With sports betting, not only do you have the prospect of wasting lots of time, but you end up getting hooked to obsessive watching of ESPN and tracking player stats, wasting lots of time. With lotto, I drop $2 and I'm done.
Yet the consensus seems to be the the millions of people buying lotto tickets are all rubes, but the folks flouting the law and running bookmaking operations on the internet are disrupting staid government regulation?
As with poker versus slots, one may require more time/work to become a reliably winning player, but the payoff is larger. With slots, you pull the lever and you're done.
Ultimately, though, gamblers of all kinds find these sorts of things fun in some way, otherwise they wouldn't continue to throw away money. It's addictive because it triggers some sort of reward center in the brain, and simply participating provides not only fantasy but also a sense of drama and unknown in an otherwise very predictable life.
full disclosure: not a gambler and rarely play the lotto
I agree with you, but I also gamble when I go to Vegas. I think when people say lottery players are dumb they are mainly pointing to the 'spend a large percentage of my paycheck each week on the lottery' group. When the jackpot is this big and is dominating pop culture, buying a ticket is just part of being entertained by the whole thing.
Fantasy sports is more like poker. Yes, it is a game of chance, but it is primarily a game of skill. Maybe most people don't have enough skill to make a difference, but given enough time, it can be acquired and you can have +EV.
Also, in poker and fantasy sports, you don't play against the house. They just take their cut, and you play against other people.
Note, I'm excluding blackjack from skill-based mainly because you are playing against the house, so its by their rules, and if you start winning, they'll kick you out.
But it is a good game for bored STEM undergrads, just like online poker is a good game for bored computer science undergrads. I had a few guys on my year who lived completely off online poker games while in university. They deployed custom-made scripts to automate playing on multiple tables at the same time, and probably did some other things that they didn't tell me. It's the same thing with fantasy sports, except you spend most of the time maintaining complex spreadsheets.
For many people it's the other way around. They were already obsessively watching ESPN - fantasy sports betting just gives them an additional reason to do so.
In the end, grinding out your characters stats are just running scripts with a nice GUI on top. It's the experience that provides the value, not the result.
DFS, OTOH, is a quasilegal (at best) industry with new, rapidly scaling, tech-heavy firms.
The fact that both are gambling is really a side issue to how they relate to HN's focus and biases.
I kind of thought that was the point. If you just want to win money their are, as you said, lots of easier ways of doing that. But that would be less fun.
Structurally, this seems similar to thinking that drugs should be legal, but taking drugs is silly.
Seems pretty different to me enough to illicit different reactions.
a) makes me believe that your assumption that "winning fantasy sports betting is far, far more likely than winning a lottery jackpot" is incorrect, and in fact for an average Joe, the reverse is the case;
b) suggests that the biggest advocates of fantasy sports will be people who believe they're good enough with Excel and statistics.
Most of the comments on this story are pretty straightforward attempts to apply some analysis to the problem (with no real hostility behind them)
But in a way, a lot of things are gambling - up to and including investing, particularly in startups. The desirability of a particular form of gambling in society is tied to the negative effects it has on people (e.g. how easy is it for a player to get addicted), and how exploitative the organizations operating a given game are. Under those metrics, fantasy sports are very much like lottery or one-armed bandit, and very much unlike investing.
And hell, it's not just about being condescending to people. I'm perplexed by how people tolerate, and even vocally support companies that intentionally fuck over poor people.
Unfortunately, that's before tax. After tax (45% for estimation purposes, this will vary by state) it's $1.93. After taxes, the lump sum payout would need to be around $970 million for it to average a $2 payout on a $2 ticket.
This doesn't include the possibility of you splitting the money with another winner, but it also doesn't include the additional value of the money if you invested it wisely, etc.
1: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/billion-dollar-powerball...
What are you basing that on? I don't know what you mean by "almost certain", but to me that phrase means at least 90%, and the chance of two people hitting the powerball jackpot are substantially less.
My friend Bob says he's waiting for the winning ticket to blow into his hand as he walks down the street. Only microscopically different odds than buying a ticket.
Historically there's a higher than average representation of numbers 31 and under (birthdays, anniversaries, special events), which means that there are going to be gaps; especially now that the highest possible white number drawn has been increased to 69.
I imagine that there are lots of duplicate tickets out there, for certain number combinations, and lots of (potential) tickets with combinations that haven't been purchased.
I don't understand how this could be brought into the argument at all. Surely we are just speaking about present value of the money and ignoring how it's spent? Money that gets invested instead of spent wasn't different in quantity in any way. Investing the money you spent on the ticket instead of buying the ticket was also a possibility-- presumably we didn't account for that since we called it a $2 ticket.
Kidnapping & being held for ransom would be a very real threat for the winner. If someone could plan to kidnap the one of the president's dogs [0], a multi-millionaire and their family is totally plausible as a target.
[0] http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/politics/secret-service-je...
