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'Lucky' woman who won lottery four times

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Aug 8, 2011.

  1. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Paging doctorquant:

    If she just figure out the schedule for when a winner would be delivered, that's freaking genius.
     
  2. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Maybe I should become Facebook friends with her ...
     
  3. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    There was a thread a while back on here with a link to a Wired magazine story about a geological statistician who cracked the algorithm used to create certain lottery tickets (in Canada) and could pick winners at a high frequency just by looking at the tickets and working his way backward from what was showing (they are a type of ticket called a baited hook ticket).

    Those tickets aren't truly random, because they need to guarantee a rate of return. When something isn't random, the algorithm used to create the returns they want can be reverse engineered.

    This woman in Texas was mentioned in the Wired story. She probably cracked their code on a "baited hook" ticket (what she had won with three times), which apparently has a flaw in it that makes it easy for someone with the right knowledge to reverse engineer the tickets by looking at them, and working backward.

    Here was the original thread: http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/posts/2983039/

    Here is a link to the Wired story: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/1
     
  4. rpmmutant

    rpmmutant Member

    Maybe she needed to win the lottery four times to pay off the student loans it would take to get a PhD from Stanford.
     
  5. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    I'm not as amazed at multiple lottery winners as I am amazed that you could win $5.4 million and <i>keep playing the lottery</i>. If I won that kind of money I'd hit the high-roller room at Bellagio once or thrice, but I sure as hell wouldn't be scratching off cardboard or filling in bubbles on the lotto sheets anymore.
     
  6. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    If you figured out the system and bought the right tickets, does that make you a cheater?
     
  7. ucacm

    ucacm Active Member

    Did you even read the article? You wouldn't keep playing the lottery if you knew how to beat the system, but you'd go hit up the tables?
     
  8. DocTalk

    DocTalk Active Member

    Finding ways to play within the rules and still win is not cheating. in sports, the rules are changed when flaws that existed were exploited to make the playing field uneven. This woman tilted the playing field but did so legally.
     
  9. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    OK, I just read the articles. Impressive.

    But yeah, at some point after winning maybe $20 million, I'd like to think I'd stop scratching tickets.
     
  10. jlee

    jlee Well-Known Member

    If the banks can do it, so can you. Go get yours.
     
  11. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Huh. I missed that thread.

    Here's the excerpt on this woman:

    I don't think I've ever played one of these things.

    Is a card only a winner if you scratch it the right way? And, do you get to look over a card before you decide to buy it?

    It sounds like in the Ontario case, they figured out a code. In Texas, she just figure out the frequency and delivery schedule of winners.

    I'm wondering how many tickets the woman in Texas would buy. Did she buy out every ticket delivered that day to make sure she bought the winner?
     
  12. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    No questions that scratch offs can be schemed, but I'd think it's more likely that some woman would marry four lottery winners.
     
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