Answer to Question #109656 in Statistics and Probability for julaine

Question

in a game of Lotto, balls are numbered 1 through to 44. They are all placed in a barrel and six balls are drawn without replacement. The balls are of the same size and are equally likely to be drawn. The first five balls drawn out are numbered 34, 2, 15, 29 and 42. What is the probability that the next ball drawn out will be number 26?

Answer 1

We know that each ball has an equal probability of being drawn for a given arrangement. Now, the sample space after drawing $34, 2, 15, 29, 42$ is the balls that are remaining. Thus, there are $39$ balls remaining after drawing these balls. Thus, the probability of selecting $26$ on the next draw is $\frac{1}{39}$