4 ms·

The Scheme That Broke the Texas Lottery

49 points by mitchbob 1y ago

mitchbob 1y ago
https://archive.ph/6FcCt https://archive.ph/6FcCt
mistrial9 1y ago
> gamblers are mystics at heart this is deeply offensive, to mystics!
- rtaylorgarlock 1y ago
  After spending a few days in Vegas recently, I can confirm whoever thinks "gamblers are mystics at heart" only knows either a tiny bit about gambling or mysticism, but not both
canyp 1y ago
When I read the title, I thought this was about the Scheme programming language, and how maybe a bug in the garbage collector or something may have broken the lottery. Damn, I need to get out more, guys.
- patrickmay 1y ago
  I would like to read the article you describe.
rdtsc 1y ago
> (The Houston Chronicle eventually reported that a London-based gambling syndicate had bankrolled the operation.) > Two years later, it has become a full-blown scandal. The Texas Rangers have been called in to investigate what Dan Patrick, Texas’s lieutenant governor, has called “the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the history of Texas.” Someone from London is robbing our taxpayers, that's not allowed. Only we should be able to rob them! It's always interesting to read how some of these lotteries are sponsoring "math education". They officially acknowledge it's a tax on math illiteracy.
- conductr 1y ago
  I’m Texan and can say these politicians are scum. They find blame anywhere but internally. It’s all very hand wavy clown club manufactured outrage type of rhetoric. The fact is the lottery designed a game that allowed this completely legal and compliant “scam” to take place. They need to scrutinize their internal game making math literacy before they blame people for spotting and profiting from their mistakes.
- lukas099 1y ago
  Is there any value to state lottoes as a containment strategy? Like, letting people gamble via legal, approved channels weakening the black market and therefore the mob?
  - rdtsc 1y ago
    I can see that as long as 100% of the profit goes to the education or other social causes. It's also telling how they advertise it: "you might have fun", "you'll get lucky", showing pictures of winners on TV and etc. They never following it up with a matching info about how people are fooling themselves and throwing their money away. Sometimes there is a blurb hidden in fine print "have problems gambling, call such and such a number" but that's always the fine print not the main message.
xnorswap 1y ago
> This idea [buying all combinations] struck Nettles as immensely unfair. I don't understand why it's seen as unfair, seems like fair game to me? Edit: Reading further on, it seems this story is more about a person unhealthily obsessed by the Texas lottery than the lottery itself: > In 2014, Nettles told the Texas Tribune that she was spending fourteen to sixteen hours a day keeping tabs on the lottery.
- soneil 1y ago
  We had an issue like this with a small office lottery at work. So our "setup" was simple. Our national lottery has a 'bonus ball' mechanism. Each participant in the office lottery bought a number. If this week's bonus ball is your number, you win the pot. If no-one wins, the pot rolls over. The issue we hit was people joining mid-roll. Say we have 10 players, rolled over 9 weeks putting $90 in the pot. On week 10, a new player joins, $11 joins the pot, and the new player wins $101 for their $1 in. This is legally fair, but everyone with $10 in the pot feels robbed by the $1 newbie. We took the easy out and only accepted new members during a 'fresh' pot - which isn't practical for a state lottery. But it shows the difference between legal fairness and perceived fairness. Someone being able to buy every combination is game-breaking - who would play a lottery where millionaires are guaranteed to win? But roll-overs twist the math until it pays off, and now everyone who's entered in the previous weeks is unwillingly playing a lottery where millionaires are guaranteed to win. It's not impossible to fix either - if you want to fix it. Cap wins at $x and return the remainder to the pot; keep the maximum prize far under the point where buying combinations pays off, and you can keep offering that maximum prize until the roll-over is exhausted. But if you're the one making a profit from the lottery, you don't want to fix it. Massive jackpots are a feature - they encourage more participants, more spending, more profit. And it does seem unfair to protect a mechanism that's so easily exploited, just because it attracts more people to be exploited. And it really can't be good for the long-term health of the game, if people know that roll-overs will be exploited.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  This one is paywalled but when I read about it earlier, the problem was that the Texas officials had allowed these people to break the rules of the lottery in order to implement the scheme. So they were given an edge over people who were following the rules.
NaOH 1y ago
Related: Texas Lottery Director Resigns Amid Scrutiny of Rigged 2023 Draw - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43787172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43787172 - April 2025 (3 comments) Texas Officials Invited the Rigging of the State Lottery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743053 - April 2025 (18 comment) A Secretive Gambler Called 'The Joker' Took Down the Texas Lottery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43670402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43670402 - April 2025 (12 comments) There Was a Texas Lottery Arbitrage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269846 - Mar 2025 (273 comments) Did someone win a $95M Texas Lottery jackpot by stacking the odds? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40135732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40135732 - April 2024 (3 comments)

