers drawn or anything else, we find that those who do change, act on average in the way predicted by the law of small numbers as formalized in recent behavioral theory. In particular, on average they move away from numbers that have recently been drawn, as suggested by the “gambler’s fallacy”, and move toward numbers that are on streak, i.e. have been drawn several weeks in a row, consistent with the “hot hand fallacy”.

Keywords: gambler’s fallacy; hot hand fallacy; representativeness; law of small numbers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D81 D84 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2011-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-evo
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.ku.dk/english/research/publications/wp/dp_2011/1110.pdf/ (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: PREDICTING LOTTO NUMBERS: A NATURAL EXPERIMENT ON THE GAMBLER'S FALLACY AND THE HOT-HAND FALLACY (2016)
Working Paper: Predicting Lotto Numbers (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:kuiedp:1110

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics Oester Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Hoffmann ().