How to Detect Fraud Using Benford's Law

Автокөліктер мен көлік құралдары

Forensic Accountant Robert A. Bonavito discusses Benford’s Law which is a technique to detect fraud especially when analyzing tax returns, general ledgers and other items that contain a large amount of numerical data
Topic Overview:
✔️ What is Benford’s Law?
✔️ Expected Data When Applying Benford's Law
✔️ Example of Benford's Law by Analyzing COVID Data
Website Mentioned:
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-...
👉 For more information contact me below or visit our website: www.rabcpafirm.com/contact/?u...
Robert A. Bonavito, CPA
1812 Front St.
Scotch Plains, NJ 07076
908-322-7719

Пікірлер: 1 100

  • @jasonransdell7055
    @jasonransdell70553 жыл бұрын

    Upvote if you are here because of the 2020 election “results”.

  • @dylanmcgriff822

    @dylanmcgriff822

    3 жыл бұрын

    yes and was sad to find out this law doesn't work well for election fraud detecting. see description and thesis paper showing it didn't work in the past: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qH2npsybmMWndLw.html&authuser=0

  • @reasonforge9997

    @reasonforge9997

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 Think you may have the wrong link in your comment. The kzread.info/dash/bejne/qH2npsybmMWndLw.html&authuser=0 link goes to a video just explaining the law and does not address how it applies to elections.

  • @dylanmcgriff822

    @dylanmcgriff822

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@reasonforge9997 Yes, read his 2020 election update in his discriptions below. He references this paper: core.ac.uk/download/pdf/206427437.pdf

  • @reasonforge9997

    @reasonforge9997

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 Update, found the paper link in video description and read it and left comment on that video. The paper was full of much rhetoric but when it finally got to a real argument it picked artificial district sizes in a simulation--which seems ridiculous if they were really interested in simulating real life. From their description of their simulation: " "Our simulations, though, consist of two types. In the first type, we simulate an election by creating 1000 districts wherein each contains the same fixed number of eligible voters. Here we run several sequences of elections where every district contains 1000 eligible voters, elections where every district contains 10,000 voters, and elections where every district contains 20,000 voters".

  • @bradynmelser9549

    @bradynmelser9549

    3 жыл бұрын

    This helps prove voter fraud!

  • @currently7886
    @currently78863 жыл бұрын

    One Month Ago... Bruh, he drops the smoking gun a month before it happens. This man is a psychic!

  • @kariolar3158

    @kariolar3158

    3 жыл бұрын

    KZread changed the date

  • @NotKewl

    @NotKewl

    3 жыл бұрын

    Yeah it’s not like Benford’s law existed before the election or was ever used

  • @currently7886

    @currently7886

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@NotKewl According to people on Twitter, quite a few people, Benford's law before the election was a decent tool and it had its uses to detect fraud. After the election, it is just a pipe dream of the sore losers and not reliable. Life comes at ya fast.

  • @shangtsung1362

    @shangtsung1362

    3 жыл бұрын

    It was expected that the dems would cheat for a long time now

  • @fedcoin1602

    @fedcoin1602

    3 жыл бұрын

    It was used to catch Bernie Madoff

  • @Candyapplebone
    @Candyapplebone3 жыл бұрын

    A CPA: The hero we need

  • @Rabcpafirm

    @Rabcpafirm

    3 жыл бұрын

    Have no fear, New Jersey Forensic Accountant is here!

  • @kaydens6964

    @kaydens6964

    3 жыл бұрын

    Did a math degree but got bored of it, maybe this is the motivation needed to set out a path to forensic accounting!

  • @atlnlgga3844

    @atlnlgga3844

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Rabcpafirm this is what he going to use in court?

  • @CJ-hn6ov

    @CJ-hn6ov

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@atlnlgga3844 probably not, but gives people the hint that something does not going well

  • @DD-sw1dd

    @DD-sw1dd

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Rabcpafirm I’m taking Stat analysis next semester. Just got finished with Calc 3. (Mechanical Engineering Major) I haven’t been this excited over a math class in a while. I’m gonna be pluggin ALOT of data sets into this formula using excel once I learn more about it.

  • @austinbanks-wilson276
    @austinbanks-wilson2763 жыл бұрын

    Robert my man, get ready for a Red wave of Subs. 🙏🏾

  • @PRODAt3

    @PRODAt3

    3 жыл бұрын

    Unless he gets removed for being fake news

  • @currently7886

    @currently7886

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@PRODAt3 ARCHIVE EVERYTHING!

  • @TristanAD_

    @TristanAD_

    3 жыл бұрын

    some kind of miracle... i’m not going to go out and riot if we have to live under a Biden administration but man...his gun reform policies is OUTRAGEOUS. no online gun sales, ammo sales, or gun accessory sales: gun parts (springs, screws, pins, slings, mags, etc.)...a new age identity politics...scary stuff.

