Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

Post by stavros » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 12:24 PM UTC

lunaru wrote: post #2

I think people understand the odds are small. However, perhaps they perceive their chances of meaningfully turn around their life in other ways have even smaller odds. i.e. improbable vs actually impossible. At least the lottery doesn't care about your current circumstance and everyone has an equal (equally small) chance. Secondly, because everyone realizes the chances are small, the real product being sold is Hope.…

Post by stavros » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 12:32 PM UTC

hdgvhicv wrote: post #101

architectonic wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and another that uses a fixed ridiculous combination like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. This is my favorite way for bringing the odds nearer to mind.

When the U.K. lottery launched you picked 6 from 49. The prizes were shared amongst everyone If the prize pot was say £10m, 4 winners would get £2.5m each. I suspect that the hunebr of people choosing 123456 would be far higher than choosing 6 random numbers. Thus in the event your numbers did come up, you would get far less winning than someone who had the same odds but chose say 13 22 32 35 40 42

Post by AndrewOMartin » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 12:38 PM UTC

noAnswer wrote: post #42

AndrewOMartin wrote: post #31

The thing that annoys me most about the lottery is the tradeoff between risk and reward is so dumb as to become actually dangerous. The linked site says the Eurojackpot has a 1 in 139,838,160 chance of a jackpot and a payout of €10,000,000, where for most people a payout of €50k-€250k would be completely life changing and I expect there exist risky bets/gambles/investments which would give you that payout for much be…

Well there are lotteries with lower payout and "a better chance". ...but anyway, are you really arguing that rich people live way more dangerous?

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 12:40 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #116

slfreference wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jun/17/can-you... "Lottery-like" mechanisms for selling homes exist in the UK as "prize competitions" or "house raffles", which operate under specific legal rules to avoid being classified as illegal lotteries. This method gained significant news coverage, particularly a high-profile case in 2017, and has become a growing trend.

[deleted]

Post by stavros » Sat, Jan 03, 2026, 12:56 PM UTC

staindk wrote: post #112

stavros wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'll grant you that. But then explain this: Why is it that, whenever I tell people who are about to play the lottery, to pick the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, they say "that's crazy, the numbers will never come out in a row like that"? Until someone says "you know what, what the hell, that's as good a pick as any", I'm going to go with "they don't know how small the odds are".

If 1 through 6 are drawn you'd probably have to share your winnings with many more people than most other combinations.