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Massachusetts Lottery Broken
wiredog sends in a story about how knowledge of lottery rules and statistics has allowed opportunistic players in Massachusetts to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on tickets while being assured of a massive payoff. Quoting:
"Because of a quirk in the rules, when the jackpot reaches roughly $2 million and no one wins, payoffs for smaller prizes swell dramatically, which statisticians say practically assures a profit to anyone who buys at least $100,000 worth of tickets. During these brief periods — 'rolldown weeks' in gambling parlance — a tiny group of savvy bettors, among them highly trained computer scientists from MIT and Northeastern University, virtually take over the game. ... Srivastava calculated that a gambler who bought 200,000 Cash WinFall tickets during four rolldown weeks in a year would win enough to cover the $1.6 million investment and earn a profit of $240,000 to $1.4 million — without ever winning the jackpot."
I thought the lottery was for those who were bad at math?
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
The point of the lottery is simply to make money for the state. There isn't any reason that it must be impossible to make money off of it unless that keeps the state from making money on it.