  • @TomGalonska

    @TomGalonska

    3 жыл бұрын

    Why? Because a bunch of Republicans falsy think they can apply Benford's Law in a place where it SHOULD NOT under any circumstance be applied? Watch this video: kzread.info/dash/bejne/l6isks1qnq_UZ5s.html

  • @currently7886

    @currently7886

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@TomGalonska OK... Looks like Trumps data is way outta wack...But Biden's is A-OK. Sounds good? So... Umm.... Why don't we look into that? Do you see a lot of Republicans saying that if there was fraud on behalf of Trump we shouldn't look into that? What I am seeing is almost universal, the Republicans want a second look at the numbers where as the Democrats, even when the numbers show that it is Trump doing the tampering, do not want to look at the numbers and are fine with the result. Frankly, it doesn't matter what party you subscribe to, these anomalies should encourage you to look further into the counts no? Not only that, but the districts that Quick Maths provided were of Chicago where is this Forensic Accountant did all of Georgia. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHOSE SIDE YOU ARE A FANGIRL FOR! THE ANOMALIES ARE THERE ON BOTH SIDES NO? THEN LOOOOOOOOK INTO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its not the Republicans that are having a tough time getting it this time around.

  • @nomorebs-vw8op
    @nomorebs-vw8op3 жыл бұрын

    I don't think Biden/Harris and Dr Fauci knew about this law.

  • @doombybbr

    @doombybbr

    3 жыл бұрын

    even if they did, they would need to inject a random number of votes into every state in order to hide from it.

  • @ImperiumLibertas

    @ImperiumLibertas

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@doombybbr that's not practical when trying to add the minimum number of votes to win but enough to not trigger a recount in each state.

  • @mwatkins0590

    @mwatkins0590

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@doombybbr thats actually a mistake. they would have to inject numbers that aren't random, they would need to inject numbers starting with 1s at greater rates than others.

  • @doombybbr

    @doombybbr

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@mwatkins0590 Randomness can be skewed to favour certain patterns. There isn't just one "random" type. But it barely matters as someone can do a base 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9 check and then you get caught intentionally avoiding benfords

  • @Zaros262

    @Zaros262

    3 жыл бұрын

    If you actually care enough about this to watch a 2 minute intro, here you go: kzread.info/dash/bejne/l6isks1qnq_UZ5s.html

  • @ilect1690
    @ilect16903 жыл бұрын

    To those wondering, Benfords law importantly requires values from multiple orders of magnitude inorder to be accurate (eg. 10-1000). If it happens to be that the large majority >90% happen to be in the same order of magnitude you begin to see a normal distribution

  • @christopherbarile2539

    @christopherbarile2539

    2 жыл бұрын

    You are exactly right. Also, there is no assessment of statistical error in this analysis. I am a scientist and professor. My laboratory routinely use statistics to draw conclusions about the results of experiments. The analysis in this video is completely misleading. I stumbled upon this video, and I am deeply disturbed by the implications and the vast majority of comments. Today I made a video explaining how to properly analyze the COVID-19 data using county data which is a much larger data set. kzread.info/dash/bejne/i2eEmqNqgrWbcrA.html I am happy to apply similar proper analyses to other data sets if people would like to see that.

  • @gregorw1296
    @gregorw12963 жыл бұрын

    No, you can’t use Benford’s Law to tell whether this cdc data is manipulated. For one the dataset is much too small (only 56 data points), giving random events too much weight. You can do the same analysis for the population count of the US states and will get a similar “fraudulent” looking histogram.

  • @Shutupasecond
    @Shutupasecond3 жыл бұрын

    Who's here after the 2020 us election?? Haha

  • @Zaros262

    @Zaros262

    3 жыл бұрын

    If you actually care enough about this to watch a 2 minute intro, here you go: kzread.info/dash/bejne/l6isks1qnq_UZ5s.html

  • @thelastengineer2315

    @thelastengineer2315

    3 жыл бұрын

    Me

  • @GrooveisKing

    @GrooveisKing

    3 жыл бұрын

    Everyone lol

  • @1-CRoss

    @1-CRoss

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@thelastengineer2315 me 2....

  • @davemacgyver573

    @davemacgyver573

    3 жыл бұрын

    That is EXACTLY why I'm here!

  • @Memetologist
    @Memetologist3 жыл бұрын

    Do a video on the election using Benfords Law. Thank you.

  • @dylanmcgriff822

    @dylanmcgriff822

    3 жыл бұрын

    yes and was sad to find out this law doesn't work well for election fraud detecting. see description and thesis paper showing it didn't work in the past: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qH2npsybmMWndLw.html&authuser=0

  • @r-gart

    @r-gart

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 paid shill

  • @mrjesuschrist2u

    @mrjesuschrist2u

    3 жыл бұрын

    Dylan McGriff probably edited the wikipedia page to say that too, thats why he links to a random video about the law.

  • @michellemellis

    @michellemellis

    3 жыл бұрын

    Check out his new video: kzread.info/dash/bejne/dqN6lbmMZJXdY7A.html

  • @superdpat

    @superdpat

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@r-gart The guy made a vid on how Benfords law does not work for elections in 2011. He's not a paid shill. You;re just a moron

  • @aaronphillips402
    @aaronphillips4023 жыл бұрын

    I bet you had no idea this video was going to blow up due to the elections.

