Lottery AP's

Richard Munchkin

Richard Munchkin

Well-Known Member
In the very early days of the IL state lottery the tickets were 50c each and the odds of hitting were about 1 in 6m. The jackpot got up to 10m or so and I went to my Dad and explained the math. Spend 3m to buy every combination. He called some friends to get some backing and then called the lottery commission and said he wanted to buy 1 of every combination. The lottery commission kind of freaked out and ended up telling him he would have to fill out 6 million tickets. I don't think they even had quick picks back then. We figured out that even hiring people to fill them out we wouldn't have time to get it done. And what if they make errors?
 
PonyPrincess

PonyPrincess

Active Member
Richard Munchkin said:
In the very early days of the IL state lottery the tickets were 50c each and the odds of hitting were about 1 in 6m. The jackpot got up to 10m or so and I went to my Dad and explained the math. Spend 3m to buy every combination. He called some friends to get some backing and then called the lottery commission and said he wanted to buy 1 of every combination. The lottery commission kind of freaked out and ended up telling him he would have to fill out 6 million tickets. I don't think they even had quick picks back then. We figured out that even hiring people to fill them out we wouldn't have time to get it done. And what if they make errors?
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Also you have to account for splitting the jackpot with people who have the same #. I'm pretty sure that's what would happen, right? And the taxes and if the jackpot pays out in an annuity which is worth less then cash up front obviously. But at a certain point it would be worth it.

I don't how you'd figure out how often you'd split the jackpot or how bad that would be.
 
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