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Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

insideedition.com

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Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#21

Post by gwern »

> Although illegal, Bridgett said that “running numbers” wasn’t seen as bad within the black community. It allowed many black businesses to be funded, provided jobs, and helped many financially — her family included. “[The] NAACP, that really important black organization that's been around forever, they were funded in the early years by numbers men and women, that numbers money,” Bridgett said. “So it was circulating throughout the community and those dollars were turning over a lot. And that keeps a community thriving. Because you know if you hit the number and you have some extra money, maybe you'll go to Sarah's beauty shop and basically get your hair done a little more often.”

Classic broken windows fallacy. Everyone who lost would get their hair done a little less often at Sarah's beauty shop, and then you have the large cut which made it so profitable to run and expenses like bribes...

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#22

Post by threwawasy1228 »

dghughes wrote: post #10
Udo wrote: post #3

I had to look this up, because the article doesn't really explain it very well (maybe it's common knowledge, but not to me): it seems the numbers "drawn" were usually taken from a publicly verifiable source of randomness. In many cases that was apparently the last three digits of the number of bettors who participated at major race tracks that day, and that number was widely published. In that regard it seems a prett…

I used to work at a lottery Corp here in Canada. Years ago when speaking with the compliance officer we discussed one of the local draws (the lottery itself is national). The big "bingo machine" used has balls in it that are mixed then one falls out. The balls were locked in a safe between uses. In a locked room. In a building with security and many cameras. Each door had a door swipe with each user having specific s…

Can you go into what a 'security seal' on an EEPROM consists of? It is just a tamper resistant sticker or plastic of some sort?

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#23

Post by dmix »

Alinax wrote: post #11

Underground lottery has existed throughout history and continents, it is a form of gambling that has always been frowned upon by greater society, but accepted as a social thing between community members.

Lottery's are basically an extra poverty tax. That said, we've all basically accepted that concerned citizens know what's best for other people. Even if they really enjoy it, it's voluntary, and mostly harmless.

Instead of enforcing the bad actors people love to just straight up ban things like that. For their own good, etc.

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#24

Post by have_faith »

gwern wrote: post #21

> Although illegal, Bridgett said that “running numbers” wasn’t seen as bad within the black community. It allowed many black businesses to be funded, provided jobs, and helped many financially — her family included. “[The] NAACP, that really important black organization that's been around forever, they were funded in the early years by numbers men and women, that numbers money,” Bridgett said. “So it was circulating…

The numbers men seem have done a great job of branding themselves to the local communities.

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#25

Post by Spooky23 »

Udo wrote: post #12
dghughes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at a lottery Corp here in Canada. Years ago when speaking with the compliance officer we discussed one of the local draws (the lottery itself is national). The big "bingo machine" used has balls in it that are mixed then one falls out. The balls were locked in a safe between uses. In a locked room. In a building with security and many cameras. Each door had a door swipe with each user having specific s…

> Now imagine the rules and procedures of an underground lottery. That's what makes it so fascinating. The bingo ball machine concept you describe requires a lot of trust, that's why so much effort has to go into continuous verification. As resiliency goes, this isn't really a feature. The underground lottery is interesting precisely because it requires comparatively little trust, and the trust it does require is bas…

The difference is the numbers man works with the loan guy, and when you get in over your head, you get beat up.

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#26

Post by NauticalStu »

vkou wrote: post #20
brlewis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math behind "sensible bet" relies on the period of time between winnings being shorter than your lifetime. Unless you're buying a huge number of tickets, even the big jackpots aren't worth playing, except just for fun. Just for fun, you could take the money you'd spend on a lottery ticket and hand it to the next person you see, just to see how they react.

Ah, but even if the net EV is negative, it still makes sense to part with a bit of money that you won't care about, for a miniscule chance of receiving a life-changing amount of money. If you're not just barely scraping together, dropping $25 on a negative EV lottery is not going to make one whit of difference to your finances. But it might change your life. Dropping $25,000 on a positive EV lottery, on the other han…

Yeah I don't play the lottery, but I could justify buying a single lottery ticket despite understanding how horrific the odds are.

Since you'll almost certainly lose, I think the true value is in the fantasy of what you would do with a staggering amount of money. You could do this without buying a ticket, of course, but it feels more real when you have some skin in the game. Mathematically, your odds are still effectively zero, but mentally there's a big difference between effectively zero and actual zero.

Thinking of other consumables in that general price range that provide a short, quick fix of enjoyment (cup of coffee, snack, etc.), $1 for a slightly more vivid dream isn't so crazy to me.

Having said all this, I highly doubt it's the mentality of most lottery players.

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#27

Post by dghughes »

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #22
dghughes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at a lottery Corp here in Canada. Years ago when speaking with the compliance officer we discussed one of the local draws (the lottery itself is national). The big "bingo machine" used has balls in it that are mixed then one falls out. The balls were locked in a safe between uses. In a locked room. In a building with security and many cameras. Each door had a door swipe with each user having specific s…

Can you go into what a 'security seal' on an EEPROM consists of? It is just a tamper resistant sticker or plastic of some sort?

Where I worked a sticker was placed over whichever EEPROMs were held configuration information. Some places would seal any IC, EEPROM, PLCC whatever electronic component it was if it was removable it was sealed. Even the doors to the logic area were sealed and locked, then the key for that door locked and the door that opened to get to that door was also locked away in a locked lock box that needed a key singed out from Security which locked it in their lock box.

There are many types and methods of security seal. I've used double-layered stickers that show VOID when peeled off. There are plastic tags that have a heavy wire that you wrap around then seal inside the cap. The wire would have to be cut using a pair of wire cutters. Any type of security seal would have a serial number known to company auditors.

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#28

Post by logfromblammo »

Udo wrote: post #3

I had to look this up, because the article doesn't really explain it very well (maybe it's common knowledge, but not to me): it seems the numbers "drawn" were usually taken from a publicly verifiable source of randomness. In many cases that was apparently the last three digits of the number of bettors who participated at major race tracks that day, and that number was widely published. In that regard it seems a prett…

One of the numbers games in Kenosha used the Powerball multi-state lottery numbers as the source of randomness.

Each participant entered a bingo card of N numbers. Each regular number drawn in the regular Powerball results since the start of the game was marked as "hit". When all N of your numbers become "hit", you win. Then you meet a guy behind a bar at 3 AM, backed up by your beefiest brother-in-law, to receive a sack of cash, which was about 60% of what everyone put in at the start of the game.

The numbers guy tunes N to match game length to buy-in price and jackpot size, while also discouraging ties that would multiply the risk from the cash handoffs.

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#29

Post by kaopuheike »

gwern wrote: post #21

> Although illegal, Bridgett said that “running numbers” wasn’t seen as bad within the black community. It allowed many black businesses to be funded, provided jobs, and helped many financially — her family included. “[The] NAACP, that really important black organization that's been around forever, they were funded in the early years by numbers men and women, that numbers money,” Bridgett said. “So it was circulating…

Yeah weird the article didn't push back. Lotteries don't create wealth (except for the person running the lottery). If NAACP was funded by a tax on the innumerate and superstitious, well fine. That's how many states are run. But don't pretend its somehow virtuous.

Re: Running an Underground Lottery in Detroit

#30

Post by kaopuheike »

I suppose its better that a tax on the innumerate and superstitious gets collected by a community member who has some skin-in-the-game when it comes to the community's health, as opposed to outside organized crime or local government, who have an indifferent or outright hostile attitude towards the health of that community.
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