  • @suemeejim715
    @suemeejim7153 жыл бұрын

    From a Statistician: The sample size you're using for this data analysis is way too small. I did this myself using the coronavirus cases for every county in the United States and found that the data follows Benford's Law almost perfectly. Another condition of Benford's Law that is being violated is that you have to have a data set that spans a large number of values. In this case, you have a very high preponderance of cases that fall in the Tens of Thousands and Hundreds of Thousands. I can link the data sheet if anyone is interested.

  • @gulzarkundan4470

    @gulzarkundan4470

    2 жыл бұрын

    Honest question, If you have a randomly generated sample of numbers, would its conformity to benfords law depend on sample size? In other words does benfords law not hold for smaller sample sizes, even if the sample is truly randomised? Or would the conformity just not be as pronounced as a larger sample size?

  • @jamsekun1810

    @jamsekun1810

    2 жыл бұрын

    hello, can i have a link?

  • @johnspence8141

    @johnspence8141

    2 жыл бұрын

    awesome

  • @szefowskiszef9256

    @szefowskiszef9256

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@gulzarkundan4470 it doesn't work for purely randomly generated numbers, that's why frauds don't follow it

  • @darrenthornton2419

    @darrenthornton2419

    Жыл бұрын

    Another way you know this video analysis isn't very good is that it can't figure out whether this phenomenon is called "Benford's Law" or "Benson's Law" - if you can't bother to get that right, why should anyone trust that your analysis is performed any more carefully?

  • @rev68
    @rev683 жыл бұрын

    I'm amazed that youtube would recommend this. The machine AI must not realize this goes against their narrative.

  • @notme-ji5uo

    @notme-ji5uo

    3 жыл бұрын

    @Smarmy Fellow no, its not. the "maths" he's trying to use here is not apt at all for this situation. if you want, you should look up benfords law yourself and watch a vid from an actual mathematician so you understand

  • @LOOKINVERTED

    @LOOKINVERTED

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@notme-ji5uo I agree to an extent, but that's not to suggest what he's explaining and uncovered isn't applicable in this case. He didn't say the reasons why the data could be misleading, only that something merits further investigation. I understand what you're saying though, due to other unforeseen circumstances (depending on the situation and circumstances) these anomalies would alter the results making the progressive curve less uniform. As he also said, this Benford's Law is a preliminary tool to look for anomalies, perhaps he should have then delved in deeper from that point on to see what else were the actual causes.

  • @aaron9791
    @aaron97913 жыл бұрын

    Branford’s law is known to not work well with data sets with 500 or fewer transactions.

  • @OxfordLlama92

    @OxfordLlama92

    3 жыл бұрын

    Exactly, seeing people in here think 50 states is enough is asinine. You might be able to do this with county level data as it should provide enough data points, but even then it might not be applicable to epidemiology and it’s a weak test! It can’t prove fraud. It can only reject the assumption that there is no fraud. Lotta armchair statisticians in the comments section Also love that his graph says Bensons Law

  • @michielterlouw

    @michielterlouw

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@OxfordLlama92 This is so weird, right? The guy spends the first 5 munutes explaining Benford's Law can be used on large dataset, and then he shows an example of a tiny dataset. Anyone who has done a semester of Statistics 101 should understand that's not how it works.

  • @christopherbarile2539

    @christopherbarile2539

    2 жыл бұрын

    Thank you for this comment! The data set is too small. Although you can use statistics on small data sets, it has to be done properly with a proper assessment of statistical error, which surely was not done here. I am a scientist and professor. My laboratory routinely use statistics to draw conclusions about the results of experiments. I stumbled upon this video, and I am deeply disturbed by the implications and the vast majority of comments. Today I made a video explaining how to properly analyze the COVID-19 data using county data which is a much larger data set. kzread.info/dash/bejne/i2eEmqNqgrWbcrA.html I am happy to apply similar proper analyses to other data sets if people would like to see that.

  • @pbx7257
    @pbx72573 жыл бұрын

    Wow I stumbled upon this. Great presentation by the way, I’m wondering, can you apply Benfords Law to the results Of the 2020 Presidential Election?

  • @QuartBernstein311

    @QuartBernstein311

    3 жыл бұрын

    Yes, and how has this been applied to other elections in failed democratic elections?

  • @Rabcpafirm

    @Rabcpafirm

    3 жыл бұрын

    Thanks Pb X, really glad you enjoyed the video. Yes, unfortunately, the 2020 election results will have similar issues when we apply Benford’s law.

  • @d1agram4

    @d1agram4

    3 жыл бұрын

    Trump vote totals conform rather well to Benford's law, one of the first things you'd check in trying to determine whether there was fraud. Biden's fail miserably, and, what's more, the frequencies of leading digits for him are virtually symmetric about 5: exactly what you get if these were faked by those ignorant of Benford's law, and wanting to manufacture "average" looking numbers, those that begin with 4,5, or 6

  • @dylanmcgriff822

    @dylanmcgriff822

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@d1agram4 I was sad to find out this law doesn't work well for election fraud detecting. see description and thesis paper showing it didn't work in the past: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qH2npsybmMWndLw.html&authuser=0

  • @r-gart

    @r-gart

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 shill

  • @wemustdissent
    @wemustdissent3 жыл бұрын

    You should probably mention that Benford's law only applies to datasets that cross several orders of magnitude. A lot of people are being mislead by this with the election results. If, for example, all the values in the dataset are two digit numbers then Benford's law does NOT apply.

