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Bank Robbing a Terrible Business, Statistically
isoloisti writes "Three UK economists got access to national data on bank robberies. The conclusion is that robbing banks pays, but not very much. Average take is about $19k per person per robbery. But, there's a 20% chance of being caught per raid. To make an average income, a robber needs to do two jobs per year, and has greater than 50% chance to be in the slammer after 2 years."
Read How to rob a bank: A social engineering walkthrough, the more modern way. (Maybe this was on slashdot?)
One raid, 20% change of getting caught, you need two raids a year, and that increases changes to over 50%, WTF!?
TFA claims that doing two raids a year gives you a greater than 50% chance of getting caught within 2 years (i.e., 4 raids). Let's check the math...
After 1 raid you have a 100% - 20% = 80% chance of eluding capture.
After 2 raids, it's 80% ^ 2 = 64%
After 3 raids, it's 80% ^ 3 = 51.2%
After 4 raids, it's 80% ^ 4 = 40.96%
100% - 40.96% chance of not getting caught = 59.04% chance of getting caught, which is in fact over 50%.
No, the cash in an ATM does not come from the bank. It comes from a cash vault at a central depository in secured canisters via an armored car. Nobody at the branch (including the armored car delivery guy) physically touches any of the cash that goes into the ATM. The people at the depository are guarded by guns; robbing a depository would be a bit more difficult than robbing the cash from a drawer at a branch bank.