4 ms·

Lotteries are probably regulated to the point where this can't happen, but I used to play poker at some quasi-legal charity games quite often. They sold instant

Lotteries are probably regulated to the point where this can't happen, but I used to play poker at some quasi-legal charity games quite often. They sold instant bingo tickets, which are very much like instant lottery tickets. There's a box with a defined number of losers and each prize. Most of the return from a box came from let's say 5 big prizes (out of let's say 1,000 tickets). Let's suppose the return is 50%, and the ticket price $2, so the total payout on a box is $1,000. There would be 5 $100 winners, and a number of smaller winners that added up to the other $500. The people selling them would watch and count how many of the $100 tickets were redeemed. (Gamblers tend to not hold onto the winning ticket secretly, they cash them in right away and buy more.) If there were, say, 2 of the big winners left but only 100 tickets remaining in the box, the guy running it would purchase them all. The two big winners would pay for the whole thing and his profit would then be the sum of all of the small prizes left (which was expected to be roughly equal to the 2 big tickets). Since it was a charity game he was effectively stealing from the charity, but also robbing the players collectively because any time you were near the end of a box but still able to buy tickets you could be sure there were no big prizes left. I wonder if instant lotteries ever do this. If they see it's near the end and they've got a disproportionate number of prizes left they could simply pull all of the tickets.

rcxdude 13y ago
I don't think that strategy cost the charity any money, unless the boxes would not have sold out anyway. The return on the boxes is fixed regardless of who buys the tickets.
- patja 13y ago
  While it doesn't literally cost the charity anything this go-around, it is pretty unseemly behavior in a charity event. If I was a player in said charity's poker tournament and saw the organizers gaming the system to their own profit, I would be much less inclined to come back to next year's tournament. Many of these tournaments see lots of return players year to year, and it is in their interest to create an environment that maximizes the feelgood effect on players and charity donations. Many players will donate winnings back to the charity. Somehow it seems like these clever folks who are trying to outsmart the charity's game might not be so altruistic.
- davorak 13y ago
  Some of the value of running an event like that is get people to feel involved and make them feel good while doing so. By buying out the last portions of tickets it prevents much of the good will the event was supposed to generate. Knowing this strategy I would not run an instant raffle, second if for case the raffle type was not under my control I would make it clear that such strategies by volunteers would nto be allowed. An Volunteer who went ahead with the strategy after being told that it reduced the potential gain of the event would not be worth retaining.
- nedwin 13y ago
  The cost is that people who know this strategy is in place will no longer purchase any tickets if there is less than 100 tickets left. Further if the ruse is revealed the general sale of all charity lottery tickets will define because it could be assumed that it is rigged in favour of the house.
  - fyi80 13y ago
    That's a feature, not a bug. Promoting gambling "for a good cause" is abhorrent.
waitwhatwhoa 13y ago
That's more or less what was done to game the Massachusetts lottery: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mit-students-scammed-massachusetts-state-lottery-8-million-report-article-1.1128482 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mit-students-scammed-m...
dghughes 13y ago
I work for a lottery that sells the type of tickets you're referring to i.e. a set amount of tickets a business purchases knowing how many of each winner is in the box. Only the business that purchased the box could cash winning tickets, each batch of tickets had a unique serial number. The tickets have recently been changed with a new feature a barcode which allows the ticket to be cashed at any store that sells lottery products.
- slig 13y ago
  I couldn't find anything about this kind of product on google. Could you disclose the name of your product or what should I google to find more about it (not necessarily your company's product)?
  - dghughes 13y ago
    The product is referred to as pulltab or breakopen tickets I'm not sure what other names they are called in other countries, if that's what you mean.
rograndom 13y ago
The charity is going to get the same no matter what. All of the variations of this I've seen works this way: A charity approaches a bar with a box of tickets with the total of the ticket face value of X. The total prizes are in the range of X/4 to X/3. The bar buys the whole box for X/2 and keeps all of the proceeds. Or, to put it another way: There are 2000 tickets and each ticket costs $1. The bar buys the whole box for $1000, which goes directly to the charity. The total prizes in the box is $500. The bar sells the tickets out bringing in $2000, pays out $500 in winning tickets, recovers the $1000 paid to the charity and keeps the remaining $500 as profit. Then they call up the charity for another box. Most of the boxes come with displays that list out the various prizes and most places will cross out the big ones when they're paid out... mostly so they employees can keep track and buy out the box when there's a favorable amount of big tickets left.
EGreg 13y ago
If the one running the lottery is able to know which tickets it sold had which prizes, then it could simply stop selling the tickets the moment the collective prizes from the remaining tickets exceeded the collective price of the remaining tickets -- if that ever happened. One way the charity itself could do that is by using its own account to "buy" the rest of the tickets. If someone else does it from their own pocket, then they have a guaranteed winner on their hands, but they aren't stealing from the charity -- merely using insider information to get a better deal than the rest of the players, and not returning the profits from this information back to the charity. Of course, in a way this is cheating. The lottery issuer has more information than the players. But if it's for a good cause, then I guess it's fine :)

