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from the what-if-it-were-in-the-Eastern-part-of-the-state dept.
Man wins $7 million in lottery after buying every single ticket:
Kevin Clark, from Candler in North Carolina, had a hunch that the top $US5 million ($A7 million) prize in the Mega Cash scratch-off game would be won in the western part of the state.
So he came up with an unusual strategy to ensure he got his hands on the lucky ticket – by travelling from store to store and buying every ticket he could find.
Mr Clark spent four hours on his quest to purchase every $20 Mega Cash scratchie ticket he came across in around 40 different stores.
And while it is not known how much he spent in total, it’s safe to say he came out on top after a ticket he bought from a Stop N Go outlet in Swannanoa, North Carolina ended up being the winner.
[...] In the end he decided to pocket a $US3 million ($A4.2 million) lump sum instead of taking the $US5 million as an annuity of $US250,000 ($A350,267) per year for two decades.
After taxes, he was left with a total cash prize of around $US2.1 million ($A2.94 million).
“I had a real good feeling it was going to be in the western part of the state,” Mr Clark said, according to the NC Education Lottery.
However, he said he was still stunned when his tactic paid off.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday August 10 2020, @04:59AM (24 children)
M. Denault, my Junior Achievement / business teacher in grade 7 taught us about this kind of basic math....
You don't even have to technically cheat (although that is easy in many cases, as well...)
If you're the mob, or you have enough money, you can just buy all the lottery tickets and always win...
You do realize that's all a scam to take your money, right?!!!
LOL.... SUCKERS!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday August 10 2020, @05:17AM (1 child)
I guess you didn't listen to the rest of Mr. Denault's lesson, which is that yes, you win the prize if you purchase all the lottery tickets, but the prize is what you invested in the tickets minus what the organizer pockets (usually 50%) - i.e. you always lose money. Unless the lottery isn't a redistribution lottery. But those are rare because they're dangerous for the "house".
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday August 10 2020, @02:11PM
Actually, what he said was if you were going to do that, you go to the organizers and just cut a deal with them in the usual shady back-room deal like all the big scammers do... :)
You don't even have to buy all of them in most cases, especially lotteries, to be able to pull off the scam over multiple buys week after week or whatever.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @05:21AM (19 children)
Most people who buy lottery tickets are not buying a statistically insignificant chance to win the big prize. They're buying enough hope to get through the week.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday August 10 2020, @07:36AM (7 children)
That hope wouldn't exist if they didn't believe subconsciously (and incorrectly) that they had a statistically significant change to win.
They could get the same hope by giving their cash to me if I convinced (defrauded) them there was a chance of something good happening, or even better, depositing that cash into a savings account and praying to the deposit fairy for the same statistically insignificant chance of something good to happen.
It doesn't change the fact that it's a stupid tax, even if you try to rationalize it as "buying hope".
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @08:46AM
Stop mugging me, Blaise! I won't fall for your tricks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @04:13PM
So tithing to the church?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @06:50PM
So you are starting your own church?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @07:40PM (3 children)
You're wrong. Most of them know they have almost no chance at all to win big.
Key word: ALMOST.
Someone, somewhere, IS going to win that big prize. It HAS to be someone. It might be them. It probably won't be. But it MIGHT.
On such slender reeds entire lives desperately hang.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday August 10 2020, @10:06PM (2 children)
>Key word: ALMOST
>It might be them.
That's why it's a stupid tax. It WON'T be them, period.
Other than tautologies, nothing has an absolute zero percent change of happening. There is a non-zero chance of all of the atoms in your body existing five feet to the left spontaneously. But it won't happen, period. Humans in general really suck at comprehending scale beyond a few million or so, the magnitudes blur together, and the people buying lottery tickets especially so.
Just for the sake of argument, hypothetically if they won the lottery (which WON'T happen, period), statistics show that it won't make them happy, except for a few years or so. It will tear apart their family and friends, they will splurge and get used to an extravagant, unsustainable lifestyle, and then fall into debt and ruin a few years later. At BEST, they will return to their previous standard of living; at worst, go into debt and end up even worse off. Don't worry, the statistics of this happening are FAR better than winning the lottery itself.
That's why it's a stupid tax.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @10:57PM
I'll occasionally buy a ticket if the prize is above a certain point, but in general, It's far better to put the money into some sort of an investment. These days there are fintech outfits that will take as little as $10 and invest it in a small portion of stocks and bonds. Put $5 a week in and over time that gets to be a decent amount of money, certainly far more than you'd be likely to win.
What's more, when people do win, they tend to wind up bankrupt before too long because they didn't have finance management skills before winning the lottery and they still don't after striking it big.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Tuesday August 11 2020, @02:46AM
I'm reminded of this:
===
A man bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
Come morning, the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry, but I've got some bad news. The donkey died."
"Well then, just give me my money back."
