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What did they do? BUMP: those downvoting. It's a serious question. The article doesn't explain the student's methods. I really don't know what they did to g
by larrydag 11y ago
What did they do?
BUMP: those downvoting. It's a serious question. The article doesn't explain the student's methods. I really don't know what they did to game the system. Is it well known?
- Jtsummers 11y agoOk, found the summary on Wikipedia [0], which matched my recollection from a TV news magazine report from a few years ago when this came out. When the jackpot reached a certain point, they'd increase the payout on the lower tier prizes (match 5, 4, 3) from ($4000, $150, $5) to something more significant. Instead of needing to match all 6 numbers (range 1..46), you could get a good return by only trying to match a smaller set. I guess they worked out a good distribution of tickets to purchase that covered a large percentage of those possibilities. They were purchasing 300k tickets to guarantee their 15-20% ROI. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Lottery#Cash_Winfall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Lottery#Cash_Winf...