She's 80 and Too Young To Quit Working

[Wade Lippman]

Two interesting things....

1) The article says "His tickets would have the same odds of winning as anyone else’s. He would just be buying a lot more of them." So, each lottery would lose money, as it wouldn't matter if he bought a lot of tickets, or someone else. Wouldn't you think someone would notice they were losing money each time?
2) Not a single major news service picked this story up; either as Jerry (as this article, or Gerry, as most of the others). Odd.

[Jason Roehl]

Two interesting things....

1) The article says "His tickets would have the same odds of winning as anyone else’s. He would just be buying a lot more of them." So, each lottery would lose money, as it wouldn't matter if he bought a lot of tickets, or someone else. Wouldn't you think someone would notice they were losing money each time?
2) Not a single major news service picked this story up; either as Jerry (as this article, or Gerry, as most of the others). Odd.

The lotteries in the story weren't losing money.

[Wade Lippman]

The lotteries in the story weren't losing money.

Exactly.....

[Jim Koepke]

The lotteries in the story weren't losing money.

Exactly.....

What was happening was when the top prize went unclaimed and the jackpot reached a predetermined level all the lesser prizes, such as 2 correct numbers would increase in value if the jackpot was not won again. What it came down to was the odds for picking a few of the correct numbers were better than even for those picking less than all the winning numbers.

jtk