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Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

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Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#21

Post by nullflux »

nullflux wrote: post #19

You're making the (probably) false assumption that your lottery is as broken as the Ontario one. I question your detachment if you are calling gambling an "investment" at all. If you want to win at probability games, look at what any professional gambler does and stick your money down only when you can prove or reasonably expect to see a positive expected value given your odds. That's how basic strategy in blackjack…

Also: Can we really call this a "regressive tax" like the Wired article states? There is no obligation to play the game. You are obligated to pay taxes.

Numbers games (lotteries) are run by governments now because organized crime was running them in inner cities. People still played then. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game At least the "tax" from lottery proceeds often goes to benefit social goods like public school systems.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#22

Post by Someone »

refurb wrote: post #17
pron wrote: post #14

There's another story you have to read: The luckiest woman on earth: Three ways to win the lottery ( http://harpers.org/archive/2011/08/0083561 ). It's for subscribers only, but it's far more interesting than the Jonah Lehrer piece. It's about a woman who's won the lottery (scratch tickets) 3 or 4 times, winning millions each time. It's been a while since I read it, but as far as I recall, one of the hypotheses about…

There is something to this. I had to do some training years ago at Alberta Lottery in Canada. Scratch tickets are sold in blocks of $100 (100 x $1, 50 x $2, etc). We were told that each pack contains at least one winning ticket (it might be $5 or it might be $100K). That's a definite weakness.

Are you considering doing card counting (enter a shop, watch people buy and scratch cards, and start buying after a large streak of non-winning cards)?

Otherwise, I do not see what that information (if it is true) would give you.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#23

Post by catshirt »

Someone wrote: post #22
refurb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something to this. I had to do some training years ago at Alberta Lottery in Canada. Scratch tickets are sold in blocks of $100 (100 x $1, 50 x $2, etc). We were told that each pack contains at least one winning ticket (it might be $5 or it might be $100K). That's a definite weakness.

Are you considering doing card counting (enter a shop, watch people buy and scratch cards, and start buying after a large streak of non-winning cards)? Otherwise, I do not see what that information (if it is true) would give you.

i believe the point is that the there is a pattern to the distribution. we can only safely assume the pattern is on a micro level, but it would suggest there are larger patterns at play.

for instance, is it possible to ship 5 rolls with million dollar winnings to the same store in a week? maybe the answer is yes, but i imagine there's a reason to prevent this. in case it's not clear i am just guessing. i don't really know what i'm talking about.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#24

Post by [deleted] »

shocks wrote: post #16

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/broken-lotteries/ Here's a great article on lotteries, particularly Cash Winfall. CWF was a particularly broken lottery. In a certain season it was possible to purchase enough tickets (say, $100,000 worth) to (almost) guarantee a profit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Lottery#Cash_Win...

[deleted]

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#25

Post by EvanKelly »

shocks wrote: post #16

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/broken-lotteries/ Here's a great article on lotteries, particularly Cash Winfall. CWF was a particularly broken lottery. In a certain season it was possible to purchase enough tickets (say, $100,000 worth) to (almost) guarantee a profit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Lottery#Cash_Win...

If I remember that article correctly, I think it's arguable as to whether the lottery was "broken". The lottery commission was aware about the increased odds, but they created a higher odds game due to user feedback. Massachusetts still made money off of the game (though a smaller margin than other games).

I would argue that a lottery's goal is to make money while providing entertainment, and not necessarily create an "unbeatable" game.

The game was shut down because public outcry at what the public deemed "unfair" and not because it was losing money.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#26

Post by Reversed »

There is definitely a pattern to the winning tickets in pa lotto scratchers. For example, one of the $1 tickets yields 3-4 winners in every 10. The problem is the winners are usually free ticket, $1 and $5 with the latter being more rare. According to the articles I've read, the more expensive scratchers are the big winners. I once won $25 with one of these, but you've got to have a couple hundred dollars to invest in the big tickets and I don't have that.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#27

Post by nooop »

In france some lotteries are broken since forever [1], "everybody" knows it, and nobody cares. Friends of bar tenants gets the gains. "La française des jeux" get the overall gains. The general public is generally fucked more than it should.

[1] tickets are not random but comes in batch with nearly constant amount of various outcomes: the seller, who you tipically ask for your gain, can take note of what happened in each batch and predict if its remaining part is worth being buyed by a friend. Very easy.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#28

Post by nooop »

starfox wrote: post #7

People who design these games think about security. Sometimes (rarely) exploits get unnoticed and go into production. I'm confused about why we are supposed to believe that there is anything exploitable about this particular card?

Look at all the horror stories of badly written programs or moronic CEO or things like that.

The other parts of the world are fucked up as well. There are probably a lot of "secure" lotteries, but there are probably also a lot of insecure ones.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#29

Post by peter_l_downs »

joshmlewis wrote: post #8

Well, there's definitely some that aren't perfect. But how many and which? That's for guys like you to find out. There are professional "cashers" that have figured out how to hack a small percentile of games in MA. They take advantage of a few things, but if you have $100k you are guaranteed to make a profit. Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/broken-lotteries/ Now this guy is a trained statistician fr…

I remember reading the second wired article in print. I highly recommend it — interesting story, good writing.

Re: Help me Hack the Lottery or, the worst $90 investment ever

#30

Post by gibybo »

Someone wrote: post #22
refurb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something to this. I had to do some training years ago at Alberta Lottery in Canada. Scratch tickets are sold in blocks of $100 (100 x $1, 50 x $2, etc). We were told that each pack contains at least one winning ticket (it might be $5 or it might be $100K). That's a definite weakness.

Are you considering doing card counting (enter a shop, watch people buy and scratch cards, and start buying after a large streak of non-winning cards)? Otherwise, I do not see what that information (if it is true) would give you.

that would definitely be an effective way to exploit the weakness, and if the value of your time is low enough, it would be profitable. A slightly more efficient way to exploit it would be to have the shop owner as a friend and have them tell you when a large non-winning streak has occurred.
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