
Who Wants to Be a Thousandaire? - choult
http://www.damninteresting.com/who-wants-to-be-a-thousandaire/
======
dbbolton
There is a documentary about the incident called "Big Bucks: The Press Your
Luck Scandal" on Youtube:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEBCve-3Cw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFEBCve-3Cw)

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzNMCXWCZzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzNMCXWCZzQ)

as well as the original episode itself:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h07eO0SKtUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h07eO0SKtUI) (better quality, split into parts)

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkM10SxmmwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkM10SxmmwU) (lower quality, whole episode)

------
thoman23
I think it's important to recognize that he still assumed some risk with each
spin. That risk was reduced from 1/6 to some much smaller number, but the risk
was not zero. His concentration or timing could fail on any given spin, as
evidenced by his final spin where he mistimed it but got lucky.

My point is that I don't think you can say he was cheating. He played within
the rules of the game and couldn't just drain cash out of the system forever.

~~~
tempestn
Totally. He found a way to turn it from a game of luck into a game of skill.
Rather like counting cards at Blackjack (although with more of the luck
removed, and with a much better expected return!)

~~~
bitwize
Yes, and if you are caught card counting at Blackjack, big burly men will come
and eject you from the casino.

Just because you didn't _technically_ break the rules doesn't mean the house
thinks you played fair. Hint: for them "fair" = "house wins". (For a gameshow,
winning entails making much more in advertising money than they have to pay
out in prizes and spend to produce the show.)

~~~
tempestn
Indeed, that's part of why I figured it was a good analogy.

------
murbard2
In case you're wondering, there are 8 digits on the one dollar bill serial
number, so assuming a random draw by the DJ, the odds of one of the 100,000
dollars matching the draw every day would be very close to 1 in a thousand.
After a year, you'd only have a 30.58% chance of winning at least once. The
expected value of combing through the dollars to find a match would be about
$30 every day. I wonder if he sorted them into a binary tree.

~~~
fenomas
Of course, the DJ might well have been reading a number off a bill from his
own wallet each day, ensuring there'd be no payouts...

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. What kind of radio station has a $30,000
promo budget for a one off contest, especially in 1980s dollars. That's around
$60,000 today.

I imagine no one ever won that money.

------
narrator
I wouldn't be surprised if this guy had a tough time dealing with people and
couldn't stand working for anyone or managing employees. I think if he was
born 20 years later he would have gambled all his money away on day trading
schemes.

There are a lot of losers out there -- isolated, paranoid and looking for
their loophole in the system. They'd be just fine if they'd realize that
getting some social skills and learning to work well with others would fix
most of their problems with the world.

~~~
solve
He didn't want to live an ok life and fix his problems.

This is a man who wanted to find a way to the very top.

~~~
narrator
His failing thought was that he thought he could get to the top by himself by
executing some tricky scheme, as if he were some sort of comic book character.
It did work for him, for a bit. However, most people who don't win the lottery
get to the top with the help and cooperation of a lot of other people. He
didn't seem like the kind of guy who was trusting enough to develop
relationships such that he could advance in life.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Some think the game that we're all invited to play (i.e. the one you're
advocating) is rigged. Indeed, they would say that the real "losers" are the
ones who think they can beat it by working harder.

------
downandout
It's amazing how many people in the world are looking for "easy" money that is
actually much harder to obtain than legitimate money. For example, the odds of
winning more than $1 million in any lottery in the US are nearly always less
than 1 in 10 million. By contrast, the odds of a US adult becoming a newly
minted millionaire in a given year are about 1 in 420 [1]. While the idea of
living by your wits alone seems to appeal to many people, the reality is that
for most people "easy" money comes from work, entrepreneurship (in many
cases), and investing wisely.

[1] _According to[http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/14/news/economy/us-
millionaires...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/14/news/economy/us-millionaires-
households/) more than 600,000 new millionaires were minted in the US in 2013,
out of an adult population (age 18+) of roughly 250 million. Thus 1 in 417 US
adults became a new millionaire in 2013. The odds are actually much better
than this among people actively trying to become millionaires, because most US
adults are not engaging in activities that could possibly position them to
achieve this._

~~~
geofft
Aggregate odds are not individual odds. About one in three of my meals are
breakfast, but the odds of my next meal being breakfast are incredibly low.

If you want to convince someone that a lottery is a bad bet, you have to
convince them that working and investing is a better investment _for them_ :
it's irrelevant that it's a better investment for the public as a whole. And
the people who market lotteries know that, and choose who they target based on
that. You'll see more ads for lotteries on the subway than you will in an in-
flight magazine.

