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Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

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Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#91

Post by jaypaulynice »

gboudrias wrote: post #16
romeopov wrote: post #15

Has anyone considered some of these people might be psychic? Professor Daryl Bem's published study "Feeling the Future" comes to mind.

You're being serious? I don't mean to be overly hostile, but the implications would be world-shattering and the "mundane" explanation is quite sufficient. Also lottery-winning psychics wouldn't get caught.

It is absolutely possible to influence an outcome based on thoughts. There are countless studies on this effect. Psychics in that sense don't foresee the future, they influence the outcome of the future. For example, the most common way to know what someone is thinking is for them to tell you, but I believe thoughts have another medium of transfer which is not well understood yet. Think about wavelength, radio frequencies, etc. Just because you can't see/touch it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Btw try this: close your nose and mouth and think about something, you'll realize that you're kind of talking/transferring your thoughts in the air.

Here is a good link "Scientists Transmit Thoughts from one Brain to Another": http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/scientists-transmit-thought...

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#92

Post by kbutler »

thret wrote: post #49
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.

I'm not too sure about people who are winning scratchies or state lotteries, but there is a fairly well-regulated black market among high-stakes gamblers for losing horse-racing (etc.) tickets. You use them to lay off other winnings so that you don't pay tax. I imagine people looking to wash money also have a market for winning tickets. It's kind of perverse that Americans pay taxes on gambling AT ALL. The rake is al…

Lots of things are taxed in multiple ways. Income tax and sales tax, or employee and employer FICA for instance.

The tax structure should generally be simpler, but choosing to tax or not tax particular activities is hardly criminal, especially if the intent is to reduce the attractiveness of those activities (tobacco and alcohol come to mind, in addition to gambling)

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#93

Post by cyberferret »

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…

Re: Gaming the system - I am not 100% sure, but the basic lottery is picking 7 numbers from a total of 45 that are drawn each week.

Those normal games are around $15-$20. However, you can buy 'System' entries in the games where you can pick 8, 9 or 10 numbers in a game. That obviously increases your chances of winning, but become increasingly expensive. I believe buying a 10 number system in a game is something in the order of $5000 or similar?

I know there are sites that show lottery draw numbers picked going back many decades. Coin toss theory aside, I am assuming that if someone was to analyse all those numbers and do a statistical probability analysis of the frequency of all 45 numbers, they could form a basic idea of what numbers would likely come up? Combine that with a group of large system entries which increases your chance of winning, and it may be worthwhile.

Like I said above, we are talking six figure sums of money here. If it was just a rich addict without any pattern, then I would expect to see lots of outgoings, but no winnings, however, the winnings with these particular customers seems to be on par with their spending, on a totally random draw, which seems to indicate to me that they have worked out a way to bring up their win/loss ration to at least equivalence, and tipped slightly in their favour.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#94

Post by Noumenon72 »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #78
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 inco…

It makes sense that the lottery would have "whales" just like any other game. I wonder what percent of the revenue people like you are.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#95

Post by ringaroundthetx »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #94
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 inco…

It makes sense that the lottery would have "whales" just like any other game. I wonder what percent of the revenue people like you are.

Yeah I've seen some papers on it. I would not consider myself a whale, just someone that rationally plays it and is privileged that my portion of income used on the game is not detrimental to my well being. The poor spend likely comparable amounts of money on it, but percentage wise it is harmful.

Most money games depend on the whales, and there is a depressing underbelly to that aspect of it as well.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#96

Post by ringaroundthetx »

e59d134d wrote: post #80
ringaroundthetx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

and he is also paranoid about it and conflating several concepts

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#97

Post by grkvlt »

jmharvey wrote: post #11

It's too bad the article doesn't go in more depth. There are a few plausible explanations for why people claim an unusually high number of prizes: 1) Someone is buying a huge number of tickets, and just winning proportional to the amount that they spend. 2) Someone is a "10 percenter." They buy winning tickets at a discount to the prize amount, collect losing tickets that they didn't actually buy, and commit blatant…

Surely 1a) Someone is buying a nominal amount of tickets and actually is lucky, is also an option? Yes, statistics says that on average they must spend >> some amount to have some chance of winning, there is still the fact that no matter how small the probability of winning, someone still wins...

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#98

Post by fergie »

detritus wrote: post #64
fergie wrote: post #14

Years ago I had a friend who's father made a living smuggling cigarettes (and probably other stuff) from Northern Africa to Gibraltar. He laundered his income by buying winning lottery tickets.

Are you sure it wasn't hashish from Morocco to Gibraltar, along with cigarettes from Gibraltar to Spain on the side? That was the general thing going on back in the 80s and 90s when all the cool dads had their own inflatable launch :)

This was the 80s-90s, and it could well have been as you say.

Re: Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners

#99

Post by fergie »

Too wrote: post #29
fergie wrote: post #14

Years ago I had a friend who's father made a living smuggling cigarettes (and probably other stuff) from Northern Africa to Gibraltar. He laundered his income by buying winning lottery tickets.

Where would one find sellers of winning lottery tickets? You must either be a store clerk or wait outside for people to cash them in?

The extended family put the word out and people came to them. Presumably they paid a fee so that winners would get a larger payout.
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