Statisticians everywhere are squealing in delight over this story on fellow statistician Mohan Srivastava,who used his know-how to crack the code of a tic-tac-toe scatcher lottery game.

The tickets were cheap scratchers-a gag gift from his squash partner-and Srivastava found himself wondering if any of them were winners.

If you find you're in the mood to buy a scratch-off lotto ticket, do so just for fun.