That was extremely unsatisfying. Great simplification and overview... then skipped directly to a "conclusion"
Ya wtf!!
Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
11–20 of 25 posts
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#12Strange, can't connect to Https://thelott.com, that lottery website. If there has been a recent change in the rules, then it would give credence to the story. I did not see a comment yet on the post's website.
The introductory paragraph mentions that the specific lottery was discontinued.
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#13So let me get this straight..
$21k per play 5% chance winning = at LEAST 4m bankroll?
It’s still a fun read (except the ending) but that should’ve been near the top to separate casual readers vs imma-get-rich-by-applying-similar-method readers.
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#14The author lays out all the math and practical considerations and then…skips to the conclusion. Did he put it to the test? Seemingly not. And now that the methods are explained, there will likely be too many other people trying this to make any money from it. This article is essentially a white hat hacker disclosing a vulnerability.
The first paragraph seems to imply that they played this lottery for 6 until they (I guess) changed the rules in 2018.
Ah yes. I have a tendency of skipping the first paragraph to get to the meat of the story. Thanks for pointing it out!
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#15In the early years or Ireland's national lottery, a syndicate was opportunistically assembled (1992) to guarantee a lottery win and positive return on investment. They succeeded [1].
[1] https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/how-a-secret-syndicate...
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#16So let me get this straight.. $21k per play 5% chance winning = at LEAST 4m bankroll? It’s still a fun read (except the ending) but that should’ve been near the top to separate casual readers vs imma-get-rich-by-applying-similar-method readers.
No, because he also probably typically had hundreds of wins at lesser ranks, making the thing overall less spiky.
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#17The author lays out all the math and practical considerations and then…skips to the conclusion. Did he put it to the test? Seemingly not. And now that the methods are explained, there will likely be too many other people trying this to make any money from it. This article is essentially a white hat hacker disclosing a vulnerability.
He implied the buy-in was about 21k for one attempt with about 5-7% chance of winning. Mocking up some quick analysis for a blog is one thing, taking out a loan for 100k+ is quite another...
The guy was a trader in Singapore, odds are he didn't need a loan to spend 21k.
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#18The author lays out all the math and practical considerations and then…skips to the conclusion. Did he put it to the test? Seemingly not. And now that the methods are explained, there will likely be too many other people trying this to make any money from it. This article is essentially a white hat hacker disclosing a vulnerability.
He implied the buy-in was about 21k for one attempt with about 5-7% chance of winning. Mocking up some quick analysis for a blog is one thing, taking out a loan for 100k+ is quite another...
He also asked the question about citizenship to play the lottery which he never answered in this case. I wonder if at the least he was flying to Australia to purchase tickets.
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#19So let me get this straight.. $21k per play 5% chance winning = at LEAST 4m bankroll? It’s still a fun read (except the ending) but that should’ve been near the top to separate casual readers vs imma-get-rich-by-applying-similar-method readers.
400K, not 4MM
Re: Gaming the lottery: How one winner used math to overcome the odds
#20Not much payoff for the article. Did it work? But in a general lottery (random) it makes more sense to put $50 into a single lottery than $1 in 50 lotteries. That's the only way to improve your chances.
Wait, what?
If there's any chance at all that the lottery does not draw from an equiprobable distribution and some numbers are privileged - but you don't know what they are, it's best to spread your bets to increase the chance that you bet on the hot number by accident. This is true if a single number has any edge eps>0. Therefore you should almost always (with probability 1) spread your bets.