Tuesday, 11 June 2019

Couple wins millions using lottery loophole

quote [ It was completely legal and it won them millions. Jon Wertheim reports on how Jerry Selbee and his wife Marge used "basic arithmetic" to crack the code on certain lottery games ]

It was completely legal
[SFW] [games] [+6 Interesting]
[by satanspenis666]
<-- Entry / Comment History

mwooody said @ 11:26am GMT on 11th June
The article doesn't do a great job of explaining it, but the summary seems to be: a particular lottery game had an occasional "rolldown", in which if no one won the ever-increasing grand prize for a sufficient period of time, it added that prize money to other tiers for a one-time event rather than continuing to build. These events led to the player having a statistical advantage if the pool was sufficient: a slightly favorable probability, at a specific tier of investment, to turn a profit. So the couple started a company that took in investors, waited for these rolldowns, and manually purchased millions of tickets.

mwooody said @ 11:29am GMT on 11th June
The article doesn't do a great job of explaining it, but the summary seems to be: a particular lottery game had an occasional "rolldown", in which if no one won the ever-increasing grand prize for a sufficient period of time, it added that prize money to other tiers for a one-time event rather than continuing to build. These events led to the player having a statistical advantage if the pool was sufficient: a slightly favorable probability, at a specific tier of investment, to turn a profit. So the couple started a company that took in investors, waited for these rolldowns, and manually purchased millions of tickets.

I'm frankly astonished that a state lottery would have a game with favorable odds for the player, even if it was only once in a long while. But then, casinos have above-100% payout machines for the same purpose, I guess: to draw in people who then move on to other ventures in the house's favor.



<-- Entry / Current Comment
mwooody said @ 11:26am GMT on 11th June
The article doesn't do a great job of explaining it, but the summary seems to be: a particular lottery game had an occasional "rolldown", in which if no one won the ever-increasing grand prize for a sufficient period of time, it added that prize money to other tiers for a one-time event rather than continuing to build. These events led to the player having a statistical advantage if the pool was sufficient: a slightly favorable probability, at a specific tier of investment, to turn a profit. So the couple started a company that took in investors, waited for these rolldowns, and manually purchased millions of tickets.

I'm frankly astonished that a state lottery would have a game with favorable odds for the player, even if it was only once in a long while. But then, casinos have above-100% payout machines for the same purpose, I guess: to draw in people who then move on to other ventures in the house's favor.




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