Statistician proves Lottery is rigged

[MIB41]

Interesting story. Although for many of us, not much of a revelation. A statistician found out how to crack the lottery and discovered the drawing is never "random" as the Lottery suggests.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...xBiRKw&cad=rja

[Adam West]

It isn't random when it comes to scratch off tickets...it is random when it comes to powerball or the lottery shown in the picture.

The main problem with the powerball type lottery is that statistically there is a problem with the risk/reward. For a pick 4 lotto (pick 4 numbers), the payout is $5000 but your chances are 1/10,000. For a typical lottery, it is usually 50% to the state or states/50% to the winner. The only time, the risk/reward makes it worth playing is when the jackpot goes up to no winners for an extended period of time. The other problem is that you are paid in annuities over 20 years but if you want a lump sum; you get a fraction of the prize. The government takes their 50% off the top...so you basically need a jackpot 3 times the odds to even make it a fair bet (statistically speaking). I have heard there have been a few times in the past (when the jackpot is really big), there have been times when an entity has played every possible combination to guarantee winning but then you have to split it if others win which presents its own risks.

[Brue]

I win a dollar in the lottery EVERY time I go to the convenient store.

cuz i don't buy a ticket.

[Brazoo]

Yeah - if a computer isn't picking the numbers it can actually be random, as far as I understand.

That photo they used is misleading, because the article only refers to scratch lotto tickets.

[Brazoo]

I'm with you Brue - but my girlfriend likes to play once a week. I chalk it up to an entertainment expense.

[jwyblejr]

But does that work in any country or just in Canada?

[Brazoo]

I'm a complete math dummy - so please someone correct me if I'm wrong - but what I think the article is saying is that any scratch ticket lottery type deal has some kind of system for generating it's tickets - it's not really random.

Computers can't really generate 100% random numbers - and the the odds on those things are fixed, meaning they're built to give X amount of prizes at different levels out. So it's controlled with a system that is suppose to SEEM random to people buying them, but they're not.

When they do lotteries where numbered balls tumble out of a spinning thing of some kind - that's closer to being perfectly random than what a computer can generate. There's also a non-fixed number of winners. Sometimes no one wins, some times lots of people win.

[MegoSteve]

The thread title is a total misrepresentation of the original article on which this "report" is based.

The statistician didn't prove the lottery is "rigged." He was able to figure out how to find the winning scratch off tickets on a popular style of game.

Where does the lottery say scratch off tickets are randomly generated? Of course they aren't. The number of winners in scratch off games is tightly controlled. It has to be that way by design.

The Fox article you are linking to is just half-assed journalism that completely misinterprets the original source article:

Cracking the Scratch Lottery Code | Magazine

The article is about scratch off tickets, not random numbers games with printed tickets, yet the Fox reporter/drunken transcriptionist writes about the lottery and Fox uses a stock shot of a random numbers game ticket to illustrate the article.

I don't think that reporter knows the difference between a randomly drawn numbers game and scratch off tickets, which are anything but random. True, numbers games and scratch offs are both "the lottery," but figuring a way to detect winners in one style of scratch off game does not mean the statistician has cracked random numbers games.

Reading that Fox report reminds me of a game of telephone; one would hope a professional journalist would know better.

[Brazoo]

MegoSteve - TOTALLY - The headline sucks and totally misrepresents what the article is about. The photo is bad too - since that's clearly a non-scratch ticket.

No fault of MIB41's but the one you linked to is much better.

[johnmiic]

The FOX article seems to indicate "all" lottery games are not random when the guy who investigated it was only checking out scratch-off tickets. The headline is general; not specific. It's probably designed to attract people who play Lottery games-no matter what type of game-as a knee-jerk reaction to read the article.

I'm sure there must me some mathematicians out there who could give me better numbers tho for the Power-ball or Mega-millions games. I just wish I knew how to get in touch with them. I just need under 10 million so I don't have to work for the rest of my life.

[MIB41]

The FOX article seems to indicate "all" lottery games are not random when the guy who investigated it was only checking out scratch-off tickets. The headline is general; not specific.

Exactly. The lottery is advertised as a random act. You pick any numbers you want, thinking they could be randomly selected.This guy proved they are not, which means the average person has NO CHANCE of winning. In the article he says, "The lottery corporation needs to control the number of winning tickets." The larger significance of Srivastava’s winning hack, though, is the confirmation that the lottery is often more contrived than spontaneous. “There is nothing random about the lottery,” he said. “In reality, everything about the game has been carefully designed to control payouts and entice the consumer.”

Thus, it is rigged. I did not misrepresent the article.

[Adam West]

Again, it is related to one specific scratch off game and not the lottery as pictured. It is bad journalism to take a specific situation and apply it to the entire lottery. I have taken a few advanced statistics courses in college so I'm familiar with this area. Scratch off tickets are rigged for sure. It is also no big surprise to win $2. They already know that the majority of people will get an adrenaline rush and instead of taking your $2, will purchase two more tickets with the winnings and after losing, will purchase more (they have a name for this but I can't remember off the top of my head). The lottery, as pictured is purely random. They don't care who wins. The payout is always 50% of the pot. If 8 people win, the pot gets split 8 ways. Pretty simple math.

[Adam West]

I'm presuming that the particular scratch off game in question had a computer lay down the winning tickets with prearranged patterns. It is easily fixed. Just have a computer randomly lay out symbols and plot the winning the tickets randomly among them. Scratch off tickets are actually worse odds than the regular lottery due to the amount of money spent printing and marketing the cards.

[MegoSteve]

Exactly. The lottery is advertised as a random act. You pick any numbers you want, thinking they could be randomly selected.This guy proved they are not, which means the average person has NO CHANCE of winning. In the article he says, "The lottery corporation needs to control the number of winning tickets." The larger significance of Srivastava’s winning hack, though, is the confirmation that the lottery is often more contrived than spontaneous. “There is nothing random about the lottery,” he said. “In reality, everything about the game has been carefully designed to control payouts and entice the consumer.”

Thus, it is rigged. I did not misrepresent the article.

You clearly don't understand the difference between a random number lottery in which the players pick their own numbers and a scratch off ticket in which they do not and are instead given a pre-printed ticket with a pre-determined outcome that can only be seen with after-purchase scratching.

It is the latter which the statistician cracked and when he says "there's nothing random about the lottery," he means there's nothing random about scratch off tickets. And there isn't, because the number of winners is tightly controlled so that the lottery always makes a profit off of them. Those kinds of lottery tickets are not advertised as a random act.

He did not prove that random numbers games are not randomly selected. Where are you even getting that?

That has absolutely nothing to do with random numbers games, which are not rigged nor cracked.

That said, it's still not accurate to describe scratch off tickets as "rigged" because someone figured out how to pick winners without scratching them.

[Brazoo]

Yeah - again, I'm a idiot when it comes to math, but I think I get what both MegoSteve and Adam West are saying and I'm pretty certain they have it right.

This is a really great podcast about randomness. I think anyone interested in gambling, lotteries or coincidence would really enjoy it. It's really fun to listen to, and not too academic or boring.

There's 3 parts - and it's really well done. Check it out!

http://www.radiolab.org/2009/jun/15/


NOTE: If you do listen to it - the guy who studied winning and loosing streaks in sports got a lot of flack for his analysis - and I believe Radiolab did a follow up where they discussed some of his faulty reasoning. Basically a retraction. But the rest, especially with regards to the coin tossing and way we perceive coincidence is all theoretically accurate - as far as I know.