Microsoft Loses Technicality Points In Eolas Case
The Tao Of DRM

Lotteries Think Internet Will Seduce Rich People Too

Overhype

from the slim-chance dept

Thu, May 5th 2005 1:15pm — Brett
Not too long ago, Georgia was blazing a trail to the internet with plans for an online version of its state lottery. A bill creating the virtual racket game recently passed the state's House, while several others states are moving in this direction. Proponents of internet-based lotteries are hailing them as a major advancement in the original Idiot Tax paper-based lottery of yore. The hope is that making it easier to buy tickets will appeal to a bigger audience, especially wealthier people who disproportionately avoid it today. But is a lack of convenience really limiting lottery sales? After all, rich people shop at grocery and "convenience" stores -- where ticket machines are already ubiquitous -- just like poor people. Rather than enticing more players, moving the kiosk online probably won't do much to change the ticket-buying behaviors of people who don't already buy in to the system. If they miraculously do, then state governments might have found a sneaky way of effectively taxing the rich.
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 May 2005 @ 2:01pm

    No Subject Given

    Games for Business and Economics by Roy Gardner is a great book that dissects all sorts of gambling. Easy read too.

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Jojo, 5 May 2005 @ 2:35pm

      Re: Lottery tickets

      Too many people obviously failed basic math in school and don't understand probability or statistics. Consider that the CA Super Lotto game has odds of winning with one ticket at 41,416,353. So you buy say 20 tickets for one drawing (something I see people do on a regular basis). That means you have 20 chances to win and 41,416,333 chances to not win (lose). Essentially, there is no real difference between buying 1 ticket or buying 20 tickets. If you are going to win, it's going to be pure luck, nothing more. Buying more than one or two tickets for a drawing is NOT playing responsibly. If the media would publish/show stories explaining the odds against winning in simple language and perhaps running an occasional story of how buying lottery tickets destroyed a family, more people might understand that buying lottery tickets is a losing proposition. It is the rare person who winds up with greater winnings than what they laid out to buy tickets. States should not be in the gambling business, and should not be encouraging people to participate in lotteries. Period. Too bad most people who could profit by this information don't read blogs or [probably] use computers much or at all.

      [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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