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Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

lotteryeverysecond.lffl.me

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Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#31

Post by AndrewOMartin »

The thing that annoys me most about the lottery is the tradeoff between risk and reward is so dumb as to become actually dangerous. The linked site says the Eurojackpot has a 1 in 139,838,160 chance of a jackpot and a payout of €10,000,000, where for most people a payout of €50k-€250k would be completely life changing and I expect there exist risky bets/gambles/investments which would give you that payout for much better odds.

Not to mention that once your winnings goes over a certain threshold the chance that you end up dead from bad choices or straight up murdered seems to skyrocket.

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#32

Post by tiffanyh »

What people often overlook about lottos is that for a few dollars, you’re buying the chance to dream about a better life.

And that dream lasts right up until you check the numbers.

That’s the part rational investors tend to miss … the power of dreaming.

And I’ll admit it - I play the lottery too, even though I already live a pretty comfortable life.

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#33

Post by pcchristie »

What would be cool is being able to enter a ticket price, and keep a running count of financials to show how underwater you are on a net basis.

Could also change the cadence for tallying purposes (so 1 second = 1 week/fortnight/month) to keep track of how many weeks, months or years one has been doing this for. But that might get depressing!

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#34

Post by parasti »

tiffanyh wrote: post #32

What people often overlook about lottos is that for a few dollars, you’re buying the chance to dream about a better life. And that dream lasts right up until you check the numbers. That’s the part rational investors tend to miss … the power of dreaming. And I’ll admit it - I play the lottery too, even though I already live a pretty comfortable life.

You're romanticizing, sadly. Every time I see someone scratching off numbers, I see a twisted industry exploiting human hopefulness and naivety. Dreaming costs nothing.

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#35

Post by Retric »

dangus wrote: post #17
Retric wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is fungible, every penny going from the lottery to X is a penny not taken from the general fund. Thus specific funds for X is only meaningful as a minimum funding amount.

This is technically true, but the end result is that if you abolish the lottery (unpopular) you have to raise taxes (even more unpopular) to replace lost revenue. Sin taxes work so well at plugging funding gaps specifically because they are optional.

That and they are taxing the poor and under educated who are least likely to complain.

Making things explicit such as stamping a “45% Tax” on lottery tickets really changes people’s perception. The Trump administration almost flipped out when Amazon considered explicitly adding tariffs to people’s checkout.

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#36

Post by SauntSolaire »

atroposDad wrote: post #11

I would be really curious to see the money side of this. I am not sure about Powerball, but with EuroJackpot, some of the smaller wins can cover the cost of the ticket (or even cover a holiday!). It would be really interesting to watch the expected value play out over repeated plays!! I am imagining a running balance where you keep track of total spend versus total returns. Most of the time the balance steadily goes…

Should also include a running tally for the total net profit taken in by the government (after payouts) across all expected ticket sales. That way you can watch your number going negative while the government's balloons up into billions.

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#37

Post by arthurstarlake »

AndrewOMartin wrote: post #31

The thing that annoys me most about the lottery is the tradeoff between risk and reward is so dumb as to become actually dangerous. The linked site says the Eurojackpot has a 1 in 139,838,160 chance of a jackpot and a payout of €10,000,000, where for most people a payout of €50k-€250k would be completely life changing and I expect there exist risky bets/gambles/investments which would give you that payout for much be…

wow, elegantly said, thanks!

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#38

Post by wpm »

parasti wrote: post #34
tiffanyh wrote: post #32

What people often overlook about lottos is that for a few dollars, you’re buying the chance to dream about a better life. And that dream lasts right up until you check the numbers. That’s the part rational investors tend to miss … the power of dreaming. And I’ll admit it - I play the lottery too, even though I already live a pretty comfortable life.

You're romanticizing, sadly. Every time I see someone scratching off numbers, I see a twisted industry exploiting human hopefulness and naivety. Dreaming costs nothing.

Scratch offs are a different beast than big games like the PowerBall

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#39

Post by henry2023 »

noman-land wrote: post #26

I think it would be interesting to have a version where the chosen numbers were the same every time. We all know the odds won't change but there are countless people who play the lottery this way. They have "their" numbers and they never deviate for fear that if they do, that's when "their" numbers would pop up and they'd miss out on the win.

It’s the same game. Betting on a pair when throwing two dice has the same likelihood than betting on a six when throwing one die.

Re: Show HN: Website that plays the lottery every second

#40

Post by p1dda »

lunaru wrote: post #2

I think people understand the odds are small. However, perhaps they perceive their chances of meaningfully turn around their life in other ways have even smaller odds. i.e. improbable vs actually impossible. At least the lottery doesn't care about your current circumstance and everyone has an equal (equally small) chance. Secondly, because everyone realizes the chances are small, the real product being sold is Hope.…

The odds are really small but so are the cost of playing
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