5 ms·
Persistence might be key? Some people may be addicted to gambling with lottery tickets, or may just buy more than others in the same area. I remember once ear
by cyberferret 9y ago
Persistence might be key? Some people may be addicted to gambling with lottery tickets, or may just buy more than others in the same area.
I remember once early in my IT career, I was doing work for the local government agency that was responsible for issuing all the 'scratch the ticket and find 3 matching symbols' lottery games in our state. They used to sell the tickets at the front counter of the agency office as well as various shops and newsagencies around town etc.
While I was working on a PC in the manager's office, another manager came in and said that one of the games had sold ALL tickets at the other retail outlets, and that they had about a hundred $2 tickets left at their front desk and the main prize of $1000 hadn't gone off yet.
When one manager left the room, the other manager looked at me and said "Well, the rules forbid us from buying those tickets, but if you have a spare couple of hundred on you, I'd buy up all those tickets at the front counter...". I thought it was all a bit weird and didn't bite, but I found out later that a friend of someone who worked there bought all the tickets, and sure enough, won the $1000 prize in that particular game. Made me wonder how many 'friends' of people who worked there were in on the old unsold ticket grey marketing?
Also while growing up, there was a family that lived down the road from us who always seemed to win almost every giveaway competition in our town - free TV's, food, whitegoods, airline tickets, you name it. One day I was actually there visiting their son who was about the same age, and I noticed that their mother was entering competitions almost as a full time occupation. She would get various catalogues and our local newspaper and sit down with the kids every afternoon cutting out and sending out coupons, competition entries and sweepstakes all the time - they would have to be sending out at least 20+ per day. Way to stack the odds in their favour.
They eventually left town in the most spectacular fashion - when Michael Jackson did one of his huge tours of Australia, the family won a set of tickets to see him in a sweepstakes, then promptly bought tickets for ALL of his other shows in other states in Australia! This information got leaked to the press, and Jackson found out about it, and ended up inviting this family to Neverland in the US where 2 of the kids ended up staying for years.
You that old saying - you make your own luck. I think this particular family lived it.
- radicalbyte 9y agoAs a parent you would have had to have been insane to leave your kids to live with MJ, not to sure I'd call it lucky. This information got leaked to the press, and Jackson found out about it, and ended up inviting this family to Neverland in the US where 2 of the kids ended up staying for years. You that old saying - you make your own luck. I think this particular family lived it.
- cyberferret 9y agoYeah, that was a whole other story. Initially, the family jumped to MJ's defence in the local press, then when the lawsuits started happening, they filed one too, saying that the son had been interfered with (!) - it was all really surreal and odd. Lost touch completely with that family now - no idea what they are up to, but I hope they lost that infatuation with winning prizes and accolades and are happily settled somewhere...
- ringaroundthetx 9y ago> Persistence might be key? Some people may be addicted to gambling with lottery tickets, or may just buy more than others in the same area. For example, I relish in the fact that I'm not poor enough to feel taxed by it. By simply having a lot of more money than people on the other side of the bell curve, I can buy more tickets, and roll the winning tickets into more purchases of tickets. Or use some of the free income from dividends or bond coupons to buy lottery tickets for giggles, all while other people parrot the "tax on the stupid/poor" mantra. The amount of money scales and it also doesn't matter.
- Noumenon72 9y agoIt makes sense that the lottery would have "whales" just like any other game. I wonder what percent of the revenue people like you are.
- ringaroundthetx 9y agoYeah I've seen some papers on it. I would not consider myself a whale, just someone that rationally plays it and is privileged that my portion of income used on the game is not detrimental to my well being. The poor spend likely comparable amounts of money on it, but percentage wise it is harmful. Most money games depend on the whales, and there is a depressing underbelly to that aspect of it as well.
- fitzroy 9y agoI wondered if this had either inspired, or was inspired by, Lazlo in the movie Real Genius. Apparently, Lazlo's scheme was actually based on one by a group at CalTech. https://filmschoolrejects.com/5-brilliant-things-you-should-know-about-real-genius-63733266c9ec/ https://filmschoolrejects.com/5-brilliant-things-you-should-...