~~~
downandout
_> Aggregate odds are not individual odds. About one in three of my meals are
breakfast, but the odds of my next meal being breakfast are incredibly low. If
you want to convince someone that a lottery is a bad bet, you have to convince
them that working and investing is a better investment for them_

Odds are odds. And I think that if people understood that they are at least
24,000 times more likely to become a millionaire by starting a business than
they are by playing the lottery, they would start a business instead of
playing the lottery.

~~~
alextgordon
and you're infinitely more likely to become a millionaire by writing code than
by writing HN comments. Everybody reading this should bugger off and do
something useful! :)

~~~
downandout
Depends on the code :) .

~~~
morgante
And the comments.

------
seltzered
As referenced at the end of the article, there's a This American Life podcast
from a few years ago about the whole thing:
[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/412/m...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea)

Really worth the listen.

------
thoman23
Among the many interesting things in this story is the reaction of the show
producers and how different things were back then. Today's producers would
jump ALL OVER this and make him a huge celebrity, driving up ratings and
attention for the show. It seems absurd to think of not airing the show at
all.

~~~
carussell
Counterexample: Terry Kniess

------
gcv
Life imitates fiction? Jack London wrote a short story (part of the Smoke
Bellew series) about something similar:

[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Smoke_Bellew/Shorty_Dreams](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Smoke_Bellew/Shorty_Dreams)

~~~
knodi123
that was a fun way to waste a few minutes! thanks!

------
bhandziuk
I initially thought "Wait Jon Carpenter won 1M $ on Who Wants To Be
Millionaire in 1999" which is way before 2006. I guess what the last paragraph
of the article meant to say was "Michael Larson held the record for the most
DAYTIME game-show winnings in a single day until". Millionaire was not a
Daytime show.

~~~
toast0
Millionaire is a multi episode (day) process, as well

------
withdavidli
Reminds me of this article about scratch cards and how some are not random:
[http://www.wired.com/2011/01/ff_lottery/](http://www.wired.com/2011/01/ff_lottery/)

Always interesting to read about people being about to connect the dots in
what most people would consider complete randomness / chance / luck.

------
hurin
I don't understand why the producers thought it was such a horrible thing
(according to the article) -- surely they are making several magnitudes of the
cost per episode, this kind of thing should provide promotional value more
than anything else.

~~~
kamaal
They are doing the show to make money not to make ordinary people rich. If
people start getting rich, the situation would be exactly like those math
nerds winning at Las Vegas Casino's.

According to them this is about fun and entertainment, a little winning here
and there is ok. But winning big is a problem here.

~~~
hurin
> the situation would be exactly like those math nerds winning at Las Vegas
> Casino's.

The math nerd's winning at Las Vegas casinos probably brings more profit in
terms of suckers that read "bringing down the house" and an introductory
black-jack counting book then they could cost ever them. The Casino's hard-
line against this is some kind of deep-seated and antagonistic mob-mentality
more than any actual losses.

------
Keyframe
Here's show about it/him:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzNMCXWCZzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzNMCXWCZzQ)

~~~
cgag
The full unedited episode is here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkM10SxmmwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkM10SxmmwU)

------
webnrrd2k
He reminds me of Lazlo Hollyfeld, in the movie Real Genius, who won 31.8% of
the prizes in a Frito-Lay sweepstakes by submitting 1,650,000 entries. “No
purchase necessary, enter as often as you want”.

~~~
mark-r
For a long time that movie was not available on DVD. I'm glad they finally
rectified that.

------
JanneVee
Ah, I learned a new colloquialism today with their error message for an
overloaded server. "... accidentally Lennie us."
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lennie](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lennie)

------
gcb0
the couple spent months counting and cataloging the serial number of their
money for a radio contents, and when the money was stolen police was unable to
find it?

------
cgabios
Voltaire would be proud [0], the dude cracked their non-CSPRNG fair and
square.

