New efforts!

[pinballdave]

Ignoring of course the practical considerations of bubbling the numbers on 300 million playslips and then paying for them in cash (as is required for lottery purchases in most places).  ;D

Most banks frown on the business model of: I need a loan so I can buy lottery tickets.

[Arcana]

Jackpot is getting big enough that you can buy a ticket for each and every possible combination of numbers and still amass a profit. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/powerball-ticket-all-combinations/423930/

See my analysis above.  In a certain sense, its *too big* to allow you to amass a profit.  The issue is not the actual size of the jackpot, but how much it has grown since the last drawing.  While jackpot growth suggests more winnings, it also means more ticket buyers.  Once that exceeds a number roughly equal to my 20% margin guestimate above, too many people have entered the lottery to make the "buy one of every selection" strategy statistically likely to generate a profit.


Apparently in 2005, one hundred ten people all picked the same powerball numbers - 22, 28, 32, 33, 39 and powerball 40 - and managed to match all five regular numbers and miss the powerball which was 42, not 40.  The jackpot on that draw was about $25 million dollars, which was won by someone.  Ironically, 21 of the 110 "second place" winners won $500,000 each, and the other 89 won $100,000 each (the 21 with the higher payout bought a special "multiplier" option which only works for the smaller prizes, not the jackpot), which means the lottery paid $19,400,000 collectively just to the second place winners.  The reason for the huge cluster of second place winners turned out to be that those numbers were printed in a series of fortune cookies sold by a company in multiple states.  Because all the cookies had the same numbers, a significant number of people decided to play them in the powerball.

I say ironically because as the lottery operators themselves have stated, they wished the fortune cookie company had actually hit the grand prize instead.  Had they printed "42" instead of "40" and all those people hit the jackpot, they would have had to split $25 million with the winner.  They all would have walked away with about $225,000 each.  Instead, the lottery had to pay both the $25 million jackpot and an unusually large $19 million second prize set.  It would have cost them less if they had all won.  Incidentally, if there was a giant supercomputer trying to minimize lottery winnings, it blue-screened horribly badly that year.

[Vee]

Incidentally, if there was a giant supercomputer trying to minimize lottery winnings, it blue-screened horribly badly that year.

No worries, the Illuminati have multiple backup giant supercomputers.

[pinballdave]

See my analysis above.  In a certain sense, its *too big* to allow you to amass a profit.  The issue is not the actual size of the jackpot, but how much it has grown since the last drawing.  While jackpot growth suggests more winnings, it also means more ticket buyers.  Once that exceeds a number roughly equal to my 20% margin guestimate above, too many people have entered the lottery to make the "buy one of every selection" strategy statistically likely to generate a profit.


Apparently in 2005, one hundred ten people all picked the same powerball numbers - 22, 28, 32, 33, 39 and powerball 40 - and managed to match all five regular numbers and miss the powerball which was 42, not 40.  The jackpot on that draw was about $25 million dollars, which was won by someone.  Ironically, 21 of the 110 "second place" winners won $500,000 each, and the other 89 won $100,000 each (the 21 with the higher payout bought a special "multiplier" option which only works for the smaller prizes, not the jackpot), which means the lottery paid $19,400,000 collectively just to the second place winners.  The reason for the huge cluster of second place winners turned out to be that those numbers were printed in a series of fortune cookies sold by a company in multiple states.  Because all the cookies had the same numbers, a significant number of people decided to play them in the powerball.

I say ironically because as the lottery operators themselves have stated, they wished the fortune cookie company had actually hit the grand prize instead.  Had they printed "42" instead of "40" and all those people hit the jackpot, they would have had to split $25 million with the winner.  They all would have walked away with about $225,000 each.  Instead, the lottery had to pay both the $25 million jackpot and an unusually large $19 million second prize set.  It would have cost them less if they had all won.  Incidentally, if there was a giant supercomputer trying to minimize lottery winnings, it blue-screened horribly badly that year.

As you can see, buying all the numbers has been tried before, but the Virginia lottery had less combinations :

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/25/us/group-invests-5-million-to-hedge-bets-in-lottery.html?pagewanted=all

[psquared007]

To all those with tickets in tonights Powerball Lotto:

If you win, please offer to sweeten the pot a little to get CoH back on it's feet. 

I promise that if I win the big prize, I'll will.  :)

Good luck!

[Noyjitat]

Whoever has the inside information on the deal please poke the negotiators and see if you can give us any form of an update. It would be appreciated. Also while I don't expect an answer I'm going to ask this anyway: If any certain someone out there is working on emulation it would be nice to know.