  • @kurtschatteman5193

    @kurtschatteman5193

    2 жыл бұрын

    AND only if the dataset is big enough.

  • @jackchu5453
    @jackchu54533 жыл бұрын

    The KZread algorithm is trying to tell us something but I wonder what it could be hmmm... 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

  • @szendrich
    @szendrich3 жыл бұрын

    I've subscribed because I want to see a video of Benford's law applied to this election.

  • @dylanmcgriff822

    @dylanmcgriff822

    3 жыл бұрын

    yes and was sad to find out this law doesn't work well for election fraud detecting. see description and thesis paper showing it didn't work in the past: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qH2npsybmMWndLw.html&authuser=0

  • @szendrich

    @szendrich

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 Don't be too sure. I don't have much of a head for Maths, although I did study the logarithmic way long, long ago ..LOL. But if I understood correctly, the boy says that the pattern is consistent and always works. Perhaps not in random situations like the front page of a newspaper, but if you listen to the full video, he explains why it DOES work for every fraud situation. I could be wrong in my understanding, because this bright young man did garble my brain with the complex mathematics, but I think Benford's Law will work if applied to this election situation, if only to see if fraud has actually occurred (I think it has!). In fact, I saw somewhere in this comment section, that this fellow has already been engaged by several parties concerning the US presidential election. Keeping fingers crossed that they will find what they need to find so that democracy will prevail!!

  • @JC-gb2en

    @JC-gb2en

    3 жыл бұрын

    It has been applied, but the videos showing it are being censored by youtube...I WONDER WHY is the question every journalist on the planet earth should be asking right now!

  • @sblbb929

    @sblbb929

    3 жыл бұрын

    pbs.twimg.com/media/EmLFD_7UYAAvvzJ?format=jpg B_den's vote results violate Benford's Law

  • @szendrich

    @szendrich

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@sblbb929 Wow! Thanks for that. These graphs prove that Biden is the only one that violates Benford's Law. All the rest are more or less following the pattern. And that's just in Chicago. This proves that, YES, the Benford principle does indeed work even for elections. Thank you so much!

  • @Rubzplaysbrawl
    @Rubzplaysbrawl3 жыл бұрын

    I’ll be taking this to court

  • @thenefariousnerd7910
    @thenefariousnerd79103 жыл бұрын

    To everyone asking for a thorough Benford’s Law analysis of the Chicago precinct election results, the mathematician Matt Parker did a thorough look on his KZread channel Stand-up Maths. The long and short of it is that Benford’s Law is not suitable for all data sets. Specifically, it’s a good indicator only for datasets that span multiple orders of magnitude. Consider a dataset that follows a normal (bell curve) distribution. If, for example, all of these data are one-digit numbers, then the Benford’s Law graph would be equivalent to a histogram of the data; it would look like a bell curve, which doesn’t match Benford’s Law. This doesn’t mean the data is fraudulent, it just means that it doesn’t cover a wide enough range for Benford’s Law to be applicable. A real-world example of this would be the distribution of adult heights in inches- all of the data will be two-digit numbers, so plotting all of the first digits is the same as just grouping all of the data into 10-inch bins. Legitimate data, doesn’t follow Benford’s Law. The issue with the Chicago precincts is twofold: first, 98% of the precincts had vote totals between 100 and 1000 (average of 516, stdev of 173) and second, Biden was the favorite in the majority of the precincts. This means that the vast majority of Biden vote totals were three-digit numbers, while about 30% of Trump vote totals were three-digit numbers with 70% as two- or one-digit numbers. This means that, like in the example above, the Biden graph of the data is essentially a histogram with a bin size of 100, which we would reasonably expect to follow a normal distribution, which we see. Meanwhile the Trump data significantly covers three orders of magnitude, making it a suitable dataset for Benford’s Law.

  • @alexdanailov6241
    @alexdanailov62413 жыл бұрын

    Now that's some very good short example, quite helpful for getting a quick, basic grasp of how the law gets applied on practical level. You just earned another sub sir!

  • @rickswineberg
    @rickswineberg3 жыл бұрын

    I did a presentation of Benford's Law in my fraud class in the Masters of Accounting Degree. I would do an overlay of the presented number against the Benford's distribution.

  • @misbahb123

    @misbahb123

    Жыл бұрын

    can you tell me about fake data entry i mean how can we know the data is fake or authentic? for example if someone has 150 responses and duplicate the data and make some changes in it and make it 300 is there any way we can find out that the data of 150 responses is fake or not?

  • @deadpool10001
    @deadpool100013 жыл бұрын

    Mr. Bonavito, please do a video on this election in relations to Benford's Law.

  • @dylanmcgriff822

    @dylanmcgriff822

    3 жыл бұрын

    yes and was sad to find out this law doesn't work well for election fraud detecting. see description and thesis paper showing it didn't work in the past: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qH2npsybmMWndLw.html&authuser=0

  • @tgreen5278

    @tgreen5278

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 American used it to detect fraud in the 2009 Iranian election

  • @doombybbr

    @doombybbr

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 No, it actually works As the only detraction is that certain areas tend a little bit towards certain leading digits, but not enough that a benfords law with a large data set would fail to follow the general trend. It is only a distinction that matters if you are looking at very minor deviations from benfords law, it doesn't apply to massive deviations. You just get the curve being a little steeper or a little less steep, the general curve still exists. Not to mention, every other location in this election follows the trend. And the only ones that don't just happen to be for biden in the massive swing states.

