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This is great. I wrote a personal app that monitors (scrapes) a few state lotteries websites and if the jackpot goes above my personal threshold (it's below pot
by jrs235 9y ago
This is great. I wrote a personal app that monitors (scrapes) a few state lotteries websites and if the jackpot goes above my personal threshold (it's below pot odds and pot odds minus taxes) then it sends me a text message in the morning so if I feel like it I can buy a ticket on my way home from work.
P.S. a few years ago Megabucks (Wisconsin lottery) was above pot odds even after taxes and with the cash payout option!
- jmharvey 9y ago> a few years ago Megabucks (Wisconsin lottery) was above pot odds even after taxes and with the cash payout option This happens more often than you'd think. For example, eyeballing it, it looks like Indiana's Cash 5 lottery has a positive expected value right now, but I haven't broken out my detailed calculator to confirm. The other major things you need to account for are the likelihood of splitting the jackpot with other winners, the fact that most people have non-linear utility functions, and the cost of logistics. (This last one may not seem too important, but if you buy more than 10 or so tickets, it becomes readily apparent that the time spent checking whether a ticket is a winner can add up.)
- jrs235 9y agoSplit jackpots is why I never bother when Powerball or mega millions get huge because they are heavily played. Some of the state lotteries not so much... They take many months to grow because fewer people pay attention and play them.
- 205guy 9y agoSeems like a lottery ticket scanner (+OCR +scripting) would be the next thing to hack together. And then I realized how/why your most recent tickets were digitized.