The problem with it is that it implicitly assumes each (n, n+1, n+2 … n+5) set can be drawn in only one way when in fact each can be drawn in 6! = 720 different ways (pigeonhole principle) because the order in which they are drawn doesn’t matter.  Now, it’s no coincidence that 44×720 = 31 680.  It’s also no coincidence that 31 680 = 6×5 280.

'Luthon64

Yup, that’s exactly the point of the numbers on the Lotto balls, namely to distinguish them from one another, so that any set of 49 unique identifiers could be used.  Numbers just happen to be compact and convenient, and easy for people to understand (well, most of them, anyway).

But I fear the committed conspiracist will simply argue that the use of numbers is a deliberate part of the plot to dupe the great unwashed.  Such tends to be their unsinkable rubber duck resilience that any discordant bit of evidence or reason that challenges the supposed subversive shenanigans is deftly woven into the narrative as part of the plot’s cleverness.

I have pointed out to relatives and acquaintances who blew the “Lotto Deception!” whistle following the sequential draw that there are far more subtle and effective ways of skimming cash from our NLC (as very likely is already the case) and that such blatant manipulation as they hypothesise would be flatly stupid.

Fat lot of good that did.

As for the Lotto rules, it’s my understanding that the Bonus ball is always the one drawn last.  That is, for the draw 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 with 10 as the PowerBall, the 10 must necessarily have been the last ball drawn after the other five, but those five can be drawn in any order.  So, if instead the 8 had been the last ball to be drawn, the draw would have been reported as 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 with 8 as the Bonus ball.

With that in mind, I wrote some code that systematically exhausts the draw space, counting the total draws, the number of times sequential numbers are drawn (in any order), and the number of times sequential numbers are drawn where the last ball drawn is also the highest number in the sequence.  The code took about 16 minutes to run on my dodgy eight-year-old laptop and produced these results:
Total draws = 10 068 347 520
Sequential numbers draws (any order) = 31 680
Sequential numbers draws (last is highest) = 5 280

The above numbers mean that on average a sequential numbers draw (any order) occurs once in every 317 814 draws (probability ≈ 0.000 003 146 5), and a sequential numbers draw where the last ball is the one with the highest number in the sequence will occur once in every 1 906 884 draws (probability ≈ 0.000 000 524 42).

'Luthon64

All the sound and fury this Lotto draw has unleashed again reveals the pervasive ignorance of randomness and statistics that encumbers the self-accorded “clever ones” in society.

Monte Carlo is fine as far as it goes, but with today’s computing power, you could brute force an exact answer because there are 10,068,347,520 different unordered sequences of six numbers drawn from 49 (10,068,347,520 = 49×48×47×46×45×44), making it a 34-bit problem (log₂10,068,347,520 = 33.229…).  This is well within brute-force feasibility.  Think nested loops six levels deep, and with some thought and ingenuity, you can reduce it further to 69,919,080 (why?), making it a 27-bit problem.

Except that I wouldn’t do it using Python because I don’t want to wait days for the result.

That said, I think you’re neglecting the issue of the PowerBall:  The highest number of the sequence must also be drawn last, but the other five can be drawn in any order.

'Luthon64

Ok, a friend just disagreed with my solution, and this is why:

Say for instance the first ball to drop is number 10. Then the second ball can be either one of 5,6,7,8,9 or 11,12,13,14,15 to allow for a run of six to be possible. So the second ball, depending on its value, should contribute anywhere from a  maximum factor of (10/48) and a minimum factor of (5/48). Not a constant (5/48) as I proposed above.

Stuff it, I'll go monte carlo the answer on an idle raspberry.   

I tried to warn my son about the dangers of Russian Roulette, but it went in one ear and came out the other.