0: [http://www.damninteresting.com/the-enlightenment-guide-to-
wi...](http://www.damninteresting.com/the-enlightenment-guide-to-winning-the-
lottery/)

------
mazizzletizzl
How much does the seated bearded guy in front of the array of screens, in the
image a third of a way down the article, look like the Architect from the
Matrix architect scene? Is that where the Wachowskis actually got their
inspiration -- that bizarre episode? "Your life is the remainder of an
unbalanced equation..." And there's Larsson rebalancing the equation for all
the times other people unluckily had their winnings taken by pressing their
like one more time.

------
petethomas
Watching the GSN video on YouTube I was struck by the generic presentation of
non-cash prizes. Press Your Luck was apparently content to just mention the
contestant won a "Sailboat" without tethering it to a brand which seems like
overlooked opportunity even for the simpler time since contemporaries like The
Price Is Right were integrating brands into their show.

------
adam-a
Seems to be down. Archive.org version from last year:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20141109113413/http://www.damnint...](http://web.archive.org/web/20141109113413/http://www.damninteresting.com/who-
wants-to-be-a-thousandaire)

~~~
octatoan
Doesn't work.

------
shade23
And I shall keep staying on website with the server down page because even
that is fun to read.Someone please comment when the site is up and running
again.

------
MilnerRoute
Bill Murray once agreed to appear in a film adaptation of this story (directed
by Nicolas Cage).

[http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116245](http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116245)

------
kragen
I wish I could disavow this guy as a hacker, but he was clearly a hacker. And
I think this story demonstrates a kind of weakness that we're all a bit prone
to. (See my deeper comment for algorithmic analysis.)

------
__z
I had read somewhere (don't recall where) that a few other people had figured
out the patterns too but just didn't make it to be contestants.

------
gkop
I love that if you google "unbeardily," all the results point to this story.
Do you think it's a "trap street"?

------
jmkni
Well that blog certainly lives up to its' name! Fascinating!

Has anybody ever worked out what he did?

~~~
barbs
Damninteresting.com is a truly underrated website. I bought their book a few
years ago, which was a collation of nearly all their articles up to the time
of print. They're listed in the book alphabetically, but every article was
fascinating and well-written, regardless of topic. I highly recommend it if
you have time and/or need a reason to procrastinate :).

------
lifeisstillgood
Seems a sad waste of a life. A shame - I wonder what turns a boy into that
man?

~~~
meric
An initiation ritual.

------
DyslexicAtheist
the real Del Boy

------
benihana
This kind of thing is less about easy money and more about outsmarting people.
This guy wasn't trying to make an easy buck, he was trying to make a buck by
outwitting other people, beating them, winning. It's antisocial (in a clinical
rather than pop culture sense) behavior. The guy seems to have the symptoms of
antisocial personality disorder. [1]

I'm just an internet commenter though, not a psychologist, so take it for what
it's worth.

1.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder)

~~~
mahranch
I think it's more than that. I got a vibe that something wasn't right with the
guy just looking at the first picture of him and pushed aside the feeling
believing it to be just an old picture. Then, at the very beginning of the
article, there's a bit where one of the producers said that something didn't
feel right about the guy but they couldn't quite put their finger on it.

That's one of the biggest tell-tale signs of a sociopath. I couldn't piece
together much about his personality from the article, but I'd bet a Jackson
that this guy was a sociopath.

~~~
DanBC
"I don't know what I'm talking about, but this guy feels off, and I don't like
that, so rather than examining my own biases and predjudices and
irrationalities I'm going to use mental health language to give him a
(controversial, relatively new) diagnosis from thecomfort of my armchair".

This attitude fucking sucks.

~~~
kefka
Better classified, and as a non-psychiatric condition: He's just a
businessman.

~~~
mahranch
And the best businessmen (CEOs) have the highest amount of sociopaths than any
other profession:

[http://mic.com/articles/44423/10-professions-that-attract-
th...](http://mic.com/articles/44423/10-professions-that-attract-the-most-
sociopaths)

Being a great businessman doesn't mean he's less likely to be a sociopath, it
actually probably means he's _more_ likely.

~~~
kefka
The only time it would be a disability is if it really is a dis-ability.

I do not consider sociopathy to be debilitating all the time. The same can be
said for claustrophobia. A mild form of it produces discomfort the person can
control. Severe cases would qualify for more drastic treatments.

So, it may be true there are more sociopaths in business. I would not refute
that. But whether the sociopathy is debilitating is to be examined. And that,
I would assume require assessing the individual if they are happy with their
life.

