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.)
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday August 10 2020, @05:20AM (5 children)
he "won" $2,1 million
how much did he spend?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday August 10 2020, @05:36AM (4 children)
RTFA much?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday August 10 2020, @05:47AM (3 children)
yes, Hence my question.
did he risk $100,000? $200,000? $1,000,000?
He didn't buy all the tickets, only 40 stores' worth - and the tickets would have been on sale for a while before he started his journey; further, he only bought from one part of the state, not every store that sold the tickets.
He bought enough tickets -but not ALL.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Informative) by pipedwho on Monday August 10 2020, @06:04AM (2 children)
Buying just 1 ticket is still enough to win for some people.
This guy probably bought an insignificant portion of the tickets as surely there were many other stores that sold tickets including ones sold before this guy started buying them. Even if he bought 10% of the tickets, there is still a 90% chance of not winning the jackpot.
In the end this guy was still very lucky, just didn't have to be quite as lucky as something that bought 1 ticket. In the end, his investment was far greater, so his luck 'per ticket' wasn't any greater than anyone else. And unless this was a jackpotting lottery, the house will always win.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday August 10 2020, @02:37PM (1 child)
Maybe he was lucky -- maybe he had inside info. I would guess that 40/NumberOfStoresInWV is a pretty small proportion so either he knew something, or isn't great at math.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:21AM
Or we're only hearing about this story because he ended up with a winning ticket. I suspect there are numerous stories of people with cockamamy plans to win the lottery that end up losing their 'investment'. At some point one of those people wins and they take it as a validation that their 'plan' was the reason for their success.
He had a 'hunch' that the winning ticket was in a specific subset of stores. He just happened to win, I'd wager there are far more unpublished stories of people with a similar 'hunch' that lost.
(Score: 3, Funny) by deimtee on Monday August 10 2020, @06:11AM (28 children)
You tax lottery wins?
If the AU gov tried taxing gambling winnings they'd be dangling from the gum trees.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday August 10 2020, @06:41AM (20 children)
Be assured that in AU the lottery win is taxed as well. It's just that they do it more intelligently: They get the tax directly from the lottery company, so as winner you don't see the tax deduction. All you ever get to see is the win after taxes.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @07:28AM (2 children)
Australian lotteries return a minimum of 80% in prizes. The top income tax rate is 49%, but the winner gets the whole prize regardless of other income. That's a bit different to the IRS and state governments taking up to 45% of the alleged prize. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/29/heres-the-tax-bill-on-mega-millions-and-powerball-jackpots.html [cnbc.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @08:37AM (1 child)
Not sure where you get that number. Seems counter-intuitive since most governments only allow lotteries to have some sort of social benefit and with 80%, you are not doing that. For comparison, in Canada the lottery returns 50% for prizes. The rest is spent mostly on sponsoring of social events and programs.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday August 11 2020, @02:45AM
AU lotteries return 55% as tax-free prizes.
The rest is supposedly spent on hospitals, but really it is just revenue. The main difference is lottery (and other gambling) wins are NOT subject to income tax. The rationale was that if wins were taxable income then the cost of the tickets (or other bets) must be a tax-deductible expense. Somebody did the numbers and worked out it was better to simply make the prizes tax-free.
If you win five million, they put five million in your bank account and the only people who come after you for some of it are friends and relatives.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @02:14PM (16 children)
Does AU lie to their retail customers about VAT as well (concealing it from the receipt), or is that only Europe?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @03:48PM (2 children)
The fuck you on about?
The taxes are clearly listed in the receipt every place i've been in Europe, including the part where i live.
This example receipt i'm looking at right now lists the items with tax price, total and also tax percent, total without tax, amount of tax and total with tax. What more do you want?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @05:31PM
Last time I did much shopping in Europe was in the 1990s, at that time it was not customary for VAT to be listed on store receipts, maybe times have changed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @06:37PM
"What more do you want?"
maybe for people to not be such suck ass slaves to be paying vat in the first place like the dipshits in the US who pay the income tax?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 10 2020, @04:13PM (6 children)
While I can't speak for all of Europe, since I doubt it's shown exactly the same way in each and every country, that is not a thing I have noted and I have been to most of the countries on the continent and there have been shopping. These days more or less all of them, that I can recall, show the tax rate, the amount of the purchase that was made up of said tax followed by the net and the gross amounts. So what is this tax concealment you talk about?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @05:34PM (5 children)
I guess it's changed since the 1990s - at that time VAT was rather softly spoken most places. Sure, everybody knew it was 22% or whatever, but the store receipts just showed what you paid.
