The absolutely ironclad proof in this article from today's Albany Times Union:
[Winning customer] Ware was given a receipt and left the store, but later returned because she forgot the [$25,000 lottery] ticket. [Cashier] Vonborstel said Ware had left with the ticket and Clifford, the manager, searched the store's trash bin with Ware. Clifford found the ticket after Ware left, according to police.
Police said Ware returned to the store and searched the trash bin again with Clifford, who did not tell Ware she had found the ticket.
Clifford and Vonborstel allegedly gave the ticket to [their friend] McCarty, who cashed it on July 10, and the trio split the money, police said.
At least justice was served. Kind of a funny story, I thought. There's a picture of the three crooks looking forlorn on the front page right now.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
It's funny how people thing their individual chances will decrease as the jackpot grows larger, when the jackpot amount has nothing to do with your chances of winning. You always have a 1 in umpteen million chance of winning the jackpot (usually the number is on the back of the ticket) but whatever. Just my little mathematician rant.
Aside from the bad math tax, it would be interesting to see them use the lottery to supplement the funding for other programs, like health care. You can simply set up a state lottery game where the proceeds would be earmarked for that particular state. Of course, with larger multi-state games (like Mega Millions and Powerball) it would be a little more work needed, but I think they could swing it. That way you could keep (at least income taxes) reasonable and make the health care more affordable (read: not free, but affordable) on a state-by-state basis. People tend to take better care of things they actually have to pay for.
it would be a good investment for a corporation or billionaire to invest in all the possible combinations of numbers when the prize exceeds the odds (which has happened a few times). I don't know if this is possible, but it is possible (theoretically if one could organize it).
The only "quick" way to buy a powerball (or similar lottery) ticket is to choose the random option.
Say there are 40 million combinations. Even choosing the random option, and assuming you could do one per second, it would take one person 463 days... 24 hours pers day... to do that many tickets.
AND... if choosing the random option, not all combinations would be chosen. lots of combinations would be chosen more than once.
So... since every possible combination would have to be entered manually to avoid duplicates and missed combinations, that would make it take much longer.
Let's say that a person can quickly fill out a lottery ticket in 10 seconds. It would take one person 4,630 days, 24 hours per day, to enter 40 million combinations.
Said billionaire would have to hire a very large team to enter all the combinations. If he hired 4,630 people and had them work 8 hour days with no breaks, he could have them enter every combination in three days.
The minimum wage is $7.25/hour now (or soon will be).
It would cost our billionaire over $800,000 in labor costs just to get the 40 million tickets entered.
Finally, after all that... he would have to hope that he is the only winner. With the prize being that big, and he adding substantially to the prize pool with his purchases, the likelihood of there only being one winner would be very slim. If he has to share the prize with two or three other winners, it might be a net loss for him.
When you consider that a billionaire probably makes millions in interest per day on his fortune through "traditional" investment methods...
....you realize that this would be a silly exercise and a waste of time.
Comments :
Another regressive tax
that often provides general income while masquerading as a public service: the cigarette tax.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
lottery:
a tax on people who are bad at math (from a bumper sticker)
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Nice,
This was my response until I saw you beat me to it. :-)
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
Plus, lotteries lead to crime
The absolutely ironclad proof in this article
from today's Albany Times Union:
At least justice was served. Kind of a funny story, I thought. There's a picture of the three crooks looking forlorn on the front page
right now.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Lottery Funding/Math
It's funny how people thing their individual chances will decrease as the jackpot grows larger, when the jackpot amount has nothing to do with your chances of winning. You always have a 1 in umpteen million chance of winning the jackpot (usually the number is on the back of the ticket) but whatever. Just my little mathematician rant.
Aside from the bad math tax, it would be interesting to see them use the lottery to supplement the funding for other programs, like health care. You can simply set up a state lottery game where the proceeds would be earmarked for that particular state. Of course, with larger multi-state games (like Mega Millions and Powerball) it would be a little more work needed, but I think they could swing it. That way you could keep (at least income taxes) reasonable and make the health care more affordable (read: not free, but affordable) on a state-by-state basis. People tend to take better care of things they actually have to pay for.
Just a thought I guess.
http://wealthweekly.blogspot.com
Wii FC:2805-8311-8040-2678 Brawl: 2277-7051-2186
I always thought
it would be a good investment for a corporation or billionaire to invest in all the possible combinations of numbers when the prize exceeds the odds (which has happened a few times). I don't know if this is possible, but it is possible (theoretically if one could organize it).
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
The problem with that...
...is filling out all the tickets.
The only "quick" way to buy a powerball (or similar lottery) ticket is to choose the random option.
Say there are 40 million combinations. Even choosing the random option, and assuming you could do one per second, it would take one person 463 days... 24 hours pers day... to do that many tickets.
AND... if choosing the random option, not all combinations would be chosen. lots of combinations would be chosen more than once.
So... since every possible combination would have to be entered manually to avoid duplicates and missed combinations, that would make it take much longer.
Let's say that a person can quickly fill out a lottery ticket in 10 seconds. It would take one person 4,630 days, 24 hours per day, to enter 40 million combinations.
Said billionaire would have to hire a very large team to enter all the combinations. If he hired 4,630 people and had them work 8 hour days with no breaks, he could have them enter every combination in three days.
The minimum wage is $7.25/hour now (or soon will be).
It would cost our billionaire over $800,000 in labor costs just to get the 40 million tickets entered.
Finally, after all that... he would have to hope that he is the only winner. With the prize being that big, and he adding substantially to the prize pool with his purchases, the likelihood of there only being one winner would be very slim. If he has to share the prize with two or three other winners, it might be a net loss for him.
When you consider that a billionaire probably makes millions in interest per day on his fortune through "traditional" investment methods...
....you realize that this would be a silly exercise and a waste of time.
I survived the Bush Administration
Good points
I left out the 'physically' after my first 'possible' in my comment above. Thanks for doing all the math though to really illustrate it.
We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida