Teaching an intelligent guy about a basic statistics concept

[Chino Brown]

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Usually, the explanation of "each individual coin flip is even money" for either heads or tails assuming an unbiased/fair coin...and that T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T is as likely for a "random walk" as, say, H-T-T-H-T-T-H-T-H-H. All tails just looks funny; we are pattern recognizing machines after all, oftentimes regardless of any value in meaning.

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This is a good point. I had a very good friend who was well trained in math and statistics (he became a chartered accountant in the end). We were talking about lotteries (powerball, 6/49 type). I mentioned that one could just pick numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. His initial reaction was, "that's stupid, what are the chances of that happening?". To which I answered, "just as likely as any other numbers". He had to think about it for a while before he convinced himself that I was right.

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As it turns out, though, picking 1-2-3-4-5-6 is stupid, since you are punished for picking the same numbers as others.

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Umm, wouldn't it be less likely for someone else to pick the #'s 1-6?? Most people use the line of logic that above posters friend uses, and assume that something as simple as that number pattern would be less likely to occur.