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posted by janrinok on Tuesday June 09 2015, @05:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-laugh-at-geeks! dept.

Several years ago, while doing research for a school project, a group of MIT students realized that, for a few days every three months or so, the most reliably lucrative lottery game in the country was Massachusetts' Cash WinFall, because of a quirk in the way a jackpot was broken down into smaller prizes if there was no big winner. The math whizzes quickly discovered that buying about $100,000 in Cash WinFall tickets on those days would virtually guarantee success. Buying $600,000 worth of tickets would bring a 15%–20% return on investment, according to the New York Daily News.

When the jackpot rose to $2 million, the students bought in, dividing the prize money among group members. But they didn't stop there; they were so successful in their caper that they were eventually able to quit their day jobs and bring in investors to front the money they needed to purchase the requisite number of lottery tickets.


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:12AM (#193961)

    Not only did eggheads game the system, which in itself is damning enough, but they took money from poor desperate stupid people who can barely afford to play the lottery. This story is why people hate nerds, and rightfully so.

    So. When can we expect these MIT students to be thrown in prison forever for this scheme?

    Starting Score:    0  points
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    Total Score:   -1  
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by kazzie on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:48AM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:48AM (#193974)

    Not only did eggheads game the system, which in itself is damning enough, but they took money from poor desperate stupid people who can barely afford to play the lottery.

    No, they took the money from the lottery. It's the lottery that took money from the desperately stupid people.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:54AM (#193979)

      Now remember, when someone pushes you in front of a bus, it will be the bus that will kill you, not the person who pushed you.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:49AM (#193989)

      We have taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and masturbation, and we call these "sin taxes". A state sponsored lottery is a "stupid tax". Not as easy to justify. I think we should just have a "rich tax". (Oh, just joking about the jacking tax. Sorry if I scared anyone.)

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:01AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:01AM (#193993) Journal

        We have taxes on ... masturbation

        Forgive my ignorance, but... really? I mean, literally?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:38AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:38AM (#194008)

          Scared ya! You past due liability is . . . . well, if we can't calculate it, we can't bill for it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @12:23PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @12:23PM (#194043)

          Some places have additional taxes on adult magazines. As for adult porn channels on television - while not an actual "tax" because the government is not collecting the money - you have to wonder why a single channel can cost almost the same as your monthly cable bill. And it's not because porn movies are especially difficult to make or the actors earn so much. It's gouging by middlemen because they know you'll pay it if you really want it, and you won't complain about it either because you know you are a "sinner".

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday June 09 2015, @12:45PM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @12:45PM (#194048) Journal

            and you won't complain about it either because you know you are a "sinner"

            I'm amoral, you insensitive clod (but still ethical from pragmatic reasons) - so no guilty feelings here.
            Besides, there is so much free porn on internets, I don't see why would I want to pay for it.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:15AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:15AM (#193982) Homepage Journal

    I could easily get that kind of work as I have quite a lot of good experience, but for the specific reasons you state, I came to regard it as immoral.

    For quite a long time, I've been debating this with kuro5hin's procrasti, who is a financial professional. Every time I come up with what I regard as a good reason for not being involved with the markets, he regards that as a positive trait.

    For example other than the IPO I don't see how the stock market does any real good for society, nor for public companies. Consider that a trader could hold your stock for mere milliseconds, but if you don't kowtow to him during that brief instant, he could shitcan your company's board.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by istartedi on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:04AM

      by istartedi (123) on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:04AM (#193996) Journal

      That's interesting. IPOs in their current form are probably one of the things I like least about markets. They're just exit strategies for the real winners, dumping crap on the public. I'd like to see rule changes that require them to IPO earlier. I'll give you this though--the reverse IPO is often worse. That's when private equity buys a public company and forces holders of common to accept a tender offer. A lot of times those shares are weak and won't come back for a long time; but still--you're being forced to realize a loss by PEs who circle like vultures. That's one reason to stick with large caps and indexes, although it's still possible for these things to dissolve and force you to take your cash back at inopportune times, it's far less likely than with individual small/mid cap stocks.

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jimshatt on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:10AM

      by jimshatt (978) on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:10AM (#194033) Journal
      While your comments contain good points, usually, you almost consistently start with some arrogant remark about how you easily are the best person on earth. That makes me *very* apathetic to reading the rest of the comment. Please, I beg of you, consider not doing that. Plz?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:17PM (#194246)

        You're better than me, I've stopped reading his comments.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:47PM (#194286)

          MDC is the single reason I wish for a soylent equivalent of the usenet killfile. Some posters anger me for their opinions, but his posts are just such an annoying combination of prolificity and narcissim that his actual opinions don't even matter. If it weren't for him I could start reading a post without having to think about checking the name of the author first, such a time-waster.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:41PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:41PM (#194303)

            I inspired myself to fix the problem.
            If anyone else would prefer an explicit warning of MDC content before reading it, here's a quick and dirty way to do it:

            (1) Install FoxReplace [mozilla.org] add-on.
            (2) Turn on Auto-replace on page load from the Tools->FoxReplace menu
            (3) Add the following filter:
            Name: MDC Remover
            URL: *soylnetnews.org*
            Substitution:
                HTML: Input & Output
                RE (regular expression)
                Replace: (MichaelDavidCrawford \(2339\)[^]*?<div id="comment_body_\d+">)([^]*?)</div>
                With: $1MDC Warning:<br><div style="background-color:white;color:white;">$2</div></div>

            That will cause the text of his posts to be rendered as white on white - you can still read them if you highlight it with your mouse.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @03:55AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @03:55AM (#194363)

            Add MDC to your Foes list. In your account preferences set the Foe mod to -6. Read at a threshold of 0 or higher. Voila, no more MDC comments!

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:04AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:04AM (#194366)

              I use the Foes list to keep track of people who I think are dumbasses that way I can judge what they write - if they should or should not get the benefit of the doubt when they post something that sounds kinda stupid. So I can't make it do double-duty as a killfile.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:45AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:45AM (#193988) Homepage Journal

    the reason that promotional drawings specifically say that one may enter only once per visit, is that some caltech students - in the early seventies IIRC - use a lineprinter to produce a few million "reasonable facsimiles" for a McDonaldss contest. The McDonalds people were quite unhappy about it but there was nothing they could do to stop it; I recall seeing a photo of a pissed-off restaurant manager being handed a large cardboard box full of these reasonable facsimiles.

    However the institute got a lot of bad press over it. The students won most of the prizes but then donated them all to charity.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 4, Touché) by khallow on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:39PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @01:39PM (#194062) Journal

    Not only did eggheads game the system, which in itself is damning enough, but they took money from poor desperate stupid people who can barely afford to play the lottery. This story is why people hate nerds, and rightfully so.

    Yea, only the rich, politically connected elites should be able to rob poor, desperate people.