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If normal lottery ticket buyers knew this sort of thing was going on, they'd likely stop buying tickets.
by bryanlarsen 2y ago
If normal lottery ticket buyers knew this sort of thing was going on, they'd likely stop buying tickets.
- byteknight 2y agoI mean the near-impossible odds weren't enough to dissuade them, I doubt some more statistics will do it.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoMany people care less about the odds and more about feeling that things are fair, that they are the same for everyone.
- bruce511 2y agoI know "fairness" is a virtue we teach to children, but honestly there is nothing fair about any part of life. Where you are born, what ethnicity you are, how rich your parents are, how healthy, athletic, brainy, beautiful you are, what you eat, how you live, nothing in any part of your life is "fair". So sure, play the lottery if you like, but don't pretend it's fair. Indeed the unfairness of the winning is entirely the point of it. Of course if you are playing the lottery and dreaming of a better life, you already know how unfair life really is.
- unethical_ban 2y agoIt is not an inevitability that a lottery system will be rigged to effectively guarantee a wealthy group gets the jackpot and profits.
- bruce511 2y agoI didn't say it was rigged, I said it wasn't fair.
- rufus_foreman 2y ago>> I know "fairness" is a virtue we teach to children, but honestly there is nothing fair about any part of life My parents did not teach me that fairness was a virtue. They taught me that "life's not fair". With the unspoken addendum of "deal with it". I guess I won the lottery in that respect.
- NooneAtAll3 2y agotickets are still same for everyone it's just that optimum stopped being "zero tickets bought" and instead shifted to "all tickets bought"
- gruez 2y agoHow is a company buying a bunch of tickets "unfair" when there's never a limit on how many tickets you can purchase? Is a compulsive gambler who buys 10 tickets also being "unfair" by buying 10 tickets?
- bryanlarsen 2y agoIt doesn't matter if it's actually unfair or not. What matters is if it feels unfair.
- recursive 2y agoYou might be right. But to me, this doesn't feel any less unfair than a lottery does in the first place. But I probably don't understand the state of mind or motivations that would compel someone to buy a ticket in the first place.
- cool_dude85 2y agoIt's tough to draw a clear bright-line rule for this, but the line sits somewhere between "buy 10 tickets" and "buy every ticket". You can write a law saying not to run this kind of operation and let the jury decide whether someone broke it.
- kubectl_h 2y agoWell in this case the "unfairness" (loaded term) would the lottery commission going out of their way to accommodate this scheme. If this outfit wanted to arbitrage the lottery they should have to go about buying the tickets any other party would have. If the state wants to encourage this kind of large scale game playing, then they should outline the process for taking part in it clearly and ensure everyone has equal access to the tools that enabled it.
- hinkley 2y agoWhen it stops being statistics they notice.
- byteknight 2y agoIt didn't stop. What are you referring to?
- hinkley 2y agoPay to win with 100% success rate.
- janfoeh 2y agoMostly you're not buying a chance to get rich, you buy yourself permission to dream about the "what if?" until the numbers are drawn.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoAnd you don't need to spend very much money to do that. For example, buying a ticket once per year is sufficient. You can still dream about the win you'll get the next time you buy a ticket. Group buys add a social context that has significant value too.
- sadeshmukh 2y agoGood on them.
- dalbasal 2y agoBingo. This is the literal answer to "why." Also bans on various casino hacks.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoLotteries. Retail crypto trading. Sports betting. Casinos. These are systems legitimized to vacuum up fiat from rubes. Your average human is unsophisticated as it relates to statistics, financial literacy, etc. They are simply different versions of alcohol and recreational drugs, hitting the same reward centers in the brain.
- lozenge 2y agoJust make the maximum jackpot payout $25.7 million per draw. Any remaining money in the jackpot remains for the next draws.
- autoexec 2y agoI don't think that it's very likely that many lottery ticket buyers would find out, or that they'd all stop even if they did. The Illinois state lottery is still selling tickets even though they've refused to pay winners https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-sitting-on-upward-of-80-million-in-unpaid-lottery-winnings-attorney-says/ https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-sitting-on-upward-of...