2 ms·

You are confusing expected value with probability of "winning". The purpose is to trade EV for a small probability of high payout. It's less extreme than the b

You are confusing expected value with probability of "winning". The purpose is to trade EV for a small probability of high payout. It's less extreme than the big ticket lotteries but more extreme than a scratcher. If that's not for you, don't do it Also your last point is either obviously not true (if you're talking about big lottery winnings) or trivially true (if you're talking about $1000 scratcher prizes). More people made life changing money from a single company (Facebook) than all California lottery winners combined across all time

reillyse 1y ago
I think you are confusing how lotteries work, most lotteries have additional prizes not just the big grand prize. There are a range of prizes.
- mgraczyk 1y ago
  Pick a prize amount that is anywhere in the same order of magnitude as any engineers total compensation. For any such amount, there are more people receiving prizes above this amount from startups than lotteries
  - reillyse 1y ago
    But why can't you win n smaller prizes, money being fungible and all we can just tot up the smaller prizes.
    - mgraczyk 1y ago
      The total number of lottery winners who have won, in total, an amount of say 50,000 USD is at least 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the number of people who have received that amount or more from startup equity You are making an empirical claim that can be made rigorous, it's just off by several orders of magnitude
      - reillyse 1y ago
        But why are you not including all the people who have won. Surely the calc is, the number of money gambled in startup equity versus the amount of money gambled in the lottery. Do startups payout at .5 or above, I think not.
        lazide 1y ago
        Most startup gambling is on the form of time.
- reillyse 1y ago
  as an aside, I got to reading some lottery winning tips (https://www.smartluck.com/free-lottery-tips/california-fantasy5-539.htm https://www.smartluck.com/free-lottery-tips/california-fanta...). A real interesting hodge podge of statistical fallacies and other wishful thinkings but at the same time it does pull at our brains somehow. Like for example even though I know a run of numbers in a row are just as likely to happen as any other number I'm really unlikely to actually pick it as my guess - I suppose my brain just thinks I need some "balance" or the likelihood of this pattern happening is low. Randomness is hard.

reillyse 1y ago

I think you are confusing how lotteries work, most lotteries have additional prizes not just the big grand prize. There are a range of prizes.

mgraczyk 1y ago
Pick a prize amount that is anywhere in the same order of magnitude as any engineers total compensation. For any such amount, there are more people receiving prizes above this amount from startups than lotteries
- reillyse 1y ago
  But why can't you win n smaller prizes, money being fungible and all we can just tot up the smaller prizes.
  - mgraczyk 1y ago
    The total number of lottery winners who have won, in total, an amount of say 50,000 USD is at least 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the number of people who have received that amount or more from startup equity You are making an empirical claim that can be made rigorous, it's just off by several orders of magnitude
    - reillyse 1y ago
      But why are you not including all the people who have won. Surely the calc is, the number of money gambled in startup equity versus the amount of money gambled in the lottery. Do startups payout at .5 or above, I think not.
      - lazide 1y ago
        Most startup gambling is on the form of time.
reillyse 1y ago
as an aside, I got to reading some lottery winning tips (https://www.smartluck.com/free-lottery-tips/california-fantasy5-539.htm https://www.smartluck.com/free-lottery-tips/california-fanta...). A real interesting hodge podge of statistical fallacies and other wishful thinkings but at the same time it does pull at our brains somehow. Like for example even though I know a run of numbers in a row are just as likely to happen as any other number I'm really unlikely to actually pick it as my guess - I suppose my brain just thinks I need some "balance" or the likelihood of this pattern happening is low. Randomness is hard.