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Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

money.cnn.com

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Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#241

Post by syrrim »

leni536 wrote: post #203
syrrim wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a hard problem. In order to be provable, you have to be deterministic (i.e. you can't leave the RNG as a black box). However you can't let any individual (nor any conspiring individuals, think Sybil attacks) predict the result, nor have any control over the result (except perhaps to disqualify themselves).

What about this scheme? This week's random number is the concatenation of three cryptographic signatures of last week's random number. The three private keys are kept in different places on cryptographic tokens and they are guarded. Lottery numbers are drawn by a deterministic algorithm using the week's random number as seed. In the case of a compromise of a single private key it can be revoked and replaced by the si…

Presumably, the winner of the lottery will earn lots of money. As such, someone would be willing to spend lots of money in order to ensure they can win. They could therefore bribe the guards to give up the keys before bets are placed, and therefore know what to bet on.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#242

Post by syrrim »

aianus wrote: post #149
syrrim wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a hard problem. In order to be provable, you have to be deterministic (i.e. you can't leave the RNG as a black box). However you can't let any individual (nor any conspiring individuals, think Sybil attacks) predict the result, nor have any control over the result (except perhaps to disqualify themselves).

This was somewhat of a solved problem with sites like Satoshi Dice. They could still cheat but everyone would find out the next day and stop playing.

Satoshi Dice seems to solve the problem between two players. This is a much easier problem than 3 or more player. With 3 or more players, you have to worry about other players colluding with each other to increase their chances unfairly.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#243

Post by LeifCarrotson »

bluedino wrote: post #115

It is a bit amazing when you think that on average, there is a new millionaire (or even multi-millionaire) made by the different lotteries in the USA every day

I think it's even more amazing to consider that for every winner of a 1 million dollar prize, about 1.4 million dollars is taken from other people, mostly those who can't afford it. Not to mention that the winner will be subject to 25-75% taxation, depending on their state, whether they take the lump sum option, how they spend the money, etc.

It's even worse because the people who are most harmed by the psychology of the lottery - gambling addictions, insidious advertising, and false promises - are the most ardent supporters of it, because they are mislead to believe it gives them hope to get out of their poverty when really it only chains them more strongly to it.

It's shameful. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/lotteri...

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#244

Post by artur_makly »

ransom1538 wrote: post #53

Ok. Do these guys that commit white collar crime not know how a passport works? If you have millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts WHY are you in the US? Why are you buying estates and testing out a new bmwI8 and spilling champagne all over? Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? wtf. Even the guy running silk road was hanging out in SF now lives in a 4x6…

ironically John Macafee did the opposite and ran back to the US as a #1murder suspect and rapist : http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-documentary-gring...

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#245

Post by [deleted] »

shellbackground wrote: post #226
Mz wrote: post #77

So, have they not watched Die Hard ? The point made in that movie is that when you steal this many millions, they will find you -- unless they think you are already dead (thus, the plot to blow the building and look like they all died in the process). What were these fools thinking?

Using movies as basis for decision is even worse.

[deleted]

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#246

Post by heedlessly2 »

Swizec wrote: post #66
ransom1538 wrote: post #53

Ok. Do these guys that commit white collar crime not know how a passport works? If you have millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts WHY are you in the US? Why are you buying estates and testing out a new bmwI8 and spilling champagne all over? Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? wtf. Even the guy running silk road was hanging out in SF now lives in a 4x6…

> Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? Why don't people in poor countries just move to better countries? Why do people stay in the rust belt instead of moving to the coast? Why do people on the coast whine about rent instead of moving inland? Leaving everything you know is hard. To quote a famous quote > I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same pl…

because poor people in poor countries and those in the rust belt typically don't have millions to move

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#247

Post by heedlessly2 »

pessimizer wrote: post #65
jstanley wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes you wonder how many people do get away with things like this without anybody realising.

Most criminals get away with most crimes. 40% of murders go unsolved.

some deaths that are marked as accidents and suicides are actually murders

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#248

Post by nasredin »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #33
lazerpants wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a thought exercise, what do you think the minimum distance between the cheater and the payout would need to be in order to avoid detection?

at minimum a bacon number of 2

AKA Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#249

Post by thaumasiotes »

teddyh wrote: post #199
mrb wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn't how it works, because the expected value, in monetary terms, is negative... I once heard a statistics professor explaining he played the lottery. His reason? It was fun. Period. He said one may spend $10 on a movie ticket and be entertained for a few hours, but one would end up $10 poorer with 100% certainty. On the other hand when he spent $10 on a lottery ticket he was entertained for days just thinkin…

That sounds exactly like a smoker “explaining” why they smoke. They claim to enjoy it. In reality, of course, smokers only smoke because it makes them stop feeling the nicotine urge for a short while, i.e. they feel like a normal non-smoker person for a short while. Likewise, anyone could fantasize about getting a windfall of mountains of money from far likelier events, like an unknown relative willing their fortune…

> They claim to enjoy it. In reality, of course, smokers only smoke because it makes them stop feeling the nicotine urge for a short while

Using this model, it's difficult to explain where new smokers come from.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#250

Post by thaumasiotes »

froindt wrote: post #60
vertex-four wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh. A $1/week expense which buys you hope and dreams for a week isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things. It's certainly cheaper than cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs to temporarily take the stress out of the fact that you're in a long-term shitty situation with little way out of it. This concept that the poor should only ever work, eat, and sleep, and any attempt to look after their mental health is wasting money,…

> Ehh. A $1/week expense which buys you hope and dreams for a week isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things. The problem is that poor people aren't just dropping 1 dollar per week. They're spending much more. Some people have a very poor grasp of how bad the odds are and mention that playing the lottery is their way to retirement. Taking a convenient top link from a Google search (admittedly it references a study…

> they mention households earning 13k annually spending 645 (9% of income) on the lottery

It sounds like you're claiming that 645 is 9% of 13,000?

It could be 9% of their after-tax income, if you believed that households earning $13,000 paid 50% of it in taxes.

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