A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery • Hacker News Board

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#71

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 1:45 AM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #36

It seems strange to me that any lottery would ever let itself get an EV > 1.

Well it also has to do oddly with 'fairness'. If the pool never grows from failures they are more likely to suspect that it is 'rigged' against them instead of merely being unlucky. But if the pool growth is fixed as either an absolute or a percentage there is no incentive for the running agency to try to make people lose.

So long as people keep buying in they really haven't lost anything even if the build up turns it into a sure bet. And winning splitting solves the equilibrium as well in a rather market allegorical way - if everyone puts money into a sure bet the returns eventually diminish.

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#72

Post by dagenix » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

mark-r wrote: post #29

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

AFAICT, many jackpot style lotteries get an expected value (EV) above 1 when the jackpots get big. They're set up so their average EV is 0.4 - 0.5, but when a jackpot isn't won, the payout is under 0.1. String a bunch of those together in a row, and the EV creeps above 1.0. The calculations are easy to do. You do need to estimate the number of people who buy the tickets so you can calculate the odds of sharing the ja…

I track the EV of 5 different lotteries available in Minnesota. At this moment only one of them is over 0.5, at 0.55. I don't even think about buying a ticket until it gets over 0.8.

I'm not sure that is really logical. The odds of winning are the same regardless of if it $400m you can win or $20m. However, the effect on your life would be basically the same in either case.

To be fair, I do much the same thing. But, it doesn't really have a basis in logic. It's all psychological.

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#73

Post by goofingaround » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 2:39 AM UTC

>... he was a natural with numbers who spent every spare minute analyzing theoretical probability papers written by the 13th-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci.

Hope Pascal doesn’t read this.

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#74

Post by Applethief » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 3:02 AM UTC

peterburkimsher wrote: post #40

themodelplumber wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to wonder--given those impressive experiences, could you find a way to produce the resources you need without needing a job? From reading about your obvious gifts here, I would guess that if you had a list of criteria like how much you need to earn, and whatever other resources you require, you could figure out a clever way to meet those criteria. Job or no job.

I don't know why this is getting downvotes - entrepreneurship is something I've considered. It doesn't help me get a visa though. I tried emailing computer repair shops asking them to advertise my data migration services - using an Apple II to copy off 5.25" floppies, a Mac LC to read DD floppies, and a PowerBook G3 to read SCSI and JAZ disks. Unfortunately, I only got one reply that asked to see a poster before they…

Wow! Always good to see another Kiwi on here!

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#75

Post by zone411 » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 4:47 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

AFAICT, many jackpot style lotteries get an expected value (EV) above 1 when the jackpots get big. They're set up so their average EV is 0.4 - 0.5, but when a jackpot isn't won, the payout is under 0.1. String a bunch of those together in a row, and the EV creeps above 1.0. The calculations are easy to do. You do need to estimate the number of people who buy the tickets so you can calculate the odds of sharing the ja…

One significant difference compared to the U.S. jackpots - you need to pay taxes, unlike in Canada.

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#76

Post by firethief » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #70

femto113 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the payout model (all and only winning tickets split a fixed prize) the EV for buying multiple randomly distributed tickets and uniformly distributed tickets aren't the same. Consider if you were the only one playing a lottery with 100 combinations. If a ticket costs $1 and the jackpot is $100 one random ticket has an EV of $1. However if you buy 100 random tickets on average you'll only cover about 64 num…

Who in their right mind would buy 100 tickets chosen at random _with replacement_ in your scenario?

100 people

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#77

Post by unmole » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 5:46 AM UTC

GCA10 wrote: post #41

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #3

Seems kind of silly that they hyped it up as some kind of mathematical savant genius story, when it seems like they just took a simple lottery system (x numbers give y combinations, which sell for $1 per combination, for a total payout of >$3y) where the logistics operation was the more impressive aspect.

"Reading the works of Fibonacci" sounds like the sort of narrative garnish that would charm a journalist with little knowledge of math -- but would sound contrived to anyone who's take a stat class or two. Given how well-known the Fibonacci sequence is today, poring through Liber Abaci (1202) in search of secret insights is teetering on the edge of madness.

> poring through Liber Abaci (1202) in search of secret insights is teetering on the edge of madness

Sounds like something straight out of Foucault's Pendulum.

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#78

Post by wikibob » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 7:17 AM UTC

peterburkimsher wrote: post #56

murukesh_s wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of work are you looking for? Have you tried remote work?

These days I'll take anything short-term, even remote. For a long-term career I have the education & work experience prerequisites for New Zealand's Skilled Migrant Category, Australia's 186, and Canada's Express Entry. In the past, I did two remote contracts (Pixelgarde and AnswerTo), but in both cases the employer reached out to me first. I'm not really sure how to find jobs. My résumé is here: http://peterburk.fre…

You should take the resume advice to heart.

I’ve hired a number of engineers and I would likely not look at this one for more than a few seconds. When recruiting, you get a deluge of resumes, there’s simply not time to carefully read them all, so the sad truth is you have to resort to heuristics and look for anything at all that lets you discard.

Please comment back if you need help editing your resume, happy to provide some help.

While LaTeX is cool, my advice would be to grab a resume template from a university career center and use it with zero style modifications.

Check out Gayle’s advice: https://www.careercup.com/resume

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#79

Post by YayamiOmate » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 7:20 AM UTC

This was also possible in Poland last year or two years ago.

The string of failed top prizes was so big that cummulated prize was so big in the end that buying tickets for all combinations was abt 2/3rds of the top one.

This isn't gaming the system though its brute forcing it. And you are not guaranteed a profit. You bet against other ppl hitting the jackpot. Excluding oneself from the system, what is the chance that after N fails for top prize N+1 will also fail? Earning this way is not so easy as just winning the lottery.

Re: A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery

#80

Post by wafflesindeed » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 8:15 AM UTC

peterburkimsher wrote: post #56

murukesh_s wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of work are you looking for? Have you tried remote work?

These days I'll take anything short-term, even remote. For a long-term career I have the education & work experience prerequisites for New Zealand's Skilled Migrant Category, Australia's 186, and Canada's Express Entry. In the past, I did two remote contracts (Pixelgarde and AnswerTo), but in both cases the employer reached out to me first. I'm not really sure how to find jobs. My résumé is here: http://peterburk.fre…

As someone mentioned above, you absolutely need to sort out your CV. Here's a couple of points that differ from the other commenters:

- make it a one page CV - remove any work experience that's not relevant - write in active voice about each experience. Quantifying your contributions - remove hobbies, particularly anything related to religion. It's not relevant, and is recommended not to include such personal info in your CV. - only show your undergraduate degree. No one cares about GDE (unless applying to grad school) or your high school grades. - remove personal interests; no one cares. It's distracting from selling your work experience. - remove references and write "available on request". Background check happen after interviews. - remove languages unless relevant to the job. - remove volunteering experience; why on earth have you included CouchSurfng there? - remove your address. Too personal. - add link to your LinkedIn. - remove objective. This should come through in your experience what you're interested in. - remove those images. They offer no value to the ready and take up 20% of both pages.

You find jobs by applying. That simple. Your CV must sell your work experience as valuable to the employee and current yours does not.

Assume employers will spend 30 seconds skimming it before deciding if you will get a chance. Your current CV does not cut it.