Posted on 01/06/2004 8:28:02 AM PST by 11th Earl of Mar
Edited on 05/07/2004 7:13:17 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
CLEVELAND (AP) -- Someone turned in a valid ticket for the $162 million Mega Millions multistate lottery jackpot, the Ohio Lottery said Tuesday, a day after a Cleveland woman claimed she lost the winning ticket outside the convenience store where it was sold.
(Excerpt) Read more at freep.com ...
I have always called it that myself. The dumber you are, the mare you pay.
I do, however, own up to being stupid for a dollars worth everytime it goes over $50 million.
Roland's coming to get ya.
That's actually smarter than you think.
For any lottery where a drawing's unwon jackpot "rolls over" into the next drawing's jackpot (and as far as I know, all state lotteries work this way), there comes a point where you'll actually *make* money (in the long run) playing the lottery when the jackpot is big enough.
In statistical terms, the "expected value" of a ticket becomes larger than the cost of the ticket, and the "house odds" go negative.
In the original Texas lottery, for example (before they revamped it recently), the odds against winning the big jackpot in the Lotto were 16 million to one. Whenever the jackpot rose to 16 million, it had reached the "breakeven" point for the players, and above 16 million it was actually a winning proposition to play the lotto. At 32 million you could expect (again, in the long run) to make two dollars for every dollar you bet.
That sounds impossible, but it's not. What's happening is that the losers in the prior small-jackpot drawings are in effect "subsidizing" your play if you play only when the pot is sufficiently large.
That's the simple analysis, but two factors complicate the math slightly.
1. You have to factor in the odds of someone else managing to win the big jackpot the same time you do. I'd have to tally how often this happens on large jackpots for any given lottery in order to work out just how much higher than the "break-even" jackpot you'd have to go before you started playing.
2. Working in the opposite direction is the fact that the big jackpot is not the only prize in the lotto (the above analysis was based only on the big prize). In the long run you'd end up winning a lot of the smaller prizes, and this would have the effect of lowering the jackpot size you'd have to wait for in order to eliminate the "house odds".
So in short, it's not so dumb after all to play only when the jackpots get huge.
It's always dumb, it may or may not be less dumb when the pot is bigger.
Using your example - if 32 million tickets were sold for a $16 million jackpot at 16 million to 1 odds, then 2 winning tickets would be expected. The odds of your single ticket winning is the same. But the jackpot is cut in half, reducing the expected value of each ticket by half. Now, if 32 million tickets were bought for a $32 million dollar jackpot, then you would reach statistical "breakeven".
Virginia OK’s Australian lottery win
RICHMOND, Va.-An Australian gambling syndicate will carry away a $27 million lottery jackpot from the State of Virginia after buying about 5.5 million $1 tickets, officials said Tuesday.
Lottery director Kenneth Thorson said the ticket is valid, despite questions about whether the enormous Australian purchase violated lottery rules.
In February, agents for the International Lotto Fund of Melbourne, Australia, bought tickets by the million-including the winner-but time ran out before they could corner all 7 million (approximate) possible combinations.
Thorson said the Australians would be given the benefit of any doubt that the ticket was bought in accordance with state lottery regulations.
Rules require that tickets be sold only at a location listed on each retailers’ license, but many of the Australian tickets were paid for by cashiers’ checks at the corporate headquarters of the Farm Fresh grocery store chain.
The $1 tickets were later issued at the retail outlets.
“It was impossible for the lottery, or the claimants, to prove positively how the winning ticket was purchased,” Thorson said.
The winning ticket nets $27,036,142 and the prize will be paid out over 20 years, beginning with $1,348,142 before taxes in the first year and then 19 checks of $1,352,000. There are 2,500 investors in the Australian syndicate.
Thorson said the first check should be issued next week once officials verify the identity of the claimants and determine the amount of income tax.
The state Lottery Board adopted emergency regulations of March 2 to discourage block ticket sales but stopped short of limiting the number of tickets a lottery player can buy.
No regulations existed on block sales when the ticket was bought.
I don't know if you have to agree to hold a press conference in CA, but your information is a matter of public record and will be disseminated widely by the news media should you win a big prize.
"As a state agency, the California Lottery is subject to public disclosure laws that allow access to certain governmental records. Your name, the name and location of the retailer who sold the winning ticket, the date you won, and amount of your winnings, including your gross and net annual payments, are matters of public record and subject to disclosure. The Lottery may release additional information if required by legal process or upon your request."
Not if there was no ticket to find.
Aye. And as a cousin of mine used to say 'I probably won't win if I play, but I definitely won't win without a ticket'.
Or something like that.
Black Black Black! So much for "Sistah-hood"! If it was a white woman she wouldn't need Jesse Jackson marching through town. Whites are so filled with disgusting self-hatred that she probably would have given the ticket to the moron who lost it.
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