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People were buying a lottery ticket. The difference in this case is that there were no jackpot winners.
by brewdad 6y ago
People were buying a lottery ticket. The difference in this case is that there were no jackpot winners.
- zaphar 6y agoIt's not uncommon for actual lotteries to have no jackpot winners in a given timeperiod. That's why the pot size keeps growing. At some point the hype from how many big the potential but unlikely payout got increases the share of people buying the ticket. The different between the Hertz stock and a lottery ticket is that eventually the Lottery will payout. But with a stock like Hertz there is no such guarantee.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoTo quote Mark Twain (or someone) "The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math"
- Dylan16807 6y agoPresumably the math there is expected value, but does that even matter? Imagine two lotteries that each sell ten million $1 tickets, and will only sell one ticket per person. One has a jackpot of $7 million. The other has a jackpot of $15 million. Math would tell you there's a significant difference between the two, wouldn't it? But I would say the right answer is that the difference in payout doesn't matter. And you probably shouldn't buy either ticket. Am I reading it wrong, is 'math' supposed to mean something else here?
- marshmallow_12 6y agoYou overanalysed it. The math is simply that you are statistically unlikely to get your dollar back.
- Dylan16807 6y agoIs that even math? I can accept that but it's not a very satisfying answer. And almost anyone playing the lottery can tell you the chance of winning a jackpot is very low!