

Incredibly Depressing Mega Millions Lottery Simulator - dwwoelfel
http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/poker/lottery_simulator100.php

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msluyter
Although the darwinian in me has no problem with lotteries as a tax on those
who don't understand probability, I'm uncomfortable with the fact that they
generally constitute a regressive tax -- the common wisdom is that the poor
spend a larger percentage of their income on lotteries, though a bit of fact
checking reveals some debate here. In any event, I welcome this, though I'm
afraid that the ones who really need it are unlikely ever to see it.

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kenjackson
Turns out I'm pretty good at lottery. I get about a 20% return on investment,
which appears to be much better than average.

For a small fee, I can teach you how to lose money more slowly.

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lanstein
Speaking of being good at chance games, I heard about the guy who cheated
Press Your Luck for the first time yesterday:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Larson>

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pavel_lishin
I'm not sure if you can consider Press Your Luck to be a chance game,
especially in light of Michael Larson.

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herrherr
I don't want to try this since I fear to use up my win-a-lot-of-money-in-the-
lottery-once chance.

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garyrichardson
I put this into a category of "I knew this before, but seeing it re-enforces
that knowledge."

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ryanc
Edited the select box values to run 100k times and I still only won $10508.
(Browser couldn't handle returning 1 million results)

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ww520
Lottery is a tax on people who don't know statistics (or math).

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njharman
This is like saying movie theaters are a tax on people who don't know
bittorrent.

You play the lottery for entertainment not for it's investment value.

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kreneskyp
This is like saying people buy water pipes for tobacco

They might be entertained by the fantasy of winning money, but the real intent
is for winning money.

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misterm
Or, why the best numbers to choose are just 1,2,3,4,5. (Or really,
33,34,35,36,37 (so you don't have to split the money with people choosing
dates).

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zackola
I once one $100 in a mega millions drawing. I bought the tickets when I was
tipsy so maybe that's the key ;)

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njharman
First off, it's gambling it's not expected to have a ROI.

Second, 2/wk or 1040 over 10 years is not that many 2-3 a day avg 1040/yr is
more like it.

Third, I won $67 whooo hooo!

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eof
lol, the users were ahead (192%) when I ran my simulation.

72 bucks back out of 1040 for me.

