Number preferences in lotteries

Abstract We explore people’s preferences for numbers in large proprietary data sets from two different lottery games. We find that choice is far from uniform, and exhibits some familiar and some new tendencies and biases. Players favor personally meaningful and situationally available numbers, and a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJudgment and Decision Making Vol. 11; no. 3; pp. 243 - 259
Main Authors Wang, Tong V., van Loon, Rogier J.D. Potter, van den Assem, Martijn J., van Dolder, Dennie
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Tallahassee Society for Judgment and Decision Making 01.05.2016
Society for Judgment & Decision Making
Cambridge University Press
Subjects
availability
Codes
color preference
Decision analysis
Decision making
gambler’s fallacy
Gambling
hot-hand fallacy
implicit egotism
law of small numbers
Lotteries
number preference
Numbers
position effect
Preferences
representativeness
Studies
color preference
position effect
representativeness
gambling
number preference
law of small numbers
availability
lotteries
gambler's fallacy
implicit egotism
hot-hand fallacy
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Summary:Abstract We explore people’s preferences for numbers in large proprietary data sets from two different lottery games. We find that choice is far from uniform, and exhibits some familiar and some new tendencies and biases. Players favor personally meaningful and situationally available numbers, and are attracted towards numbers in the center of the choice form. Frequent players avoid winning numbers from recent draws, whereas infrequent players chase these. Combinations of numbers are formed with an eye for aesthetics, and players tend to spread their numbers relatively evenly across the possible range.
ISSN:1930-2975
1930-2975
DOI:10.1017/S1930297500003089