The -gambler's fallacy- is the belief that the probability of an event is lowered when that event has recently occurred, even though the probability of the event is objectively known to be independent from one trial to the next. This paper provides evidence on the time pattern of lottery...

The best-selling lottery game in the United States is lotto, a parimutuel game of long odds and large jackpots. Unlike in the other popular lottery games (numbers and instant). there is a strong tendency for per-capita lotto sales to increase with the size of the population base. The fact that...