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Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

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Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#101

Post by malbs »

KingMob wrote: post #84
aus_ wrote: post #47

Free YC 2016 application: Build website to crowdsource $292,201,338. Buy all the lotto tickets. Pay back investors 150% of their investment. Make ~ $69.5M. (assuming lotto tickets are a $1) (someone else can figure out the break even point after taxes)

Something like this happened in Virginia in early 1992. At a certain point, the jackpot/(cost of buying all numbers) ratio was high enough that an Australian business group swooped in, hiring volunteers to purchase as many tickets as possible. They only managed to cover 5 million out of 7 million possibilities (ran out of time), but they still won the lottery, winning a $27 mil jackpot.

It's a genuine scalability problem when you have to work out how to physically print/place that many tickets, and the mechanism by which you distribute the jobs up to all of your volunteers (are they volunteers if they're being paid?)

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#102

Post by redcalculator »

jaynos wrote: post #68
jdhawk wrote: post #43

Buy a $2 ticket for entertainment, not "investment." Spend 10 minutes imagining what you'd do with $496M. It might be fun.

Join lottery pool at work. Might lose $2, but won't have to kill myself if everyone at the office wins and I have to show up everyday remembering that fact.

I find that it's more enjoyable to not join the pool and then buy myself a lunch when the participants inevitably lose. I make sure that everyone knows that it's a celebratory lunch. And then I wonder why I don't have any friends.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#103

Post by dlib »

aus_ wrote: post #47

Free YC 2016 application: Build website to crowdsource $292,201,338. Buy all the lotto tickets. Pay back investors 150% of their investment. Make ~ $69.5M. (assuming lotto tickets are a $1) (someone else can figure out the break even point after taxes)

Famously, something akin to this was done by Voltaire in 1729 (including the crowdsourcing). See https://books.google.com/books?id=BBusxgu8-AAC&lpg=PA259&vq=...

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#105

Post by pc86 »

codazoda wrote: post #70

I started with their $100 "gift", then moved to a paycheck, then to my annual salary. By the time I was in that deep I decided what the heck and got a second mortgage on my house. TIL I have a gambling problem.

Don't worry, your luck is bound to turn around. Any day now.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#106

Post by meric »

jbondeson wrote: post #48
mmanfrin wrote: post #36

Question: With a jackpot of $800mil and the chances of winning 1 in ~300mil, could you not buy 300mil tickets? (Excepting, of course, the risk that someone else wins and the cost of taxes).

The cash payout is ~$500 million, and after taxes you may end up with $309 million. So, yeah, probably not a winning strategy.

If you operated it as a business the lottery tickets are tax-deductible, so no taxes.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#107

Post by mulmen »

worried_citizen wrote: post #76

I recently purchased a OneRNG trng and decided to give it a chance at guessing the right number with its quantum-noise super powers. Reading from it overnight produced 24 million guesses and no winner. Though several were just one number off. Too bad so sad. I'm really curious what RNG the registers use when people say "let the computer guess for me". I'm pretty sure they don't all have a TRNG installed on the circui…

Is there reason to believe that a TRNG would somehow select numbers with a better chance of winning than any other method?

I can see the method impacting the number of dollars you win but surely any valid set of numbers has the same chance to win as any other.

It's not like your TRNG is actually emulating the behavior of the balls in the machine.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#108

Post by pc86 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #54
aus_ wrote: post #47

Free YC 2016 application: Build website to crowdsource $292,201,338. Buy all the lotto tickets. Pay back investors 150% of their investment. Make ~ $69.5M. (assuming lotto tickets are a $1) (someone else can figure out the break even point after taxes)

Don't forget the risk that there may be multiple winners, which would require splitting the jackpot.

It's not called Venture Capital for nothing.

Re: Here’s $100. Can you win $800M at Powerball?

#110

Post by pc86 »

pcmaffey wrote: post #90
guelo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The odds of succeeding at a startup are a lot better than 292 million to 1. 2. You get a paycheck, even if it's less than market rate. 3. It's fun and exciting to use someone else's money to try to come up with a new business type.

4. You're much more likely to learn and grow professionally tackling problems you likely wouldn't otherwise face (or at least at a higher rate).

4A. Buying a $2 lottery ticket is faster.
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