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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, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:28AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:28AM (#193986) Homepage Journal

    I regard it as being of fundamental importance that my essays on mental illness are widely read. Unfortunately that comes at the cost that many will dislike me for promoting myself.

    Consider that I use my real name online, or even where I don't my identity is plainly apparent from my writing style. I chose to do that specifically because of the widespread criticism that Stephen King receives. Even so, King keeps writing.

    Just yesterday, the grieving mother of a young schizoaffective man wrote to me to thank me for writing Living with Schizoaffective Disorder [warplife.com]. This afternoon I phoned a police officer who is investigating the widely reported suicide of a teenage girl.

    My ability to help people like that means quite a lot more to me than any crap I might catch from ACs at soylent.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
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