Also, why would this person be any more of a target than the publicly known shareholders of public companies that have more than a billion?
Stockert also claimed he was the son
of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe
adding that he had come to the District
to go to the Capitol to advocate for $99
per month healthcare and to announce
that he was running for President.
After his arrest, Stockert stated he
was Jesus Christ, and that this could
be verified on his license.For myself, I'm uncertain how much of a fantasy it would really be to suddenly hold ~$1B (though I obviously wouldn't hesitate to try..). But have you ever played a video game, then discover an exploit or cheat code to give you everything you want, then realize how boring and pointless it became relatively soon afterwards?
Part of me wonders if shuffling all the way across Maslow's hierarchy of needs in the real world would have the same psychological effect. I think we crave a certain comfortable level of struggle.
I don't think that's a great comparison. You've removed the point of the game by cheating, but the point of life isn't "accrue $1 billion".
I think it's part of the worry people have had for ages and ages: what do you do idle? Do you find things to do? Or just stop doing things? Or do you create and/or learn a skill? Do you work harder to leverage it all for power?
For years, my greatest fear has been to win the lottery because of that reason exactly. I don't know what I would do with my life. And it would cause all sorts of stress among friends, family members and potentially strangers.
Regardless, I still bought a ticket.
Probably the same reason people found startups.
Calling the game a ripoff is unfair. Ripoff is a deception, yet Powerball is completely honest about its mechanism.
Participants understand that they are playing a game with a low chance of winning, but they do get a lot of value out of the ticket. Otherwise, with so much information available, why would they play?
If we worry about participants not being able to "understand" these sorts of large odds, we might be better off worrying over much graver yet common situations. Do we understand the price of not paying attention in elementary school math class? The pitfalls of not having various kinds of insurance? Or even driving on the freeway?
I see poor people lined up at my local convenient store, spending considerable amounts of their money on scratch offs and lottery tickets. They actually don't understand or are addicted, and the gov doesn't care, so long as they're getting money out of it. Who's going to regulate the regulators? It's not like the State limits how many you can buy.
Care of ikeboy on the lottery simulator thread.
I didn't find the fact that poorer people were more likely to play surprising but just how much more. Nor would I have guessed that the overall average was anywhere near $162 a year. I don't think I've spend that much on the lottery in my 20+ years of being old enough to play the lottery.
I'm not saying that advertising is the explanation, but I'd be surprised to find that it had no bearing at all. I also kind of wish that state governments would, well, cut it out.
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/with-14b-lottery-ja...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/01/0...
And the wiki article explains a little bit more on how he did it[1]: "When his trial began on April 13, 2015, evidence was introduced by the prosecutors to support allegations that Tipton had rigged the draw in question, by using his privileged access to an MUSL facility to install a rootkit on the computer containing Hot Lotto's random number generator, and then attempting to claim a winning ticket with the rigged numbers anonymously."
I was shocked the first time I realized how big some lottery-playing communities are, and to what extent it's actually a social activity.
I have no idea how much money she has, but she doesn't spend much on her clothes or car.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/63f14f1932164832a7f571d0c1b4e...
Certainly interesting timing.
This is a typical "heads will roll" situation. Strutt was the leader, a serious crime happened during his watch, and he's being replaced because of it.
It seems like term limits on critical lottery employees would be a good idea, regardless.
odds of winning: 1 in 292,200,000 (approx)
miles between LA and NYC: 2,800 (approx)
feet in a mile: 5,280
inches in a foot: 12
US dimes in an inch: 1.4 (approx)
2800 miles * 5280 feet * 12 inches * 1.4 dimes = 248,371,200 "dimes" between LA and NYC
Summary:
Assume that someone drove from LA to NYC at stopped at any point of their choosing along the way and threw a dime onto the ground. Starting from LA you drive the same route, you have better odds of stopping your car at the exact spot that that person dropped their dime than you do of winning this Jackpot.
With all the usual caveats about not being evenly distributed. I find this a little easier to explain to people, such that they can reasonably understand that it's not just "unlikely". Stuff like 10 times as likely to be hit by a meteorite or other super rare events just doesn't seem to get the point across as well. It's also easier to break it down into smaller pieces (throw dimes on the ground and have people try to pick the right one, guess a mile marker just in Colorado, etc)
2800 miles/distance_between_LA_and_New York * 5280 feet/mile * 12 inches/feet * 1.4 dimes/inch = 248,371,200 dimes/distance_between_LA_and_NYC
The driving example is exactly the same as saying "put 250M dimes in a big pot, then pick the exact one randomly". However, restating the problem, in a way that breaks down naturally into individual units that people can grasp, can help prevent it from becoming too abstract.
The odds are that if you play, you're going to lose, and if you don't play at all, it's impossible to lose.