"Can't do that. I spent it already," replied the farmer.
"OK then, just unload the donkey."
"What're you gonna do with him?" asked the farmer.
"I'm gonna raffle him off."
"Ya can't raffle off a dead donkey!" exclaimed the farmer.
"Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anyone he's dead."
A month later the farmer met up with the guy and asked about what happened with the dead donkey. "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at $2 apiece and made a profit of $898."
"Didn't no one complain?" asked the farmer.
"Just the guy who won. So I gave him his $2 back."
===
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Subsentient on Monday August 10 2020, @08:05AM (2 children)
That's false hope, not real hope. The chance of victory is so infinitesimal that they'd be better off spending that money elsewhere, probably on a Snickers. At least then they'd be guaranteed to get something out of it.
False hope is inherently dangerous. It's better to be hopeless than deluded. At least then, perhaps you can come up with a strategy for something else entirely.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @07:36PM
Hope need not be real to be effective. If "false" hope keeps someone from blowing their brains out, isn't it real enough, for that person at least?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @11:01PM
The odds are probably better than the politicians making real systemic change that allows the bulk of people a real shot at success.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Monday August 10 2020, @09:10AM (4 children)
But it can be seen as logical if it is the only way out of a poverty trap, even if it is only a 1-in-a-million chance (or whatever). The strategy is the equivalent of being imprisoned for life on Devils Island and prefering to take a swim for freedom; even though you will probably drown, there is a chance of being picked up by a native craft of something. I'm thinking of Steve McQueen in the film "Papillon".
The gamble of huge gains against near certain losses, whether small or total, is an interesting scenario. The theme often occurs in stories, for example Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @11:03PM (2 children)
It is very doubtful that it is truly “logical” as it may negate other options for getting out of the “poverty trap” you mention. Studies show that low income folks tend to spend ~10% of their income on lottery tickets. (I’ve seen numbers anywhere from 7-13% from various sources.)
10% of your income is significant. You could divert that money toward lots of things, services, and opportunities that could allow you to get ahead: training, education, a vehicle to allow you to travel to a better higher paying job, etc. Even if you just put it in the bank each month, in a few years you have an emergency fund. And part of the cycle of the “poverty trap” is when people have sudden expenses they can’t pay, which ruins their credit and makes any future debt even more expensive for them. Having a cushion in the bank is the first step out of the cycle.
The lottery is a tax on stupid people, plain and simple. These people are mostly not in a life-long prison sentence — but the lottery often helps keep them in poverty. Calling it “logical” is almost as ridiculous and wrongheaded as playing the lottery itself believing it could be a ticket out of poverty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @12:45AM (1 child)
It's not a tax on stupid, it's a tax on ignorant. Big difference. It's a lack of education tax, exploiting the poorly educated and funneling that money back to the state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:33AM
I disagree. What you say would be true if people were actually taught probability well in our educational system. But lots of middle class and richer folks wouldn’t be able to do a probabilistic analysis of why one shouldn’t play the lottery, yet they know it’s not a reasonable thing to do via common sense.
Thus, currently, the lottery is mostly a tax on the stupid, as well as the ignorant. Anyone with some basic logic skills can understand why it doesn’t make sense... you don’t need advanced math.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @11:03PM
That's true, although it's worth noting that these days it's possible to invest that same amount in a diversified stock portfolio. Whereas even 5 years ago you really needed a few grand to start investing with, these days the buy in can be as little as a few dollars lent to a financial tech firm where they bundle it up with a lot of other people and buy the funds necessary to make it happen.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 10 2020, @10:50AM
They never say how many tickets he bought, or what percentage of the total it was, but I doubt he came anywhere near buying any significant percentage of the total. So a generalised form of the headline is:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @05:25PM
"Hope" might have been the wrong word... others pointed out that if it is 'hope' it is false. Dreams might be a better term. As in, "I know I realistically have no chance at winning this, but until the numbers come up I can dream that this is 'the' one and what I'll do..."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 10 2020, @10:36PM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @02:12PM (1 child)
He tried this, risked $1M (plus a lot of work) and got a net $2M payoff. I believe the odds of that happening in most state lotteries are 1:4 - he could do better playing roulette in Vegas, if he can find a casino that would let him bet $1M on red or black. For the effort he put into buying all the scratchoffs (and scratching them), I'm sure he could have found a casino willing to take his bet in exchange for the PR - like that idiot that sold all his possessions and played it all on red in a rented tux. Like that idiot, the whole key is: don't bet what you're not able to lose - the idiot in the rented tux could have moved back in with mom and dad if he lost, I'm pretty sure this guy had the spare $1M and time and he was just bored... looking for something to do with both.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @07:17PM
Was it only a single large prize or was it like most scratch-offs -> a single large prize and also a bunch of smaller ones? If so, it'd be interesting to see how much he won in total (big main prize+lots of smaller ones.)