  • @pranoychow3808

    @pranoychow3808

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@dylanmcgriff822 Benford law still applies. It's just not as steep. It's not supposed to have such massive deviations as Biden's does.

  • @maxtabmann6701
    @maxtabmann67013 жыл бұрын

    Accountants using math and never heared about statistical standard deviations. Whenever someone say "Its very complicated, it really means, he did not understand the thing"

  • @saylorj6810
    @saylorj68103 жыл бұрын

    Sir, I would like to thank you so very much for laying this out and doing so much good for our republic. God bless!

  • @kurtschatteman5193

    @kurtschatteman5193

    2 жыл бұрын

    By misleading? Only 56 datapoints? He is a fraud.

  • @TK_Trickster
    @TK_Trickster3 жыл бұрын

    that awkward moment when bidens election results break this law, and only in the swing states lol

  • @mengyuanxian3279

    @mengyuanxian3279

    3 жыл бұрын

    Are you sure it's only in the swing states? Has anybody ever checked the election results in CA and NY against the Benford law?

  • @SBBurzmali

    @SBBurzmali

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@mengyuanxian3279 Nah, they just watched one video one the results from the Detroit area and became instant experts. Next they'll prove the USPS is fraud because zip codes don't follow Benford's law.

  • @chadbitcoin5085

    @chadbitcoin5085

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@SBBurzmali How's that CNN internship coming along ? I see your already falling in line ... you'll do just fine

  • @SBBurzmali

    @SBBurzmali

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@chadbitcoin5085 lol, have you woven CNN into this conspiracy to steal the election or that just the go to attack these days?

  • @connfeebruh9439

    @connfeebruh9439

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@SBBurzmali Even without benford's law theres been several witness accounts from postal workers and poll workers directly corelating to some of the fradulent/compromised votes we see

  • @willdbeast1523
    @willdbeast15233 жыл бұрын

    Does the example with phone numbers in a phone book work? I thought they used specific numbers for specific things which would throw it off Edit: also how many data points do you typically need before you see this technique as being significant? Obviously if you have millions of values it should be good, but is the example with 56 enough to make a judgement or would you typically need a lot more in a real world example?

  • @Folco1694
    @Folco16943 жыл бұрын

    I can't thank you enough for this video. It was so instructive and clarifying, and easy to understand, and it took just a few minutes. I'll share this video on every opportunity I get. Again, thank you very much.

  • @SamanthaJaneJames
    @SamanthaJaneJames3 жыл бұрын

    This is brilliant! Thanks for sharing Benford's Law. It can be applied so many places.

  • @kurtschatteman5193

    @kurtschatteman5193

    2 жыл бұрын

    But keep in mind Benford's law only applies to big datasets (not 56 points LOL) and orders of magnitude.

  • @rowbxt6044
    @rowbxt60443 жыл бұрын

    ive noticed that the number 6 is usually the number that is second highest on the chart when benfords laws doesn't work on the data. why is that?

  • @rowbxt6044

    @rowbxt6044

    3 жыл бұрын

    or doesn't show true benfords law curve. sorry not sure if that make sense.

  • @Rabcpafirm

    @Rabcpafirm

    3 жыл бұрын

    If the number 6 has the second-highest frequency, then it probably means that the data is not random or the sample size is not large enough. When our analysis comes up with the number 6 as the second-highest frequency, it’s usually telling us that the data is manipulated and probably fraudulent. Thanks for the observation Robert

  • @rowbxt6044

    @rowbxt6044

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@Rabcpafirm awesome thanks for the reply

  • @dylanmcgriff822

    @dylanmcgriff822

    3 жыл бұрын

    I was sad to find out the Benford's Law doesn't work well for election fraud detecting. see description and thesis paper showing it didn't work in the past: kzread.info/dash/bejne/qH2npsybmMWndLw.html&authuser=0 core.ac.uk/download/pdf/206427437.pdf

  • @derrickanderson5407
    @derrickanderson54073 жыл бұрын

    I got banned from twitter for 12 hours for sharing a tweet about Benford's Law

  • @mattc9009

    @mattc9009

    3 жыл бұрын

    Come to gab.

  • @bradmiller5279
    @bradmiller52793 жыл бұрын

    My man you are about to get a lot of views once people start hearing about Benford’s Law

  • @laurenceegerton890
    @laurenceegerton8903 жыл бұрын

    Most interesting! I barely remembered any of this from college. Very good presentation too.

  • @loveoutdoorsstuckindoors8837
    @loveoutdoorsstuckindoors88373 жыл бұрын

    Apply this law to each county & state electoral return's and publish the results. It will be very interesting to see how each state is different It's already been proven in Chicago.

  • @mrfloppy1952
    @mrfloppy19523 жыл бұрын

    Can you do a data sheet with the US election 2020? That would be interesting.

