=+9) being equally likely at each of the three positions. If not, then someone detecting a pattern could take advantage of that and beat the lottery. To investigate the randomness, we’ll look at data collected over a recent 32-week period.

Although the winning numbers look like three-digit numbers, in fact, each digit is a randomly drawn numeral. We have 654 random digits in all. Are each of the digits from 0 to 9 equally likely? Here is a table of the frequencies.

(Maryland State Lottery Agency, www.mdlottery.com)

Group Count %

0 62 9.480 1 55 8.410 2 66 10.092 3 64 9.786 4 75 11.468 5 57 8.716 6 71 10.856 7 74 11.315 8 69 10.550 9 61 9.327