What are the odds?

[chrispete]

I found this AP story today, it's just one of those eerie coincidences that happen from time to time.

NY Lottery Draws 9-1-1 on 9/11
Thu Sep 12, 5:21 AM ET

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - On the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, a date known as 9-11, the evening numbers drawn in the New York Lottery were 9-1-1.

"The numbers were picked in the standard random fashion using all the same protocols," said lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman. "It's just the way the numbers came up."

Lottery officials won't know until Thursday morning how many people played those numbers or the total payout, she said.

For the evening numbers game, the New York Lottery selects from balls numbered zero to nine circulating in a machine at the lottery office. Three levers are pressed, and three balls are randomly brought up into tubes and then displayed.

 

[WreckWriter]

I bet thousands played those numbers.

 

[jonnythan]

chrispete once bubbled...
What are the odds?

Well, they're 1/1000 that those specific numbers would get played that specific day.

 

[chrispete]

I knew the statisticians would come out on that one The odds may be the same as any other day, it was just a really strange coincidence.

 

[jonnythan]

chrispete once bubbled...
I knew the statisticians would come out on that one The odds may be the same as any other day, it was just a really strange coincidence.

Hey, you asked!

 

[o2 clean]

Traders puzzled by eery 911 closing of S&P futures
Wed Sep 11, 5:32 PM ET
By KRISTINA ZURLA

CHICAGO - In an ironic twist, the September Standard & Poor's 500 futures contract closed Tuesday at 911.00 — a day before the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

There was some buzz on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange stock index futures trading floor Wednesday about why that happened, but there were no reports of collusion or price-fixing.

"It was bizarre, it was strange, but it wasn't manufactured," said Richard Canlione, vice president of institutional financial futures at Salomon Smith Barney. "It was just the rules of coincidence ... That's just where the market was."

"It just proves the market God was with us, remembering the day, too," said one CME trader.

The start of trading was delayed Wednesday in honor of those killed in the attacks.

Market players noted prices were already moving higher throughout Tuesday after two prior up days, so it wasn't as if an abrupt change in direction took place to achieve the numerical equivalent of Sept. 11.

Some thought perhaps suspicious activity could have taken place, but most brushed it off as a "patriotic rally" and didn't see the harm in it.

"I'm always kinda paranoid, and I find the fact that we settled there kind of eerie, but I don't think we should dwell on it or read too much into it," said Tim Haefke, a stock index futures trader and president of Top-Notch Trading.

The futures contract is an obligation to buy or sell a basket of stocks composing the Standard & Poor's stock index at a set date for a fixed price.

 

[Uncle Pug]

WreckWriter once bubbled...
I bet thousands played those numbers.

14,878 people won the New York Lottery pick 3 last night (with 9-1-1)

 

[TCDiver1]

Okay all you statisticians out there, i've got a question for you.

What is the "probability" of 9-1-1 coming up on 9/11, on the one year anniversary?

Have fun!

 

[nicodaemos]

The odds are always 1000 to 1 for 9-1-1 to come up on any day of the year. We as humans like to put some significance to it, but from a statistical standpoint it's not unusual.

There was a point in my life where I would play the roullette wheel with the thought, what are the odds that after 10 reds in a row that it will come up red again? Well soon after losing my money I took a statistics class and came to understand why I lost. Turns out that they're always 50/50 minus the small percentage for the 0 and 00.

 

[kwesler]

I was surprised the odds against it were so low. Can anyone explain, in layman's terms, how that is calculated?