Explanation

The statisticians certainly hope to win the lottery and the change-direction trigger word even and the clue misguided signal that they are acting inappropriately, despite their knowledge.

You want words that mean increase. Mitigate and curtail make a good synonym pair that means to lessen, which is contrary to what you need. Squander is what the statisticians might do with the money after they win it and divulge, meaning to make known, does not make sense in context. Augment and escalate both mean to increase, and so choices (A) and (B) give you appropriate, equivalent sentences.

Hence options A and B are correct!
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