And while it doesn't do to be mean and judgmental towards individuals or even populations who do things like play lotteries, we can make normative judgements. For instance: "enterprises which promise riches while delivering poverty are dystopian, wrong, and practically fraudulent", and "entertaining yourself with dreams of unearned riches runs counter to all the values which will help people achieve real, meaningful value in life, and as such ought not be celebrated."
It would be interesting to see if there are any studies that show that trend and where it cuts off.
It's $2 * 292M, $584M minimum payout, for the odds to be in your favor. Expected payout is now up to $930 * (1 - 0.395), so $562M after federal taxes. Depends on state taxes, and if the estimate is a little low, only about $20M short this morning.
At +EV, it would mean, if I put in $60,000, I would expect to get more than $60,000 back, and on average that's correct, though odds are still that the $60k will go to waste.
Furthermore, after the first $100 million, the next $100 million isn't really going to change much in utility, and each dollar becomes worth less as you go further out, so at odds of 1 in 200m, it doesn't really pay off unless you already have the $200m to place the bet. When you take into account that the pot might get split with multiple winners, that's a massive risk you take.
I don't think this is really viable until you have odds of 1 in 5 or 10 million with +EV, but at that point, you've got multiple people, hedge funds, etc, that can get together and buy the winnings.
It may, of course, have positive utility.
For example, the Canadian 6/49 goes to positive EV at around $40M. But Canada has higher payout ratio, no taxes and no lump sum silliness.
Watching the program spin for hours disabused me of any notion that the lottery could be won. It was a good way to get a feel for the ridiculous odds involved and to this day I've never felt tempted to play the lottery.
Of course, just because your program never found the right numbers, doesn't mean it couldn't. People do win...
This perspective is deeply flawed. If humans obeyed a risk adjusted rate of return strategy and rationally discounted for the future, human behavior across the board would be profoundly different. The lottery is only one example of many.
Any portfolio of early stage startups is destined to perform worse than the S&P500, as is any portfolio of series A startups. As is any portfolio of lottery tickets... but there is always that winning ticket, that Facebook, that Google.
There have been very few big homerun startups. The rest would fail to lift the average above the S&P.
In an environment where the future seems fairly certain (poverty, affluence, whatever) there is lots to be gained by rolling the dice and experiencing a bit of risk. Lotto is less fun than a startup, but it scratches the same itch. It lets you ride the emotional roller coaster and imagine the greatness that will one day be yours.
Startups are a superior version of lotto because you get to be the CEO or the CTO and someone invests their money to help you build a team and get traction, etc. So your bet with destiny is being underwritten by others. You get advisors, board members, and metrics, and essentially spread the thrill of the tumbling balls across however long your runway lasts. The superiority of startups is why young affluent people do them, and why poor people play lotto.
The urge to take on risk is what got humans onto ships, rockets, and bathyspheres. It's the unique human ability to reason probabilistically and take a leap, to undertake a calculated risk, and to engage in an exciting dance with destiny.
For centuries and in pre-enlightenment times, people believed that all of life was fated and that one's lot was destined from birth.
When we appreciate the emotional thrill of risk we start to see that it's part of the glorious awakening of the human sprit birthed in the enlightenment. When a dejected person puts his last quarter into a slot machine, we are not seeing hopelessness, we are seeing hope in its most unfettered form. Even if he loses that person will pick himself up and dust off and be ready to try again, for fate is on his side. This stands in stark contrast with the previous worldview in which the quarter would be saved and a prayer offered up, which has far smaller odds of success than the slot machine.
If you are on fire and there are a bunch of extinguishers for sale but only one of them works, you are not going to debate the price/odds, you are going to buy as many as you can afford to
I grew up in low class area/family and saw that there is a pretty clear difference between a lower class and middle class mindset.
Serious question: what's the point of angel investing?
Is this that irrational?
With 1000 trials, probability of winning at least one time is 3*10^-6 which is low.
But what are the odds of becoming a billionaire given that your annual income is below $10,000?
That being said, not everything in life must be rational. If there are people out there who get a lot out of dreaming of becoming a billionaire and playing Powerball, I have no problem with it.
But I do have a problem with governments praying on these aspirations to raise money.
Much much worse when you're spending all your money on lotto tickets.
Its probably not a good idea to try to become a billionare. A millionare is within the realm of possibility, especially if you set your expectations to produce a millionare in your family over the next generation.
> people don't understand odds
Is quite ironic.
So still a 15% chance no-one wins.
Anyway, the cheeky FAQ on the PowerBall site is worth money down the drain http://www.powerball.com/pb_contact.asp#odds
Here's a past (yesterday's) submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10891465
Linked URLs are identical, so how did it pass the 'previously submitted' filter?
They changed the numbers to choose from 1-49 to 1-59, and added a prize for matching any 2 (apparently 1 in 10.3 odds) of a free lucky dip (ie another play).
It'd be interesting to know the distribution of people's picks now - I know that my parents use the same numbers they always have, all in the 1-49 range. Obviously lucky dips are more fair, I'm not sure which is more common though.