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What would you do if the lottery tickets you bought had zero chance at jackpot?

Climber

Climber

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 13, 2004
Location
Clovis/Fresno
Moto(s)
01 Goldwing GL1800
Name
Brett
'Zero' chance lottery tickets stun some players
NEW YORK (CNN) -- When Scott Hoover bought a $5 scratch-off ticket in Virginia called "Beginner's Luck" last summer, he carefully studied the odds. Even though he figured his chances of winning were a long shot, he felt the odds were reasonable.

Hoover, a business professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, wasn't surprised when his tickets didn't bring him the $75,000 grand prize, but he was shocked to learn the top prize had been awarded before he bought the ticket.

"I felt duped into buying these things," Hoover said.

He discovered the Virginia State Lottery was continuing to sell tickets for games in which the top prizes were no longer available. Public records showed that someone had already won the top prize one month before Hoover played. He is now suing the state of Virginia for breach of contract. Video Is this a scratch-off scandal? »

"It's one thing to say it's a long shot to win the $75,000, but it's another thing to say you have no shot to win it," said John Fishwick, Hoover's attorney.

Through a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act, Fishwick's firm was able to obtain records that showed the Virginia State Lottery sold $85 million in tickets for which no top prize was available. Fishwick says the state should pay $85 million in damages.

Paula Otto, executive director of the Virginia State Lottery, said the state's games are fair and the top prize money is actually a small percentage of the money given out to lottery players. Most of the players win through the second, third or fourth-place prizes, she said. Otto also said it's no longer possible in the state of Virginia to purchase tickets with no top prizes available.

"We absolutely have always been very open and honest with our players about the way our scratch tickets are distributed," Otto said. "Yes, there were times when there was a scratch game out there that might've said "zero" in terms of the number of top prizes, but our players knew that."

Otto would not comment on the lawsuit, but said she stands by the integrity of the games in Virginia and looks forward to vigorously defending them.

Virginia isn't the only state to sell tickets that have no top prizes available. USA Today estimates that about half of the 42 states that have lotteries were, as of early July, continuing to sell tickets after the top prizes are claimed. Lottery officials from some states say the practice is fair because lesser prizes are still available, and they say tickets and lottery Web sites make that clear.

In New Jersey, tickets for the "$1,000,000 Explosion" scratch-off game were still on sale last week, even though the million-dollar grand prize was already awarded.
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Most of these lottery officials are full of shit! Anybody else notice that the CA Super Lotto never doubles each week after the jackpot goes above $20 Million like it used to? It instead goes up by just $4 Million each week even when it's over $50 Million? :wtf
 
eh, lottery is just a tax on people that are bad at math.


I did have teacher show us hi "proof" theory that it is worthwhile in the long run to buy one ticket/week in california if you can honestly afford to throw away $100/yr.

But I never understood his "proof"
 
If the tickets were all pre-printed, then the purchasers had exactly the same chance of winning, even after the prize was awarded.

Congratulations! They won the real grand prize: A Reality Check!
 
no news here, it says so right on the ticket. it has for years.

from the back of a CA scratch ticket I have on my desk
"After game start, some prizes including top prizes, may have been claimed."

Remember the pull tabs at the bowling alley back in the day where they would mark out the $50 prizes that had been won, this is the same thing.
 
theAmazingKickstand said:
eh, lottery is just a tax on people that are bad at math.


I did have teacher show us hi "proof" theory that it is worthwhile in the long run to buy one ticket/week in california if you can honestly afford to throw away $100/yr.

But I never understood his "proof"
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If your marginal utility of $100 is low enough to throw it away every year, you probably don't really need that jackpot that badly either. :laughing :laughing
 
Silence said:
If your marginal utility of $100 is low enough to throw it away every year, you probably don't really need that jackpot that badly either. :laughing :laughing
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thats what i was thinking when he first started the proof (that i didnt understand)

But really a hundred nominal dollars/year isnt that much. People waste that on booze/drugs/month.....haha probably the same people that buy lottery tickets.
 
Nah. The government already gets enough of my money to misuse.
 
For more breaking news, stay tuned to CNN (Climber News Network)


:twofinger :p
 
theAmazingKickstand said:
People waste that on booze/drugs/month.....
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There is no such thing as "money wasted on booze".

unless it's on those stuck up wimminz at the bar

Go directly to FAIL. Do not pass win, do not collect $200.
 
When i win it, i'm throwing a huge ass party

But wouldn't one ticket a week only be $52 bucks....some math teacher
 
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Cyclone said:
When i win it, i'm throwing a huge ass party

But wouldn't one ticket a week only be $52 bucks....some math teacher
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some of us get stumped earlier than others.:twofinger

The $48 loss is taken into account for total loss vs. total gain in the long run....not just loss on buying loser tickets/tickets that paid less than jackpot

At approx. $100 there is/was at the time a supposed equilibrium of how you should play the game vs how others play the game vs total expected outcome.....

the game is for $1 tickets.
 
theAmazingKickstand said:
dude $200 cuts in half your chances of being guaranteed to not win the jackpot.
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I'll bet you didn't get A's in math. Fixed :laughing

I tell my kids that you are 5 times more likely to get struck and killed by lightning in the US than you are to win the lottery. But, at the same time there is only one guarantee with the lottery, and that is if you don't enter you won't win. So, buy tickets accordingly....like never more than $5 at a time and only once in awhile. Why buy any at all? Well, if you do win, it would be a life-changing event.
 
I know the lottery is bullshit when I drop my kid off at school. The money is not going where it is supposed to.
 
westie said:
I know the lottery is bullshit when I drop my kid off at school. The money is not going where it is supposed to.
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That's because the state officials are playing shell game. They say that the lottery money is going to the schools, but what they don't tell you is that they cut the other money that is going to schools by an equal amount. ;)
 
Climber said:
That's because the state officials are playing shell game. They say that the lottery money is going to the schools, but what they don't tell you is that they cut the other money that is going to schools by an equal amount. ;)
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Exactly. They made it sound like it'd be additional money going to the schools, but in reality, it just replaces money from the normal state budget that was allotted to the schools, and our fiscal legislators can then squander that money elsewhere.
 
zefflyn said:
If the tickets were all pre-printed, then the purchasers had exactly the same chance of winning, even after the prize was awarded.

Congratulations! They won the real grand prize: A Reality Check!
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Sort of, but only in a strange world where the probability distribution remains fixed where it started even when additional information is available regarding the current state of the distribution.

Regarding winning the lottery and lightning--- those 5 to 1 or whatever statistics are only true *on average*, meaning that if you buy a lot of tickets or chase thunderstorms regularly, those odds are significantly wrong for your situation.
 
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