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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

#41

Post by strken »

andrerpena wrote: post #16
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.…

I think: 1) Like you said, people are buying hope. 2) People cannot fathom this degree of improbability. So, the fact that it's at least possible overrides the near-impossibility of it. 3) There is some aspect of entertainment and social-interaction to it. It's a bit like watching sports. Who you're cheering for is irrelevant, and whoever wins doesn't change your life in any way, but still, we watch it.

The social aspect is real. The only time I've seen anyone in my family buy a lottery ticket was when one of the jackpots got big enough to become headline news. Mum bought a ticket just to be able to talk about it (and had a chat to us about probability and gambling).

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

#42

Post by noAnswer »

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…

Well there are lotteries with lower payout and "a better chance".

...but anyway, are you really arguing that rich people live way more dangerous?

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

#44

Post by whoknowsidont »

amelius wrote: post #12
Waterluvian wrote: post #7

What I love about this is how it demonstrates that the waiting is the most powerful part. That week is where a lotto user’s brain does all the work for the lotto corp. The anticipation! The excitement. What if? Oh let’s daydream! Oh the dopamine! You don’t even have to sell them hope. Just sell them the sensation of hope.

Hope is a pretty good thing to have, though. And it's one of the few things many people actually _can_ have. Therefore maybe lotteries aren't so bad after all even if nobody ever wins, and posts like this are actually bad.

This is a pretty dipshit take.

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

#45

Post by alfabeta »

Insightful. Similar to worldometers.info. Reminds me of VSauce’s mind blowing YouTube video visualizing how big 52 factorial is.

A useful statistic to include is the probability of becoming a successful business owner, or better yet, the probability of getting a job that pays an annual salary of 200k, 1mil. etc. Maybe that will inspire people to dream more practically.

Another insightful feature would be to emulate playing at the rate of real life (approx. tickets per second in real life).

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

#46

Post by fragmede »

wpm wrote: post #38
parasti wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Gambling addiction is such a crippling disease. There should be accredited gambling laws so people can't gamble what they don't have.

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

#48

Post by slfreference »

thrownato wrote: post #22

I think for most people, they just think _someone_ will win eventually and you can't win if you don't play, so why not part with some (hopefully) disposable income that could turn their entire life around.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jun/17/can-you...

"Lottery-like" mechanisms for selling homes exist in the UK as "prize competitions" or "house raffles", which operate under specific legal rules to avoid being classified as illegal lotteries. This method gained significant news coverage, particularly a high-profile case in 2017, and has become a growing trend.

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