  • @jesswilson6012

    @jesswilson6012

    3 жыл бұрын

    github.com/cjph8914/2020_benfords

  • @magustrigger9195

    @magustrigger9195

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@jesswilson6012 thanks dude, interesting

  • @tag_of_frank
    @tag_of_frank3 жыл бұрын

    In covid example there are only 50 data points, why would the law hold when only so few data points? If you do a hypothesis test will that variance be significant given only 50 points?

  • @naomihouminer1445
    @naomihouminer14453 жыл бұрын

    What happens when you cheack Benfords law on the 2019 flew season database?

  • @juliaj7939
    @juliaj79393 жыл бұрын

    This is amazing!

  • @DavidRothLovesTech
    @DavidRothLovesTech3 жыл бұрын

    A practical example of how to apply Benford's Law! Great job!

  • @Brolintube

    @Brolintube

    3 жыл бұрын

    Unfortunately not - there are major flaws in this application (e.g. it is based on just 50 numbers whereas Benford's law would need much larger datasets across several orders of magnitude to have any chance of the dataset conforming to the pattern shown in Benford's law. Check this video out for a much more insightful analysis on Benford's law. kzread.info/dash/bejne/l6isks1qnq_UZ5s.html

  • @jeskaaable
    @jeskaaable3 жыл бұрын

    Where in your Excel sheet did you use the "log" portion of the law ?

  • @christseinheute
    @christseinheute3 жыл бұрын

    Very interesting! Never heard of Benford's Law before.

  • @El.presidente
    @El.presidente3 жыл бұрын

    Like uncle Joe said "follow the science."

  • @JayJay-gq8tj
    @JayJay-gq8tj3 жыл бұрын

    Hi Robert, thanks for sharing this information. Probably gonna sound like a broken record here in the comment section but I am too here due to the 2020 election.

  • @thuglifebear5256
    @thuglifebear52563 жыл бұрын

    Little did he know when he made this video, he would be hailed as a hero by Americans across the country.

  • @JP-bh4xg
    @JP-bh4xg3 жыл бұрын

    If you want to see a more detailed explanation of Benford's law, this video is great kzread.info/dash/bejne/l6isks1qnq_UZ5s.html

  • @matthewalexander1943
    @matthewalexander19433 жыл бұрын

    A good video, but I gotta say that Covid data looked like it conformed pretty well with Benford's Law. There are only a few dozen data points, which is not many when you have nine slots to fill with data. Obviously, 1 is going to be the number that starts to take shape first as you add data and produce the Benford graph. 2 will be the second quickest slot to take it's proper shape. In this data, 1 occurs most frequently and 2 is already in the 2 spot. The rest of the graph deviates, but not wildly, and there are limited data points. I think the Covid data follows the rule decently well.

  • @Kalle38
    @Kalle383 жыл бұрын

    running befords law on a data set of

  • @navyfan87
    @navyfan873 жыл бұрын

    Great easy to understand video. And no surprise that different states are reporting cases in different ways, not to mention the inaccuracy of the tests. One common mistake is to assume the underlying data for each data set member is incorrect when in fact, the results here only show the randomness or lack thereof for the data set as presented. This example illustrates that quite well.

  • @k1l158
    @k1l1583 жыл бұрын

    I’m new to the concept of Benford’s law, but isn’t the chart at the end indicating that it actually falls pretty well in line with it? It deviates very slightly and matches up very well considering this is a pretty small sample size. The chart for physical constants deviates more than these numbers. I feel like saying these covid case numbers are indicative of fraud is quite misleading.

  • @melinawright5350

    @melinawright5350

    3 жыл бұрын

    They are fraudulent. Everybody knows that.

  • @k1l158

    @k1l158

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@melinawright5350 For argument's sake, lets say that it is fraudulent, this benford law chart does not indicate that. It doesn't deviate that much and it finds the trend very well considering how small the sample size is.

  • @youdeserveabundance254
    @youdeserveabundance2543 жыл бұрын

    LOL We are all really here for the election "results"

  • @elidangerfieldofficial
    @elidangerfieldofficial3 жыл бұрын

    Election results

  • @sirmarisa
    @sirmarisa3 жыл бұрын

    What is the minimum data point to apply Benford's law. I'm an engineer and looking to apply this at work

  • @XDarksoulX1129
    @XDarksoulX11293 жыл бұрын

    I mean. Here we are a month later. This man gave us the clear guide we need.

  • @ghlscitel6714
    @ghlscitel67143 жыл бұрын

    Benford's law is not a law, likewise Moore's law and Murphy's law are laws neither. They are all rules which strongly depend on the boundary conditions. So this article is a big failure.

  • @johnjackson9767
    @johnjackson97673 жыл бұрын

    Regardless of political affiliation, the possibility of fraud in a free and fair society should disgust and concern *everyone*. Unless we want to become a third world nation, this must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. Thank you for such a fantastic explanation and analysis.

  • @gouthaman.gopalan
    @gouthaman.gopalan3 жыл бұрын

    Good presentation. One last step to statistically decide if the number set conserves to Benford' s law is doing Chi Square test

  • @grippercrapper
    @grippercrapper3 жыл бұрын

    The right man at the right place at the right time

  • @mosesolsonmd4063
    @mosesolsonmd40633 жыл бұрын

    It should be renamed to Biden's Law

  • @komnishura
    @komnishura3 жыл бұрын

    Your dataset is very small.

