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Well by gaming the lottery, they are taking a little bit of money from a lot of (largely poor) ticket buyers and profiting big from it. It's the same kind of dy
by adrusi 11y ago
Well by gaming the lottery, they are taking a little bit of money from a lot of (largely poor) ticket buyers and profiting big from it. It's the same kind of dynamic as counterfeiting. I'd argue that that's a problem mostly with the lottery system and not with the MIT students' ploy, but they exploited a system with full knowledge of how it operates and how their actions hurt others. That does not come without moral responsibility.
I can't find anything morally wrong about card counting though, Blackjack is presented as a game where skill can affect the outcome, even though in absense of card counting it's a game of luck. I'm sure that a fair number of habitual players develop some kind of card-counting heuristic innately, and in that case people who really count cards (without using some kind of device) are just better players and deserve to win (although I think casinos have good reason to forbid the technique, as the alternative would be to get rid of Blackjack).
- pc86 11y ago> they are taking a little bit of money from a lot of (largely poor) ticket buyers They absolutely are not. Once someone buys a lottery ticket it's no longer their money. It's the lottery commission's, or the state's, or whomever. To say that the MIT students were taking advantage of "(largely poor) ticket buyers" is at best extraordinarily disingenuous, if not willfully disregarding several key facts.
- jraedisch 11y agoThey must be lessening the chances of winning or the amount per win for other players?! After all I am pretty sure that lottery is a zero sum game.
- TallGuyShort 11y agoIf you're not a group of geniuses at MIT, you really shouldn't be surprised when you lose money gambling. If you're poor enough that I'm supposed to feel sorry for you, buying a lottery ticket is a very irrational thing to be doing.
- trombone8 11y agoIndeed, it is in fact the lottery organizers that are scamming people out of their money by giving false impressions about the expected returns.
- Karunamon 11y agoWhat false impressions would those be? They haven't been exactly shy about publishing the odds (one in hundreds of millions) of winning the jackpot. Odds for smaller prizes are much better, and they get even better on things like scratch cards.
- pc86 11y agoHave you ever seen a lottery ticket?
- KMag 11y ago> (although I think casinos have good reason to forbid the technique, as the alternative would be to get rid of Blackjack). Another alternative is to play less deep into the shoe before reshuffling. Reshuffle often enough and the house has an advantage over card counters. However, this slows down play and therefore the reduces the rate they bring in money from people who don't counting cards (or count cards poorly).