Anyone else playing Mega Millions?

[DPG21920]

People (educated) know the odds. I could definitely argue that the utility I get from my $1 spent on a chance to win a huge jackpot for outweighs the utility I would get from ingesting a Coke.

[baseline bum]

Back when the lottery first started I had a second company that was a finance company and it had about 8 women employees. One woman organized the lottery pool, tracked who owed what, and bought a ticket for every lottery. She kept the numbers in her desk and they all checked them religiously first thing in the morning the next day. It got to be one of those really big ones and they were all excited about it. After they drew the numbers Wednesday night I went out and bought a new ticket (for the next lottery) with the winning numbers on it, then went by that office early (nobody there) before going to my main office and switched the tickets out (they hadn't won anything). I'm told it was quite exciting there for about ten minutes until they realized the date on the ticket was wrong...

That's awesome.

[benefactor]

Eh...it was 5 bucks...and it made for a nice Friday around the office. Most know we aren't going to win but it's always fun talking about it. Anyway...it's not a reach to say we could at least break even, so it's not really burning money. One ticket out of 145 hits 4 out of 5 and we all win 17 bucks. That a six pack of Founder's Dirty Bas and a bomber of Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Black IPA. Works for me.

[Nbadan]

scrubbed

[Nbadan]

Loving math...

http://www.txlottery.org/export/site...252732128.html

I love game theory and abstract math....This theory is based on how Texas releases it's winning tickets...a lot of people don't know that if you go to the Texas lottery site the state releases the number of winners for each game, including those remaining, the packet number and ticket number for each winning ticket..using this data and an algorithm (I won't go into detail here) you can drastically increase the chances of winning the top prize if you buy from the correct packet numbers...think this is wack?

Ever hear of 4 time Texas lottery winner Joan Ginther?

Mr Rich details the myriad ways in which Ms Ginther could have gamed the system - including the fact that she may have figured out the algorithm that determines where a winner is placed in each run of scratch-off tickets.

He believes that after Ms Ginther figured out the algorithm, it wouldn’t be difficult to determine where the tickets would be shipped, as the shipping schedule is apparently fixed, and there were a few sources she could have found it out from.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3OVSYNc9M
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Anyway....Assuming the winning ticket is still out there, according to the algorithm (the original algorithm was presented in a news article that has since been scrubbed from the internet by the author) the winning tickets has a high statistical probability of being in only about 300 possible packets left in this game...that means that if you can buy a ticket from the correct set of packet numbers you can, in theory, drastically increase your chances of winning the top prize - $7.5 million...

[Nbadan]

After careful analysis ...if the missing winning 7.5 million scratch off ticket is in San Antonio it can only be in one of 6 possible locations...that information is priceless

[benefactor]

So if you are thinking about dropping that couple of bucks on Powerball, today might be the day. After Saturday, they make the odds better for actually winning something, but making the odds of winning the whole pie worse.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnov...dds-get-worse/

Pool at work is already underway.

[benefactor]

Powerball jumped from 650 to 700 million. Getcha tickets.

[InRareForm]

i will buy two tickets and go cheap for lunch... that way i feel like i didn't pay the idiot tax

[Trainwreck2100]

Powerball jumped from 650 to 700 million. Getcha tickets.

if nobody wins tonight it'll cross a billion.

[Mitch]

So what's the final cut you take if you get a billion, like 300m?

[InRareForm]

probably ~500million.

i would take the annual payouts tbh...

[benefactor]

If you take the lump sum in Texas after taxes it's $332,475,000.

[lebomb]

I wants my cash now!!!! Screw that payment bull . Anything can happen. I wants my cash.