[darkgob]

Whoever has the inside information on the deal please poke the negotiators and see if you can give us any form of an update. It would be appreciated. Also while I don't expect an answer I'm going to ask this anyway: If any certain someone out there is working on emulation it would be nice to know.

Updates will be posted when they exist.  I don't know what you think additional pestering will accomplish.

[ivanhedgehog]

if you have inside information, please jump in a swimming pool full of lime jello and do the macarena. it wouldnt do anything but it would look funny

[Noyjitat]

Updates will be posted when they exist.  I don't know what you think additional pestering will accomplish.

They won't be if nobody asks the negotiators if they have even the slightest thing they are allowed to tell us.

[Aggelakis]

They won't be if nobody asks the negotiators if they have even the slightest thing they are allowed to tell us.

If they're not posting, they don't have any information to tell us. Along with what darkgob said, additional pestering doesn't magically create new information. I'm pretty sure they know we're waiting. We don't have to remind them.

[Victoria Victrix]

Whoever won bought the ticket in Chino California.

[Thunder Glove]

Three winners, it looks like.  So the $1.5 billion-ish jackpot will be split among the winners, who will get about $500 million each.  (Which - even after taxes, which will reduce that number still further to maybe $200 million or so - is still enough to set anyone up for life, if they're not stupid)

There's a statistically good chance that all three will be flat broke again in a couple of years, though.

[Shibboleth]

There's a statistically good chance that all three will be flat broke again in a couple of years, though.

I have never understood how that happens. Sock away $10 million or so that you can't touch when you get your money that is invested in safe things. Even at 1% interest you are looking at $100K per year income indefinitely.

Heck, do it with half the money the people are projected to walk way with and you're looking at $1 million per year income. That would allow you to utterly blow $100 million. Surely you can get your impulse buying out of your system on $100 million

[brothermutant]

I Won! 4$ woot

[brothermutant]

I have never understood how that happens. Sock away $10 million or so that you can't touch when you get your money that is invested in safe things. Even at 1% interest you are looking at $100K per year income indefinitely.

Heck, do it with half the money the people are projected to walk way with and you're looking at $1 million per year income. That would allow you to utterly blow $100 million. Surely you can get your impulse buying out of your system on $100 million

Because people are stupid and like to show off. They buy a ton of stuff they don't need, give a bunch of stuff to family and friends, forget to pay not only their taxes on the winnings but the taxes on the houses, interest earned, etc. I heard once that if you take all the money in the world and divvy it up among everyone 18+ yrs old, by the end of 10 years everyone that was poor before, will be poor again; everyone that was rich before, will be rich again. Its about planning.

[Thunder Glove]

Exactly.

You read about these people who go crazy buying mansions and fancy cars and yachts (or, worse, they spend all their money in other lottery schemes, hoping to win even more), and soon, they're broke again.  It's rather sad.

Because they could have just given the money to me. :D

[brothermutant]

Because they could have just given the money to me. :D

Exactly. Who here would turn down even 50k in cash if just given it. But would you piss it away immediately? Of course not, its a small amount. Bigger amount, the bigger the spending.

[blacksly]

I heard once that if you take all the money in the world and divvy it up among everyone 18+ yrs old, by the end of 10 years everyone that was poor before, will be poor again; everyone that was rich before, will be rich again.

That makes no sense. Surely there are lots of smart people who are poor but never had a good chance to become rich, and also lots of dumb rich people (*cough* Paris Hilton *cough*) whose fortunes were well guarded by advisers hired by the family, who never had a chance to completely fail. Give them all the same amount of wealth, and surely some will be poor and some will be rich... and some who are poor were originally poor, and the converse. But not all who are poor will remain poor, nor all who are rich will remain rich.

And it takes some special cluelessness to not put away even 10% of lottery winnings so as to avoid becoming actually broke. I can see someone blowing most of the winnings and having little to show for it, but blowing all of it to the point where you're dirt poor after some time almost takes deliberate stupidity. Even buying unnecessary properties and cars and such shouldn't cause it, as once you're broke you sell them all for 10% of what you paid for them, and still end up with a decent amount of money and hopefully a lesson thoroughly learned. I really think that all of the stories about millionaires (lottery winners, rock & roll stars, former athletes, etc) who lost all their wealth and ended up dirt poor are very rare stories that appear more common just because the commonplace "millionaire invests most of his money, blows the rest on nothing at all, then lives off the investments" is just a boring story.

[Ankhammon]

I Won! 4$ woot

Sweet! You gonna use all that cash to bribe NCSoft for us? :-)

[MM3squints]

I Won! 4$ woot

I doubled my investment I think that is good.