I suppose the 'Murican difference is that we don't put the post-VAT (here called Sales Tax) price on the shelf or the itemization, just tack it on at the end as an "in 'yer face, taxman did this to ya" math challenge that most 'Murican's can't do without a calculator.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 10 2020, @06:12PM (4 children)
It probably has, I don't exactly recall how receipts looked 30 years ago.
The thing tho were it might be weird is if you are in a business establishment of some kind of buy different items that have different tax-rates; one such example might be a restaurant where the food is 12% while if you decide to booze it up that is sold at 25%. Same with if you buy a newspaper (6%), a candy bar (12%) and a pack of smokes (25%) in a store. I don't recall exactly how those receipts look at the moment but I think it just lists multiple lines at the bottom one for each tax rate. Beyond that I think it's mostly that if you bought many different items it doesn't tell you the tax per item or if it's multiple tax-rates at the bottom it doesn't say which products was which rate since the receipt just tells you the total tax on the total sum (per tax rate) so if you want to know it for a specific item you have to first figure out and know which tax-rate it is and then do some manual calculations.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @07:49PM (3 children)
Grocery here is pretty crazy that way - many items aren't taxed, but: surprise! a lot of them are, and there's precious little mention of that on the shelf tags - if there even is a shelf tag... stores have gotten kind of lax about having any kind of pricing on the shelves I find about 1% of what I pick up to buy has to be taken to a scanner to know what it costs - I take a perverse bit of satisfaction in telling the clerk: "please scan this, there's no price anywhere in the store" and then telling them to send it back when it's some ridiculous high number (last one was $15 for a 10 lb bag of rocks... they were nice rocks, maybe $7/10 lbs nice rocks, but sure as hell not $15/10 lbs nice.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 10 2020, @08:14PM (2 children)
They do something similar here in that they have recently (last half-decade or so) started to change the weight/volume of items (usually foodstuffs). They used to be fairly standardized as in 1kg, 500g, 250g etc but now they can more or less have them at any weight they want it seems and then they sell them per item instead of the previous weight/volume and once you have a little think about it and note the price per 1kg it usually turns out it wasn't/isn't a very great deal. So shelf-tags here have to say the price for the item (inc any taxes) and the price per unit (1kg/liter).
So one of the things that blow my mind here is how people keep buying pre-cut sallads for about $1.5-2 per 100g. Thinking they are getting some kind of deal. They could walk into a restaurant and eat cheaper or if they just cut their own it would be enormous amounts for the same price.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @09:05PM (1 child)
The orange juice here finally set me off, we no longer shop at the big chain that used to sell fresh juice at $2.99 per 64oz, then they started running "sales" so that only one (rotating different every week) brand was $2.99 per 64 while "regular" price went up to $3.69 per 64. Then the 64oz containers shrunk to 58oz, but the prices remained the same. Then a year later the 58oz containers shrunk to 52oz but the prices remained the same - and I had enough. We shop at a smaller store now that still sold 64oz OJ for $2.99, later inflated to 64oz for $3.29 - which is fine, prices increase, I get that, but don't play me like I'm an idiot.
The big chain also about 5 years ago started "BOGO" where you have to buy two of an item to get the "good sale" price, but... little surprise here... the BOGO price is actually the normal price, and the other 19 weeks out of 20 when the item isn't on "super special BOGO price" it's just twice as expensive as it was 6 months before it went into their BOGO pool. They can literally get stuffed, I don't need them and really have enjoyed getting away from the heavy mind-games marketing which was operating on so many levels beyond the ones mentioned here.
I grocery shop to buy food, not to play pricing games.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:44PM
You can't really stop them doing what they want, if they hired a new whizz kid marketing guy to do exactly that. You vote with your wallet.
