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Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

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Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#71

Post by lordnacho »

praptak wrote: post #53
cyberferret wrote: post #51

I can't say too much, because they are a current client of mine, but I've been doing work with a wholesaler for one of the biggest lotteries here in my country, and they seem to have a LOT of customers who bulk buy lottery tickets in what seems to be patterns. I am talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of lottery tickets per week. Their winning are also along those lines. I don't know about the industry, but these…

I don't believe that odds in favor of a player happen in lotteries, except for rare 'bugs' in the game design, which are fixed as soon as the organizer spots them. A more probable explanation are addicts or money laundering.

> I don't believe that odds in favor of a player happen in lotteries, except for rare 'bugs' in the game design, which are fixed as soon as the organizer spots them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183070/MIT-maths-ge...

If the game is badly designed, some smart cookie will find out and exploit it.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#72

Post by js2 »

jimhefferon wrote: post #43

I don't see that anyone has yet referenced this article. https://www.wired.com/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/1 It explains how to win (an old lotto), and more importantly why there is a way to win.

Yup, also:

"Lottery legend Joan Ginther bet flabbergasting sums on scratch-offs" (2014)

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/Lotterys_luck...

And:

"How MIT Students Won $8 Million in the Massachusetts Lottery" (2012)

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/07/how-mit-students-scammed...

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#73

Post by icebraining »

quuquuquu wrote: post #36
Too wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah? Where would one find genuine winners? It's not like there's an open market for this, and since winners are random people they are unlikely to be aware of black markets. Paying them a premium is obvious.

Paying them a premium is not precisely accurate. A $100,000 lottery ticket would in the US involve 30-45k in taxes for an unmarried person. So I bet it would probably sell for around $75,000 cash up front, which is a decrease from the sticker price. But if I was the winner, I would treat it as extremely shady and probably just go the legit route for almost any price. The US banking system easily detects large cash de…

Couldn't you use a safe deposit box?

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#74

Post by aerovistae »

In the book "Ringworld," an excellent work of science fiction that inspired the setting of the Halo franchise, there is a character who was bred for luck (as though it were a genetic trait) via a birthright lottery. The reasoning was that those who won would be luckiest, and she was the descendant of 6 straight generations of birthright lottery winners. The character is impossibly lucky all the time.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#75

Post by ringaroundthetx »

quuquuquu wrote: post #36
Too wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah? Where would one find genuine winners? It's not like there's an open market for this, and since winners are random people they are unlikely to be aware of black markets. Paying them a premium is obvious.

Paying them a premium is not precisely accurate. A $100,000 lottery ticket would in the US involve 30-45k in taxes for an unmarried person. So I bet it would probably sell for around $75,000 cash up front, which is a decrease from the sticker price. But if I was the winner, I would treat it as extremely shady and probably just go the legit route for almost any price. The US banking system easily detects large cash de…

> The US banking system easily detects large cash deposits under 10k even into bank accounts, and then confiscates the money.

so you are conflating two concepts because first you are depositing $75,000 in this example.

and no they don't confiscate it just because of that, they will freeze it because of your poor explanation.

and if your explanation still sucks, the bank will unfreeze it and give you your money but close your account.

it will appear confiscated if you can't accept your account being frozen and argue the point, which will only raise more flags from more people in the institution.

but if your explanation was good, and by good I mean generic, then you won't encounter any problems.

the deposits over $10,000 will be reported to the government, but then its just the government's problem, and if the transaction wasn't actually problematic then you don't have a problem.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#76

Post by jaclaz »

On other news, most probably Mr. Philip Stark ( a statistician at the University of California, Berkeley):

http://www.pennlive.com/watchdog/2017/09/defying_the_odds_ma...

calculated to be implausible that on Hacker News he would be nominated by someone in a same post with the quote from the Simpsons "Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that.".

Yet it just happened.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#77

Post by ringaroundthetx »

wonderous wrote: post #67

Maybe their research should have also included a Google search of the statistical unusual winners name in quotes plus the state name plus Lottery winner: For example, the most winning lottery winner in America was covered by the Boston Globe in 2011: http://archive.boston.com/business/articles/2011/11/05/frequ... [1] He's been on the radar as a ticket cashier since at least 1999 and has been getting an IRS refund for…

How does he do that? The IRS allows you to deduct up to the amount of your gambling winnings, so you wouldn't get a refund, unless the state was automatically withholding some of his winnings.

There is also the possibility that he set up a company that only engages in gambling, so it can have a Net Operating Loss year over year.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#78

Post by ringaroundthetx »

cyberferret wrote: post #34

Persistence might be key? Some people may be addicted to gambling with lottery tickets, or may just buy more than others in the same area. I remember once early in my IT career, I was doing work for the local government agency that was responsible for issuing all the 'scratch the ticket and find 3 matching symbols' lottery games in our state. They used to sell the tickets at the front counter of the agency office as…

> Persistence might be key? Some people may be addicted to gambling with lottery tickets, or may just buy more than others in the same area.

For example, I relish in the fact that I'm not poor enough to feel taxed by it. By simply having a lot of more money than people on the other side of the bell curve, I can buy more tickets, and roll the winning tickets into more purchases of tickets. Or use some of the free income from dividends or bond coupons to buy lottery tickets for giggles, all while other people parrot the "tax on the stupid/poor" mantra.

The amount of money scales and it also doesn't matter.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#79

Post by cpeterso »

aerovistae wrote: post #74

In the book "Ringworld," an excellent work of science fiction that inspired the setting of the Halo franchise, there is a character who was bred for luck (as though it were a genetic trait) via a birthright lottery. The reasoning was that those who won would be luckiest, and she was the descendant of 6 straight generations of birthright lottery winners. The character is impossibly lucky all the time.

Intacto is a Spanish film about people who can steal other people's luck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intacto

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#80

Post by e59d134d »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #75
quuquuquu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying them a premium is not precisely accurate. A $100,000 lottery ticket would in the US involve 30-45k in taxes for an unmarried person. So I bet it would probably sell for around $75,000 cash up front, which is a decrease from the sticker price. But if I was the winner, I would treat it as extremely shady and probably just go the legit route for almost any price. The US banking system easily detects large cash de…

> The US banking system easily detects large cash deposits under 10k even into bank accounts, and then confiscates the money. so you are conflating two concepts because first you are depositing $75,000 in this example. and no they don't confiscate it just because of that, they will freeze it because of your poor explanation. and if your explanation still sucks, the bank will unfreeze it and give you your money but cl…

He is probably talking about Asset Seizure by government for unexplained income.
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