49 points by mitchbob 1y ago

mitchbob 1y ago

https://archive.ph/6FcCt https://archive.ph/6FcCt

mistrial9 1y ago

> gamblers are mystics at heart this is deeply offensive, to mystics!

rtaylorgarlock 1y ago
After spending a few days in Vegas recently, I can confirm whoever thinks "gamblers are mystics at heart" only knows either a tiny bit about gambling or mysticism, but not both

canyp 1y ago

When I read the title, I thought this was about the Scheme programming language, and how maybe a bug in the garbage collector or something may have broken the lottery. Damn, I need to get out more, guys.

patrickmay 1y ago
I would like to read the article you describe.

rdtsc 1y ago

> (The Houston Chronicle eventually reported that a London-based gambling syndicate had bankrolled the operation.) > Two years later, it has become a full-blown scandal. The Texas Rangers have been called in to investigate what Dan Patrick, Texas’s lieutenant governor, has called “the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the history of Texas.” Someone from London is robbing our taxpayers, that's not allowed. Only we should be able to rob them! It's always interesting to read how some of these lotteries are sponsoring "math education". They officially acknowledge it's a tax on math illiteracy.

conductr 1y ago
I’m Texan and can say these politicians are scum. They find blame anywhere but internally. It’s all very hand wavy clown club manufactured outrage type of rhetoric. The fact is the lottery designed a game that allowed this completely legal and compliant “scam” to take place. They need to scrutinize their internal game making math literacy before they blame people for spotting and profiting from their mistakes.
lukas099 1y ago
Is there any value to state lottoes as a containment strategy? Like, letting people gamble via legal, approved channels weakening the black market and therefore the mob?
- rdtsc 1y ago
  I can see that as long as 100% of the profit goes to the education or other social causes. It's also telling how they advertise it: "you might have fun", "you'll get lucky", showing pictures of winners on TV and etc. They never following it up with a matching info about how people are fooling themselves and throwing their money away. Sometimes there is a blurb hidden in fine print "have problems gambling, call such and such a number" but that's always the fine print not the main message.

xnorswap 1y ago

> This idea [buying all combinations] struck Nettles as immensely unfair. I don't understand why it's seen as unfair, seems like fair game to me? Edit: Reading further on, it seems this story is more about a person unhealthily obsessed by the Texas lottery than the lottery itself: > In 2014, Nettles told the Texas Tribune that she was spending fourteen to sixteen hours a day keeping tabs on the lottery.

soneil 1y ago
We had an issue like this with a small office lottery at work. So our "setup" was simple. Our national lottery has a 'bonus ball' mechanism. Each participant in the office lottery bought a number. If this week's bonus ball is your number, you win the pot. If no-one wins, the pot rolls over. The issue we hit was people joining mid-roll. Say we have 10 players, rolled over 9 weeks putting $90 in the pot. On week 10, a new player joins, $11 joins the pot, and the new player wins $101 for their $1 in. This is legally fair, but everyone with $10 in the pot feels robbed by the $1 newbie. We took the easy out and only accepted new members during a 'fresh' pot - which isn't practical for a state lottery. But it shows the difference between legal fairness and perceived fairness. Someone being able to buy every combination is game-breaking - who would play a lottery where millionaires are guaranteed to win? But roll-overs twist the math until it pays off, and now everyone who's entered in the previous weeks is unwillingly playing a lottery where millionaires are guaranteed to win. It's not impossible to fix either - if you want to fix it. Cap wins at $x and return the remainder to the pot; keep the maximum prize far under the point where buying combinations pays off, and you can keep offering that maximum prize until the roll-over is exhausted. But if you're the one making a profit from the lottery, you don't want to fix it. Massive jackpots are a feature - they encourage more participants, more spending, more profit. And it does seem unfair to protect a mechanism that's so easily exploited, just because it attracts more people to be exploited. And it really can't be good for the long-term health of the game, if people know that roll-overs will be exploited.
add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
This one is paywalled but when I read about it earlier, the problem was that the Texas officials had allowed these people to break the rules of the lottery in order to implement the scheme. So they were given an edge over people who were following the rules.

NaOH 1y ago

Related: Texas Lottery Director Resigns Amid Scrutiny of Rigged 2023 Draw - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43787172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43787172 - April 2025 (3 comments) Texas Officials Invited the Rigging of the State Lottery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743053 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743053 - April 2025 (18 comment) A Secretive Gambler Called 'The Joker' Took Down the Texas Lottery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43670402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43670402 - April 2025 (12 comments) There Was a Texas Lottery Arbitrage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43269846 - Mar 2025 (273 comments) Did someone win a $95M Texas Lottery jackpot by stacking the odds? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40135732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40135732 - April 2024 (3 comments)