Couple wins millions using lottery loophole • Hacker News Board

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#181

Post by larrydag » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #143

larrydag wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally like the saying "the lottery is a tax on the innumerate"

Although it's a bit cruel because the "innumerate" are disproportionately poor. Lottery tickets may be driven more by despair and hope for an improbable escape than by innumeracy.

Innumeracy isn't about the poor. I know a lot of people who play the lottery especially when the prize is big.

My concern with the poor and the lottery is exploitative. It believe it is akin to a gambling addiction and a false hope. It is a government run institution that exacerbates a mental illness or exploiting a mental disability.

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#182

Post by beerdoggie » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

izzydata wrote: post #95

ptaipale wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere, people say they prefer lotteries where there are more prizes with smaller wins, instead of one winner with huge jackpot. But also everywhere, their actual bahaviour is that when there is one big jackpot, they bet more. And those who arrange lotteries do know their business.

That's probably true. They should try to educate people that if there are 250 times as many winners that your chances of winning a significant amount of money is much higher.

I know that this is true, but if you have a good blog post explaining these statistics i'd appreciate it!

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#183

Post by Bakary » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

izzydata wrote: post #95

ptaipale wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere, people say they prefer lotteries where there are more prizes with smaller wins, instead of one winner with huge jackpot. But also everywhere, their actual bahaviour is that when there is one big jackpot, they bet more. And those who arrange lotteries do know their business.

That's probably true. They should try to educate people that if there are 250 times as many winners that your chances of winning a significant amount of money is much higher.

The odds are low enough that multiplying by 250 doesn't make much of a difference.

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#184

Post by arisAlexis » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

arisAlexis wrote: post #113

bena wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Don't listen to what people say they will do, watch what they actually do.

marcus Aurelius

this forum is becoming very low in quality. someone downvoted my information about who said that

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#185

Post by CydeWeys » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 3:10 PM UTC

sigstoat wrote: post #157

CydeWeys wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's bought a few lottery tickets in his life, I can confirm that the fantasizing is in fact better when it's about something that could happen to you.

you could also just happen to find a winning lottery ticket on the street. the likelihoods of the two events are similar, and one fantasy is free.

The likelihood of the two events isn't at all similar. How often do you find discarded tickets for future drawings on the street?? You're much more likely to find one (or ten, or a hundred) if you buy them. Then once you're in possession of said tickets, now the odds of winning are the same.

Have you ever bought lottery tickets?

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#186

Post by OscarCunningham » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 8:26 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #185

sigstoat wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could also just happen to find a winning lottery ticket on the street. the likelihoods of the two events are similar, and one fantasy is free.

The likelihood of the two events isn't at all similar. How often do you find discarded tickets for future drawings on the street?? You're much more likely to find one (or ten, or a hundred) if you buy them. Then once you're in possession of said tickets, now the odds of winning are the same. Have you ever bought lottery tickets?

The probabilities differ by less than 0.0000001.

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#187

Post by bena » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

arisAlexis wrote: post #184

arisAlexis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

marcus Aurelius

this forum is becoming very low in quality. someone downvoted my information about who said that

I think the issue might be that it's a common enough thought that attribution isn't important as multiple people could have derived that independently and that simply attributing where a paraphrased quote comes from without any other commentary is in itself low quality.

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#188

Post by sigstoat » Tue, Jun 11, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #185

sigstoat wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could also just happen to find a winning lottery ticket on the street. the likelihoods of the two events are similar, and one fantasy is free.

The likelihood of the two events isn't at all similar. How often do you find discarded tickets for future drawings on the street?? You're much more likely to find one (or ten, or a hundred) if you buy them. Then once you're in possession of said tickets, now the odds of winning are the same. Have you ever bought lottery tickets?

> The likelihood of the two events isn't at all similar.

1e-9 and 1e-100 should both round to 0.

and since people spend all sorts of time imagining things with likelihood _0_ (or downright counterfactual!), 1e-100 should be plenty to get you rolling.

> How often do you find discarded tickets for future drawings on the street??

you're already fantasizing a wildly improbable chains of events (buy ticket, win max amount, and then, unlike a huge number of winners avoid having your entire life ruined by it), but imagining finding a piece of paper on the street is a step too far?

and if "found it on the street" is _really_ the problem, you could always choose to fantasize that someone gives you a ticket, or even just pretend that you purchased a ticket. (that's hardly improbable, after all.)

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#189

Post by lukeholder » Wed, Jun 12, 2019, 1:40 AM UTC

vonzeppelin wrote: post #90

wvenable wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason they don't do that is marketing; more people play for big jackpot. I think even saying there might 250 $1 million winners this week isn't as big of an enticement.

When the jackpot reached a certain amount, say 500 million, they could switch from a winner takes all to essentially a raffle with 500 winners. I think it would greatly increase the number of tickets purchased when the threshold was met.

This is what the windfall game in the article did. They were smart enough to buy as many tickets as possible during this raffle.

Re: Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

#190

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

sigstoat wrote: post #188

CydeWeys wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likelihood of the two events isn't at all similar. How often do you find discarded tickets for future drawings on the street?? You're much more likely to find one (or ten, or a hundred) if you buy them. Then once you're in possession of said tickets, now the odds of winning are the same. Have you ever bought lottery tickets?

> The likelihood of the two events isn't at all similar. 1e-9 and 1e-100 should both round to 0. and since people spend all sorts of time imagining things with likelihood _0_ (or downright counterfactual!), 1e-100 should be plenty to get you rolling. > How often do you find discarded tickets for future drawings on the street?? you're already fantasizing a wildly improbable chains of events (buy ticket, win max amount…

It sounds like you fundamentally just don't understand the psychology of people who buy lottery tickets.

That's fine, then don't buy them yourself, but it makes no sense to argue against other people's actual experienced feelings and thoughts. You can't use logic to "win" this.