Ever play the scratch off lotto's?

bflynn said:
No, I passed statistics in college.
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correlation.png
 
Back in my IT days we had an idiot manager who was big into the correlation = causation thing. We hired a new guy who really didn't like it here and didn't care if he was fired. And after one of the manager's asinine remarks he spoke up in the middle of the meeting. "I also read that 99.5% of all murderers use a telephone at least once in the 24 hours leading up to their crime." It was incredible how quiet the room got. I always liked Dave and felt like high-fiving him.

Fifteen years later, Dave is still here. The manager is not. I've used his line several times over the years when someone makes an illogical correlation-causation statement.
 
DJTorrente said:
For statistics nerds who are willing to play, its about expected value (EV) of the bet.
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Actually, it isn't. It's about expected payback period.

Let's take Powerball, which has a 1 in 175,223,510 chance of winning. If you played one ticket for every game (twice a week) and assuming perfect randomness, you'd have to play 842,421 years before you could expect to have had a 50/50 chance of winning. In that time, you will have actually spent exactly $175,223,510 because exactly half the payout goes into the jackpot pool. Yes, you'd win numerous smaller prizes along the way, but you'd expect to still be at least 170 million behind.

Call me a pessimist...but I don't think the game is going to last that long.
 
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jhausch said:
correlation.png
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Yes. The rate of butter production in Bangladesh predicts the S&P 500 performance...at least it did for a while.

Sometimes correlation is just coincidence.
 
Ryanb said:
Once and a while when I'm at the pump ill go inside and get a scratch off lotto ticket. What a racket those things are, usually if I actually strike gold and win its a free ticket or a dollar or two. Anyone ever buy these?
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No. Unprotected sex in the 80's was gamble enough.
 
DJTorrente said:
For statistics nerds who are willing to play, its about expected value (EV) of the bet. Even money (2-for-1) on a fair coin toss (50% chance) is a fair bet; 5/1 payout on a fair coin toss is a great bet; 3-for-2 or 6-for-5 on that same toss is a lousy bet. The top prize of powerball is about 180MM-to-one against. If the lottery is only offering $20MM, its a bad bet. When the top prize crests $150 MM, I start to notice.

Also, some people underestimate how much money it will take to "change their life". If the advertised prize is $20 MM, that is the total of annual payments over 35-40 years. The cash value for immediate payout is just over half of that, about $11MM. Give another 40% away to taxes, you're left with $6.5 MM of the 20. Start buying expensive cars and houses, things that have large ongoing upkeep (like maintenance staff and $25k property tax bills), and $6.5 MM will go pretty quick. Take a few private planes to Vegas and live the high life for a year or two; 'invest' in friends, family and strangers' business ventures, it will be gone even quicker.

Conversely, conservatively invested, and following conventional wisdom not to draw more than 4% per year, one can pull ~$250k/year off of $6.5MM forever, live very comfortably, keep up with 2-3% inflation, and leave a nice pile when they go. That income is quite good, and certainly top 5-10% in the country, but not Forbes 400 by any stretch.



In the end, that's exactly what the lottery is selling.
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But it ignores the real value of lottery tickets. You think all people buy lottery tickets because they think they will win? Not close to all, the value most are getting for their $2 is the entertainment value that hope based dreams bring. It's those moments of imagination and exuberance that forms in their own mind, the escape from their hopeless destitute lives, that's what they are buying, and a few lottery tickes they can afford a whole lot cheaper than cable.

I don't buy a lottery ticket if I need money, I go play Blackjack if I need a quick couple hundred bucks.
 
Henning said:
But it ignores the real value of lottery tickets. You think all people buy lottery tickets because they think they will win? Not close to all, the value most are getting for their $2 is the entertainment value that hope based dreams bring. It's those moments of imagination and exuberance that forms in their own mind, the escape from their hopeless destitute lives, that's what they are buying, and a few lottery tickes they can afford a whole lot cheaper than cable.

I don't buy a lottery ticket if I need money, I go play Blackjack if I need a quick couple hundred bucks.
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WAIT..... How did Henning get back to 49,999 posts :dunno::dunno::dunno::dunno::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:
 
Also, I noticed that there was a thread that was apparently deleted.
 
N801BH said:
The whole thread????

Which one???:dunno::dunno:
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It was one of the threads about the Wright brothers. My user control panel said there were new posts in it, but when I clicked on it, I got a message saying it was not a valid thread. It's gone from my subscribed threads list too. I assume it was deleted by a moderator.
 
bflynn said:
Call me a pessimist...but I don't think the game is going to last that long.
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Do you mean this particular flavor (Powerball), or lotteries in general? If its the latter, I humbly submit:

Wikipedia said:
The first recorded signs of a lottery are keno slips from the Chinese Han Dynasty between 205 and 187 BC.
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Whatever date you want to pick for lotteries to die, I'll take the over. :D
 
Last time I bought a scratcher was about 2005. I was walking out of the drug store trying to stuff my change in my wallet. i dropped a dollar and when I looked up, I was right in front of the scratcher machine. I saw it as a sign, so I fed the machine.

I won absolutely nothing.
 
I showed up to a friends 21st to surprise him (in Vegas) and while we were there, his sisters fiancé gave me 40 bucks and said play this machine it will be fun. I dropped the money in, did what he told me, and was broke within 5 minutes. Nothing that paid out was worth more than 8 bucks which happened twice. Not fun at all. He played all night after we went to bed and got from about 100 in to 500-600. Then he played it down until it was gone. He said it was fun, I couldn't see it.

Never played the lottery but the wings of hope raffle goes to a good cause and has much better odds per buck than the lottery. 3 tickets = 1/500 chance of winning with 2 prizes and 3000 tickets total. :D
 
overdrive148 said:
I showed up to a friends 21st to surprise him (in Vegas) and while we were there, his sisters fiancé gave me 40 bucks and said play this machine it will be fun. I dropped the money in, did what he told me, and was broke within 5 minutes. Nothing that paid out was worth more than 8 bucks which happened twice. Not fun at all. He played all night after we went to bed and got from about 100 in to 500-600. Then he played it down until it was gone. He said it was fun, I couldn't see it.

Never played the lottery but the wings of hope raffle goes to a good cause and has much better odds per buck than the lottery. 3 tickets = 1/500 chance of winning with 2 prizes and 3000 tickets total. :D
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:yeahthat:
 
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