

A game of chance became anything but (2011) - prostoalex
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/10/16/a_game_of_chance_became_anything_but/?page=full

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bumbledraven
_[I]n August 2010 ... a group led by a 2007 MIT graduate named Yuran Lu found
a way to win virtually all the prizes themselves. ... During a four-day
stretch between Aug. 13 and Aug. 16, 2010, Lu and his MIT classmate James
Harvey ... bought nearly $1.4 million in tickets._

Yuran Lu and James Harvey are co-founders of QuicklyChat (YC S12 -
[http://www.quicklychat.com/about.html](http://www.quicklychat.com/about.html))
[http://blog.ycombinator.com/quicklychat-yc-s12-brings-
push-t...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/quicklychat-yc-s12-brings-push-to-talk-
video)

I guess they had no trouble with question 3 on the YC application: _Please
tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system
to your advantage._

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fragmede
Perhaps more interesting is the actual report this article is based off of:
[http://www.mass.gov/ig/publications/reports-and-
recommendati...](http://www.mass.gov/ig/publications/reports-and-
recommendations/2012/lottery-cash-winfall-letter-july-2012.pdf)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> Every time Random Strategies turned in a batch of winning tickets, the
> Lottery generated a W-2G for every member of the group. Even small investors
> in the MIT group -– for example, someone who won $800 over the course of a
> year -– would get dozens of W-2Gs every year and have to spend hours
> accounting for their winnings on their tax returns. The hassle prompted some
> people to cash out and leave the investment pool

Why couldn't the group invest in tickets under its own name and distribute
earnings to investors in a slightly less paperwork-heavy fashion?

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alcari
This reminds me of [1], where scratch-off games were founded to be using PRNG
output improperly, allowing winning tickets to be identified without playing
them.

[1]:
[http://www.wired.com/2011/01/ff_lottery/](http://www.wired.com/2011/01/ff_lottery/)

~~~
anom987
That incident was quickly referenced in the article.

 _“One would have to be brain-dead not to notice that the avalanche [in sales]
had begun in the days leading up to the August 16th draw,’’ said Mohan
Srivastava, a Canadian statistician who gained fame in gambling circles when
he found a flaw in a Canadian instant game, allowing him to accurately pick
winning tickets 90 percent of the time._

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mikefivedeuce
There's a nice explanation of the game and the exploitation in the book How
Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.

