That couple in New England that was doing it probably made more money off of selling their story to Hollywood than they did off the lottery tickets.<p>The amount of time they were putting into their “scheme” sounds brutal. I think a lot of people here could have netted more money per hour by studying up to pass a FAANG interview instead of buying lottery tickets one at a time.
If you're into this, you may enjoy reading about Joan Ginther, a statistician and multiple lottery winner.<p>Her Wikipedia article is sadly short [0], but there are a number of other sadly short and poorly sourced articles around the web to augment it.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_R._Ginther" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_R._Ginther</a>
Huh. Reminds me of my favorite idea to "hack" the lottery:<p>1. get access to a lottery ticket terminal<p>2. get access to a router firmware in the lottery datacenter en route to the database<p>3. wait for the query to get the winning numbers from the database<p>4. hold that packet and submit an INSERT into the database with you as the winning number at a predetermined date/time in the past<p>5. release the packet to query the database<p>6. hack the terminal to print your winning ticket with the predetermined date/time in the past<p>7. profit?<p>It probably doesn't work, but it was fun thinking about when I was younger.
the term they meant is texas lottery "riskless arbitrage".<p>Buying a whole pizza, then standing in front of the pizza shop shelling the slices for a net profit is arbitrage. but it's risky because you might not be able to sell enough of them (before they get cold, say) to earn back your investment.<p>when you talk about an arbitrage that is guaranteed profit, that is a riskless arbitrage.
I guess I’ll never understand why there are so many restrictions in buying lottery tickets, because in Hong Kong all you need do to buy all the numbers is a single transaction and paying enough money. And it is never a profitable strategy, big jackpots always attract a huge crowd and most of the time it is split at least 4 way
It's article is filed under Bloomberg opinion, but I failed to find a common thread or observation has I read to the end. Is this just a weekly Roundup of financial events?<p>About the 23andMe and pharma events were specially interesting.<p>That said, I disagree with Matt interpretation that the computer entry overrode the contract. Arbitrator stipulated compensation based on the contract date, not the computer executed date<p>When someone has 35 million of options, i would expect both parties have some duty to understand the terms. That said, they also have a duty to not misrepresent the contract after the fact.<p>[edit] My primary point is that I didnt see much opinion or rant
I used to work for the Australian parimutuel(aka tote or pool)[0] betting operator.<p>All the proceeds for a race are placed in a pool, the operator deducts a percentage of pool as a takeout, and the rest is divided among the winners, or. is carried over into a jackpot.<p>We had special bulk betting integrations for quantitative bettors, and even offered rebates on the takeout revenue, it's not secret, although it's not widely publicised.[1]<p>There are stories of traders that have made lots of money betting in parimutuel markets[1]<p>[0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parimutuel_betting" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parimutuel_betting</a>
[1]: <a href="https://www.sportstradingnetwork.com/article/rebates-global-horse-race-betting/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sportstradingnetwork.com/article/rebates-global-...</a>
[2]: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-03/the-gambler-who-cracked-the-horse-racing-code" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-05-03/the-gambl...</a>
As a side note, my home state also allows online purchasing of lotto tickets through "couriers", which turns out to be a strange workaround that let companies like Lotto.com or Jackpocket operate in some states:<p><a href="https://www.locance.com/blog/what-are-lottery-courier-services-or-lottery-agents/" rel="nofollow">https://www.locance.com/blog/what-are-lottery-courier-servic...</a>
A similar case in 2011<p><a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/07/30/lottery-game-with-windfall-for-knowing-few/cEWIVs5c0JLnkapxIiMG6J/story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/07/30/lottery-game-wi...</a>
The key here is that only 1 million tickets per week are sold, which is the reason the company could estimate a probability that others buy the winning ticket forcing a split<p>Jackpots higher than the probability of winning happen so the time, but thats not enough information to take the risk
Kind of the same did happen in Switzerland this January.<p><a href="https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/loterie-romande-serial-players-koennten-ihre-wette-gewonnen-haben-244058131900" rel="nofollow">https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/loterie-romande-serial-players-...</a>
Ah, so if doing this once can net tens of millions, all we have to do is repeat the process a few million times, and the national debt is covered. That's where automation comes in.
> In April 2023, an entity called Rook TX effectively purchased the jackpot, collecting a one-time payment of $57.8 million, by acquiring virtually all of the 25.8 million possible number combinations. The operation was planned in Malta and funded by a London betting company. It was carried out by four Texas retailers, all connected to online sales companies called couriers.<p>Well, as the saying goes, "It takes money to make money."
> “We fully expected that they would laugh at us and say, ‘Well, no, of course you can’t do this,’” he said. But the company agreed it would at least sound out the lottery agency.<p>> “We were very surprised that the answer was yes,” Potts added. “As a person and a lottery player, I cannot believe they said yes. I was shocked.”<p>Well Texas bills itself as the most business friendly state in the country. I'm not surprised that extends to some shadowy Maltese concern effectively purchasing the lottery jackpot at 25 cents on the dollar.
There's a fine line between this, and the habits of a guy whose wife left him because of his luck with the ponies.<p>That line? Millions of dollars.
[Offtopic] It drives me crazy that government sponsored lotteries are legal, but me playing a round of poker in the basement with a few friends is technically illegal. Nevermind sports betting apps being legal and poker apps not.
The lottery is a tax on people with poor judgement skills and I'm not comfortable with the state taking direct advantage of its vulnerable citizens.
Hm call me old fashioned, but hearing that this was done by people in Malta backed by people in London sort of broke my heart<p>I get HN isn’t sympathetic to this kind of stuff (ovarian lottery and all that jazz), but I, personally, much rather this have been some kids from a random town in Kansas or something vs pros from other countries<p>Edit: I think you are all confused and acting as if I didn’t understand why this happened or how, I was just making a sentimental lament, but I should know better by now
I've heard these stories before.<p>What happens if there is more than one winning ticket? In the UK they just divide the jackpot up between the winners so you might get less. I guess that is the risk.
> But in most of modern life, the computer is the main thing, and it is somewhat eccentric to suggest that the computer is wrong. What, the piece of paper that I skimmed and signed and stuck in a drawer is the deal, and not the computer screen that I look at every day? Seems implausible. The contract is just a piece of paper; the computer is real life.<p>What in the world is the author talking about here? Why wouldn't the contract you signed be the contract? And the administrative error is an error in execution of the contract, so of course there's some space for dispute. Without that contract, he wouldn't have shares in the first place.<p>> If you give your CEO options that expire in August 2024, and you put into the computer that they expire in October 2024, then they expire in October 2024. How was he supposed to know that they expired in August?<p>Flipping this around, if the CEO signed a contract saying they expired in December then the system said they expired in October, I would still expect the shares to expire in December. By the author's logic, they would expire in October.