  • @MReda94
    @MReda943 жыл бұрын

    The numbers in a phone book won't follow Benford's law. Also there are some assumptions that must be true in your data for Benford's law to be applicable.

  • @jorgen315
    @jorgen3153 жыл бұрын

    Excellent presentation and choice of data!

  • @dougradcliffe1466
    @dougradcliffe14663 жыл бұрын

    Please save Trump!

  • @Rabcpafirm

    @Rabcpafirm

    3 жыл бұрын

    Have no fear, New Jersey Forensic Accountant is here!

  • @SkylerBaird
    @SkylerBaird3 жыл бұрын

    "Biden's Law"

  • @marksurtel9954
    @marksurtel99543 жыл бұрын

    Can you please show an example of a actual data set that has no fraud and the graph stating that?

  • @AllSwartzOfAdventure
    @AllSwartzOfAdventure3 жыл бұрын

    Such a cool video with a practical application. Thanks for demonstrating this and even using the Covid data. Now I’ll try to mimic your results in excel. -N

  • @reasonforge9997
    @reasonforge99973 жыл бұрын

    At 2:50 Not sure it will work on the numbers of a phone book as they are not naturally occurring counts but may be artificially distributed.

  • @carolinepeters3364

    @carolinepeters3364

    3 жыл бұрын

    I thought that too. Especially if it’s a local phone book, the numbers will have a higher likelihood of starting with a particular number due to area codes. Now if you took all the phone numbers in the US, that might be different. I wonder what he meant

  • @wuyajian322
    @wuyajian3223 жыл бұрын

    The database you used for the example looks too small, 7 days' data seems to be small of sample size to be accurate. I heard it should be over something like 2000 to be more accurate, is that true?

  • @dabigbaby7193
    @dabigbaby71933 жыл бұрын

    this is some useful information. thank you sir !!

  • @ggregor123
    @ggregor1233 жыл бұрын

    Im seeing a lot of criticism saying that Benfords law is not applicable to the election results. Its only applicable for accounting....

  • @pauledson397
    @pauledson3973 жыл бұрын

    Mr. Bonavito, for data to look suspicious, what ratio between observed and expected should I use as threshold? For instance, if +/- 25% is the fraud threshold, and the "1"s are outside of +/- 25% of the expected 0.3 (higher than 0.0375 or lower than 0.0225), then I would view the data as suspicious.

  • @tomp4925

    @tomp4925

    Жыл бұрын

    You had a keen observation. Mr Bonavito used "eyeball" analysis. The histogram did not look Benford was his conclusion. You want a more quantitative analysis. There are many, many ways to measure Benford quantitatively. The most common is the Chi Square test. You asked for a ratio that deviates from the expected value. You are on the right track because it is an excellent test but unfortunately there is no simple ratio. You would have to calculate the Z score for all 9 digits. To be 95% confident that Mr.Bonavito's example DOES NOT follow Benford the Z score should be greater than 2.56(because 9 digits are being tested the Bonferoni adjustment comes in to play). I calculated the Z score for 3 digits and not any was over 2.56. An example to calculate the Z score for leading digit 1 is: (.41-.30)/((.30x.70)/56)^.5= 1.8 .41 is the actual percentage .30 is the expected percentage .70 is 1 minus the expected percentage 56 is the sample size ^.5 is the square root All 9 digits can be tested that way using each digits own specific actual and expected percentages.

  • @ricardomroberto
    @ricardomroberto3 жыл бұрын

    This is such a small data set that you would expect some statistical variation. Digits 1 and 2 are the biggest but in a small set, the remaining digits are basically meaningless

  • @sclifford9818
    @sclifford981810 ай бұрын

    This is a very fascinating subject

  • @Rabcpafirm

    @Rabcpafirm

    10 ай бұрын

    cool

  • @loszhor
    @loszhor3 жыл бұрын

    Thanks YT Recommendations!~

  • @michaelwilliams459
    @michaelwilliams4593 жыл бұрын

    We need to spread this as far as we can. I learned of Benford's Law from Louder with Crowder. Hopefully the President can learn of this fraud detection technique.

  • @JC-gb2en

    @JC-gb2en

    3 жыл бұрын

    Dont worry, the guy who made this video actually commented a few days ago he was contacted to help with the investigations.

  • @villiamaxtelius1170
    @villiamaxtelius11702 жыл бұрын

    "The logorithms are way out of wack". Im getting that tattooed

  • @Rabcpafirm

    @Rabcpafirm

    Жыл бұрын

    Hilarious

  • @erichighsmith7299
    @erichighsmith72993 жыл бұрын

    I swear I never typed ‘benfords law’ into my phone or computer just listened to podcasts talking about it and boom this is recommended, sure could just be viewed many times lately so KZread recommends it okay. Still but weird. What’s even crazier is this was made before the 2020 election votes. Talk about good timing to make this KZread video!

  • @Bob-jm8kl
    @Bob-jm8kl3 жыл бұрын

    I never thought I'd say accounting was fun, but anything forensic is interesting.