rcxdude 13y ago

I don't think that strategy cost the charity any money, unless the boxes would not have sold out anyway. The return on the boxes is fixed regardless of who buys the tickets.

patja 13y ago
While it doesn't literally cost the charity anything this go-around, it is pretty unseemly behavior in a charity event. If I was a player in said charity's poker tournament and saw the organizers gaming the system to their own profit, I would be much less inclined to come back to next year's tournament. Many of these tournaments see lots of return players year to year, and it is in their interest to create an environment that maximizes the feelgood effect on players and charity donations. Many players will donate winnings back to the charity. Somehow it seems like these clever folks who are trying to outsmart the charity's game might not be so altruistic.
davorak 13y ago
Some of the value of running an event like that is get people to feel involved and make them feel good while doing so. By buying out the last portions of tickets it prevents much of the good will the event was supposed to generate. Knowing this strategy I would not run an instant raffle, second if for case the raffle type was not under my control I would make it clear that such strategies by volunteers would nto be allowed. An Volunteer who went ahead with the strategy after being told that it reduced the potential gain of the event would not be worth retaining.
nedwin 13y ago
The cost is that people who know this strategy is in place will no longer purchase any tickets if there is less than 100 tickets left. Further if the ruse is revealed the general sale of all charity lottery tickets will define because it could be assumed that it is rigged in favour of the house.
- fyi80 13y ago
  That's a feature, not a bug. Promoting gambling "for a good cause" is abhorrent.

waitwhatwhoa 13y ago

That's more or less what was done to game the Massachusetts lottery: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mit-students-scammed-massachusetts-state-lottery-8-million-report-article-1.1128482 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/mit-students-scammed-m...

dghughes 13y ago

I work for a lottery that sells the type of tickets you're referring to i.e. a set amount of tickets a business purchases knowing how many of each winner is in the box. Only the business that purchased the box could cash winning tickets, each batch of tickets had a unique serial number. The tickets have recently been changed with a new feature a barcode which allows the ticket to be cashed at any store that sells lottery products.

slig 13y ago
I couldn't find anything about this kind of product on google. Could you disclose the name of your product or what should I google to find more about it (not necessarily your company's product)?
- dghughes 13y ago
  The product is referred to as pulltab or breakopen tickets I'm not sure what other names they are called in other countries, if that's what you mean.

rograndom 13y ago

The charity is going to get the same no matter what. All of the variations of this I've seen works this way: A charity approaches a bar with a box of tickets with the total of the ticket face value of X. The total prizes are in the range of X/4 to X/3. The bar buys the whole box for X/2 and keeps all of the proceeds. Or, to put it another way: There are 2000 tickets and each ticket costs $1. The bar buys the whole box for $1000, which goes directly to the charity. The total prizes in the box is $500. The bar sells the tickets out bringing in $2000, pays out $500 in winning tickets, recovers the $1000 paid to the charity and keeps the remaining $500 as profit. Then they call up the charity for another box. Most of the boxes come with displays that list out the various prizes and most places will cross out the big ones when they're paid out... mostly so they employees can keep track and buy out the box when there's a favorable amount of big tickets left.

EGreg 13y ago

If the one running the lottery is able to know which tickets it sold had which prizes, then it could simply stop selling the tickets the moment the collective prizes from the remaining tickets exceeded the collective price of the remaining tickets -- if that ever happened. One way the charity itself could do that is by using its own account to "buy" the rest of the tickets. If someone else does it from their own pocket, then they have a guaranteed winner on their hands, but they aren't stealing from the charity -- merely using insider information to get a better deal than the rest of the players, and not returning the profits from this information back to the charity. Of course, in a way this is cheating. The lottery issuer has more information than the players. But if it's for a good cause, then I guess it's fine :)