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A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

thehustle.co

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Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#51

Post by toast0 »

abnry wrote: post #33

I hate lotteries and gambling in general. Take from the hopeful, give to the lucky. And the house (almost) always wins. Yes, I have some respect for those who can game the system, because I like the house losing, but their winnings are still taken from the hopeful (or worse, the naive and stupid).

Even if you have an angle, the house still wins. If you buy all the possible tickets for a large progressive jackpot, it doesn't hurt the house at all. They get their commission on all those tickets, the jackpot money comes from the players, and the house has to pay out the required % one day or another.

Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#52

Post by trompetenaccoun »

abnry wrote: post #33

I hate lotteries and gambling in general. Take from the hopeful, give to the lucky. And the house (almost) always wins. Yes, I have some respect for those who can game the system, because I like the house losing, but their winnings are still taken from the hopeful (or worse, the naive and stupid).

That's why in most countries the government has the monopoly and no one else is allowed to run lotteries. It's like an opt-in tax with a gambling element, you can choose to give the government even more money and most likely won't get much in return.

Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#54

Post by amitport »

Stefan Mendel is a jew born during the Holocaust. He described how the economic state and ethnic persecution motivated him to find ways to raise the funds for getting his family out of Romania. He defines himself as Israeli-Australian that was born in Romania not as a "Romanian" as he is described in this article. A distinction that I believe is very important to him.

Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#55

Post by bruce343434 »

abwizz wrote: post #41
soneil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We call this "roll-over", when no-one wins so the pot accumulates. This week's draw doesn't need to be profitable, the overall scheme needs to be profitable. Say $2MM in tickets are sold, putting $1MM in the pot. And no-one wins. So next week, $2MM in tickets are sold, putting $1MM in the pot - which already contained $1MM from last week. Continue this over a few weeks. After 5 weeks you have $5MM in the pot - and an…

> Say $2MM in tickets are sold what do you think about the format: [scalar] [si-prefix] [unit]

2 megadollars? Sure, it still beats what my reading voice calls "mumums"

Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#56

Post by denton-scratch »

According to the article, the scheme depends on this seekrit algorithm for picking all the combinations, called "combinatorial condensation".

That term links to an article in Romanian, which I can't read. But honestly, why's it supposed to be hard to list all possible combinations of 6 of the first 50 integers? Isn't that the same as listing all 6-digit integers in base 50?

[Edit] ...Yeah, you also have to filter-out all those integers with repeated digits, but that hardly needs a super-seekrit algorithm.

Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#57

Post by euroderf »

soneil wrote: post #29
kulach wrote: post #21

Am I missing something here? Are these lotteries +EV in the first place? How does the lottery expect to make money if that is the case?

We call this "roll-over", when no-one wins so the pot accumulates. This week's draw doesn't need to be profitable, the overall scheme needs to be profitable. Say $2MM in tickets are sold, putting $1MM in the pot. And no-one wins. So next week, $2MM in tickets are sold, putting $1MM in the pot - which already contained $1MM from last week. Continue this over a few weeks. After 5 weeks you have $5MM in the pot - and an…

A problem here is that big jackpots increase participation, and this dilutes lower-tier prizes.

Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#58

Post by therealdrag0 »

ryandrake wrote: post #40
abnry wrote: post #33

I hate lotteries and gambling in general. Take from the hopeful, give to the lucky. And the house (almost) always wins. Yes, I have some respect for those who can game the system, because I like the house losing, but their winnings are still taken from the hopeful (or worse, the naive and stupid).

> I hate lotteries and gambling in general. Take from the hopeful, give to the lucky. Sorry, but you've just described the underpinnings of our current winner-take-most societal-wide economic systems. Every day, more and more of our systems are rooted in luck. Being born to the right family, getting into a prestigious university, getting a good job, timing the housing market, investing in the stock market, starting a…

Why is this more and more?

Re: A Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#60

Post by soneil »

abwizz wrote: post #41
soneil wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We call this "roll-over", when no-one wins so the pot accumulates. This week's draw doesn't need to be profitable, the overall scheme needs to be profitable. Say $2MM in tickets are sold, putting $1MM in the pot. And no-one wins. So next week, $2MM in tickets are sold, putting $1MM in the pot - which already contained $1MM from last week. Continue this over a few weeks. After 5 weeks you have $5MM in the pot - and an…

> Say $2MM in tickets are sold what do you think about the format: [scalar] [si-prefix] [unit]

Honestly, I prefer it. But for one reason or another, MM is the accepted suffix when dealing with money (it comes from mille in latin meaning thousand, not million.)
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