How could you possibly believe you would get away with something like this.
People overestimate over estimate possible improbable odds and underestimate near certain odds. Much the same way the mental processes enjoy playing the lottery. See Possibility Effect, Certainty Effect
Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
11–20 of 261 posts
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#12How could you possibly believe you would get away with something like this.
Really makes you wonder how many moderately intelligent people out there are successfully running schemes like this and just never arouse suspicion.
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#13Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#14> "It's difficult even saying that with all the people that I know behind me that I hurt." It is interesting to think about who he considers he hurt. The potential winners who relied on lottery winning to secure a future for their families? The lottery workers? He is a criminal surely, but isn't the whole lottery system a tax on lack of education and it just gives false hope to people and encourages gambling. He redu…
Lotto in Illinois was introduced as a way to help pay for public education. You can guess how that ended up... hell, they were not even paying the winners for a while (maybe they still are not).
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#15> "It's difficult even saying that with all the people that I know behind me that I hurt." It is interesting to think about who he considers he hurt. The potential winners who relied on lottery winning to secure a future for their families? The lottery workers? He is a criminal surely, but isn't the whole lottery system a tax on lack of education and it just gives false hope to people and encourages gambling. He redu…
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#16.
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#17> "It's difficult even saying that with all the people that I know behind me that I hurt." It is interesting to think about who he considers he hurt. The potential winners who relied on lottery winning to secure a future for their families? The lottery workers? He is a criminal surely, but isn't the whole lottery system a tax on lack of education and it just gives false hope to people and encourages gambling. He redu…
I hear this a lot, but I think people know what a longshot is.
Is this so much more stupid than throwing your money away on useless consumer junk?
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#18How could you possibly believe you would get away with something like this.
He started in 2005 and the investigation started in 2015, so he did get away with it for 10 years. He probably could have won a few, stopped, and gotten away with it if he'd been less greedy. The code was clever, generating predictable numbers on a few particular days of the year. And it must have been subtle, to survive 10 years of nobody else noticing.
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#19Well at least he didn't sell drugs.
Slightly relevant story: A few years ago I was visiting China and my colleagues there were discussing a city official who had just been found guilty of embezzling tens of millions of dollars from the local government (which is more or less what this guy did). Me: "How much time did he get?" Them: "Three days." Me: "In prison?" Them: "To live."
Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison
#20> "It's difficult even saying that with all the people that I know behind me that I hurt." It is interesting to think about who he considers he hurt. The potential winners who relied on lottery winning to secure a future for their families? The lottery workers? He is a criminal surely, but isn't the whole lottery system a tax on lack of education and it just gives false hope to people and encourages gambling. He redu…
If anything, it's a tax on intensity of endorphin rushes.
Aside from people who buy them for "fair" reasons, like... the "joke" factor, for example.