  • @Vladviking
    @Vladviking3 жыл бұрын

    Very interesting! I'm not a numbers guy but I'll have to subscribe and try to absorb some of this.

  • @tiagoreiser4158
    @tiagoreiser41583 жыл бұрын

    I really suck at math but Im curious if this law would work in a situation like this: If I want to inflate the number of covid deaths, but instead of creating fake numbers out of the blue, I report cases of influenza as covid, so I'm adding two natural occurrences that separated would fit the law right? Would this tempering with the data be caught by the analysis using the law?

  • @baconsnot
    @baconsnot3 жыл бұрын

    How does the size of the data set affect the fit of that logarithmic curve? Simple chance must be involved for small data sets. After all, a Data set of one value will have a 100% spike on one digit. Is there a rule for how many numbers a data set must have before you rely on this method?

  • @mwarnken1234
    @mwarnken12343 жыл бұрын

    very interesting! thank you

  • @northerndeplorable6653
    @northerndeplorable66533 жыл бұрын

    Excellent explanation of this interesting statistical/mathematical law. Thank you. One question: I noted that the final chart was labeled "Benson's Law". Was that a typo? I looked up Benson's Law and could not find a reference to this phenomenon.

  • @kurtschatteman5193

    @kurtschatteman5193

    2 жыл бұрын

    But keep in mind Benford's law only applies to big datasets (not 56 points LOL) and orders of magnitude.

  • @jacko.6625
    @jacko.66253 жыл бұрын

    Bensford's law only applies when there is a large range in the sizes of the data sets. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law It would have been nice if you had mentioned it. There may also be a misunderstanding of the definition of "law." A law is "a generally valid description, usually mathematical." In engineering, for example, Hooke's law is not valid for all materials over all stresses.

  • @maburwanejohannes4647
    @maburwanejohannes46473 жыл бұрын

    If the data does not follow an exponential growth does the law still work?

  • @davidjackson7675
    @davidjackson76753 жыл бұрын

    Would you consider doing a benford's law video for New York's COVID-19 data?

  • @theman3923
    @theman39233 жыл бұрын

    I’m not sure if I understand this properly but how can you use Benford’s law on a raw data and determine some sort of manipulation in numbers if the numbers are not supposed to go in sequence and don’t have causal or correlative relationship with eachother? (Maybe it’s just a stupid question because I don’t fully understand how it works on this particular example).

  • @davidjackson7675
    @davidjackson76753 жыл бұрын

    WOW! I was wondering about this very question.

  • @ellal6915
    @ellal69153 жыл бұрын

    The hero America needs, the hero America deserves.

  • @pr0skis
    @pr0skis3 жыл бұрын

    Great explanation and very helpful walking us through with a real life example. Keep up the great work! Subscribed.

  • @kurtschatteman5193

    @kurtschatteman5193

    2 жыл бұрын

    Except that the COVID example was not a valid one. Way too small sample size.

  • @olp852
    @olp8523 жыл бұрын

    Interesting stuff thank you

  • @ashleyg6976
    @ashleyg69763 жыл бұрын

    Somebody please help me bc I really like learning this stuff.. what numbers start with 1 or 2 or whatever? I'm so confused what numbers we are talking about and this is my second video trying to see what's going on here.

  • @sarah21968
    @sarah219683 жыл бұрын

    Thanks very informative

  • @yoyohop
    @yoyohop3 жыл бұрын

    So the premise of Benford's Law is that the frequency of the numbers 1-9 are not evenly distributed in large data sets? Is this due to rules of rounding?

  • @maytag9006
    @maytag90063 жыл бұрын

    Can Benfords Law be used when one party voted by person and the other side was voted later by mail?

  • @johnmikel5934
    @johnmikel59347 ай бұрын

    Fascinating and informative. Great new tool to bang against an HOA if we can only get the financial data! Thx

  • @Rabcpafirm

    @Rabcpafirm

    7 ай бұрын

    It is a great tool, use it all the time in our forensic practice.

  • @AlcyonEldara

    @AlcyonEldara

    5 ай бұрын

    This video is BS. The dataset is way too small to claim anything.

  • @johnmikel5934

    @johnmikel5934

    5 ай бұрын

    ​@@AlcyonEldara what size data set is required to provide tangible results?

  • @jnauttube
    @jnauttube3 жыл бұрын

    Is there any case where numbers were legitimate, or more accurately, fraud was not found where the histogram did not look like the model random distribution?

  • @Poopaduke112
    @Poopaduke1123 жыл бұрын

    2020 election!! I subbed, hoping to see this channel talk about 2020.

  • @keithhanson5808
    @keithhanson58083 жыл бұрын

    Distribution is the key . Like chicago . The way the make up is heavy blue districs go all at once it will spike numbers am I right ?

  • @synthwavesmatter8466
    @synthwavesmatter84663 жыл бұрын

    Good timing on this video.

  • @0x0404
    @0x04043 жыл бұрын

    Now as a hypothetical would some fraudster who knew of Benfords law be able to manipulate the data in such a way that it was still fraudulent but fell well within the law? Or is that sort of thing unmanageable like trying to keep track of a lie.

  • @MrZork33
    @MrZork333 жыл бұрын

    Thank you kind sir

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