When on the receiving end (i.e. at work), I pace myself to give about what they paid for. If the guys making 2x my salary aren't doing 2x as good a job or (more usually) dumping work on juniors, then I need to slow it down again.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 10 2020, @07:08PM (5 children)
Lie? While in the past it was unusual that it was explicitly listed on the receipt, there was never a claim “there is no VAT paid”, which would need to have been written there for it being lying. The receipt tells you what you paid for, and how much. That's what matters. Do you also need the receipt to tell you how much of the price you pay goes to the supplier of the goods, how much is used for the shop staff, how much goes to the shop's gross profit, and how much tax is deduced of that gross profit? If you pay by card, does your receipt also tell you how much was the transaction fee of the card? Actually the last one would be interesting, because it would tell you how much card purchases increase the price of the goods for everyone, including those who pay in cash.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @07:53PM (4 children)
Actually, I would find this all very interesting, and were I made king one of my many royal decrees would be to decrease taxes on merchants who provide an accurate accounting of all of the above, plus any other potentially revealing information for every transaction (while increasing taxes on those who do not, or who do it inaccurately... gotta stay revenue neutral ;-)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 10 2020, @08:48PM (3 children)
“I consider this information interesting” is a very different statement from “not providing that information is lying”.
BTW, with VAT you can just calculate the amount yourself, so you're not even withheld that information; declaring it explicitly just saves you from having to use your brain (or a calculator).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 10 2020, @10:53PM (2 children)
Lying is a bit of a stretch, puffery as they say in real-estate is closer - psychologically slipping it under the rug, as compared to providing a civics lesson on taxes at every single transaction would be more accurate.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 11 2020, @07:16AM (1 child)
I don't see how it is puffery either. First, the shop's job isn't to educate me about taxes, it is to sell me stuff. Second, it is far from a secret that there's VAT, unless you are living under a rock, you know it anyway. And third, in the end it doesn't matter whether the tax is directly taken from the price of the good, or later from the shop's profits; in both cases I will end up paying it with the price of the goods. And fourth, I have no idea what lessen it should teach me anyway.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 11 2020, @12:52PM
That is a far more common way of existence than you might believe - I knew a lot of this type [reddit.com] of people when I was in high school - I thought that most of them grew out of it, but it's more likely that I just don't travel in their circles anymore.
As for the presentation, or concealment, of VAT/sales tax on receipts, I don't think it's so much a choice of the shoppes as it is mandated by statute, at least in many places. Around here lesson is one being amplified by "I will reduce your taxes" politicians who make that their primary campaigning point - slaying (or tilting, Don Quixote style at) a big evil tax dragon is much more effective when people see the dragon on a daily basis, directly feel the heat of its breath, rather than the very same dragon which stays concealed in a mountain in the distance - taking the same treasure and hoarding it quietly. On the other end of the spectrum, politicians who want to creep the VAT ever higher do prefer that it remain out of sight, out of mind - which my calling "lying" is a bit much - what I referred to as puffery to arrive at the term lying.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday August 10 2020, @01:05PM (1 child)
Brit, thought the same.
You "won" $7m, but only get to take $2.1m.
Just advertise the $2.1m and stop faffing around.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 10 2020, @07:18PM
Actually the advertised win was $5 million; the $7 million was the sum converted to Australian dollars because it was an Australian news site.
Really, the headline here on SN should have been changed accordingly, as no one outside Australia would read $7 million as 7 million Australian dollars.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday August 10 2020, @01:32PM (4 children)
We have this policy in the US of letting businesses that pay taxes make consumers pay the tax.
So no products have taxes factored into prices in the front of the store. It's a very effective system for making consumers hate taxes since it's now the surprise expense at the end. In both Australia and the UK, it's illegal to not put the full and accurate price of things up front.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @11:29PM
They're not required to do that, they can. The problem is that since so few stores do it, it can be a challenge to explain to the customers that the price they're seeing is what they pay, no tax on top of that. The main places that I see that are places dealing with a lot of cash and not wanting to deal with all the calculations. They just include it and usually round up to the next dollar and that's what the customer pays. The tax portion is then forwarded to the appropriate taxing authority along with the sales information.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:59AM (2 children)
Canada does the same, just that we understand that something sold for a dollar is usually going to cost $1.12 (varies by Province). Perhaps it says something about Americans that if they can spend their whole life paying sales tax, that they're still surprised by it.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday August 12 2020, @01:37PM (1 child)
That's not the same, it's the opposite. If something is going to cost $1.12 then the pricetag in AU and UK better bloody well say $1.12
You want to put up a notice saying this would be $1.00 if there was no tax then that's ok, but you better be damn clear that that is information only and that the customer will be paying $1.12
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday August 12 2020, @02:53PM
Does the same as America, not Europe.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @07:21AM (8 children)
Seems like he had some kind of inside information, or figured out their ticket distribution formula or something. Beating the system is either cheating or some sort of massive sloppiness on the part of the lottery designers.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by istartedi on Monday August 10 2020, @07:36AM
I'm kind of with you here. Believe it or not, there are lottery geeks. I remember reading about a mathematician and his daughter who found a flaw in scratch-offs, used it to win a few modest prizes, and reported the flaw to lottery officials. IIRC, they were Indian immigrants. Anybody else remember that?
In this case, the guy may have been keeping track of wins and like you said might have come to the conclusion that the lottery was designed to distribute winners by region or something. Then, if the tickets had been on sale long enough and still not hit... it seems like there would be an incentive for lotteries to distribute the winners late in the series, but I'm not sure how they could do that without having too much knowledge. The only fair way to do that would be some kind of statistical distribution that *favors* late winners, but still makes it possible for the first ticket to be a winner.
And yes, there is corruption and/or cheating in lotteries too.
Otherwise, this really is just dumb luck and in most of the alternative universes he has "hit bottom" as a problem gambler.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by Nuke on Monday August 10 2020, @08:53AM (5 children)
IDK why this was modded as Troll. That he figured out that the winning ticket would be sold in a particular part of the region made me wonder immediately if he had inside info.
Evidence against that is that he seems to have bragged about it, extremely unwise if he'd had inside info. It was not wise to brag about it anyway, because I'd not be surprised if the lottery company does not come up with some small print regulation that trying to work out where the winning ticket will be sold invalidates the win. There are certainly past cases at casinos where winners who placed bets on the basis of past patterns have been refused their winnings, and possibly even prosecuted.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday August 10 2020, @12:57PM (4 children)
Not necessarily, there a lot of stupid people around that brag about things they shouldn't be bragging about. There are other parts of the story that seem more weird such as how he visited 40 stores in just 4h, unless the stores are just next door to each other and there are no other customers anywhere or any kind of traffic on the roads it seems somewhat unlikely.
Also there is either something wrong, or insider information, or there is a serious flaw in the lottery system as one of the basic problems they tend to solve is that there should not be any guarantee of winning, such as in a scenario of buying all the tickets or the equivalent -- as it should cost more then the eventual payout as it is then otherwise no longer a lottery or a game of chance but a guaranteed payout and quite frankly everyone would be stupid not to do it.
(Score: 2) by TrentDavey on Monday August 10 2020, @08:04PM
Indeed. This is how some (lots?) of prosecutions proceed since the law-breaker brags (even if to another criminal comrade) about what cool/stupid thing they have done. The comrade then turns their buddy in to the fuzz. Bazinga.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:13AM (2 children)
Scratch and wins, I'm fairly sure that if they advertise a top prize, perhaps $100,000 (common here), they have to have a ticket that has the winning numbers on it, along with perhaps 1 or 2 tickets for $50,000, 10 tickets for 10,000 right down to a bunch of $2 winners. There's laws and regulations here that say 50% winnings I believe, so if the prizes add up to $200,000, they print and ship $400,000 worth of tickets. Not sure what happens if they don't sell.
Perhaps you're thinking more of the random draw type lotteries where you pick perhaps 6 numbers and if those 6 numbers come up, you win mod number of ticket buyers with the same numbers and if the numbers weren't sold, the prize usually rolls over.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday August 11 2020, @12:45PM (1 child)
All lotteries are like that, or should be -- there is a slight payout difference between say "pick X random numbers" where there might be no winners this week and some of those potential winnings are rolled over to the next draw and bought tickets (scratch or whatever sort) that have a fixed payout system that is usually printed on the back of the tickets (sort of like this batch of X tickets contains Z tickets with various outcomes such as one ticket for $1.000.000 and two paying $500.000 etc so to calculate the odds are quite simple). The thing is you are in neither system supposed to be able to guarantee your winning by say buying all the tickets or playing all the numbers or combinations. You can guarantee the win but it's going to cost more then what you win. Otherwise it's not a lottery, or game of chance, but just a regular payout. If I knew I could spend X to always win X+1 (or just more then what I paid) I would just borrow money to do it even if I didn't have them just to win since winning was a guaranteed outcome. It would in essence be free money.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:04PM
OK, I probably misunderstood you and agree with what you just posted.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 10 2020, @10:09AM
It's either that or "Lucky Man Gets Lucky".
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @01:11PM
When your lottery win is considered small change by the 1%
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2020, @04:22PM (1 child)
Lotteries are just a tax on the mathematically ignorant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:14PM
And the desperate
And the greedy
And the dreamers
And the hopefuls
And the idiots