I think people understand the odds are small. However, perhaps they perceive their chances of meaningfully turn around their life in other ways have even smaller odds. i.e. improbable vs actually impossible. At least the lottery doesn't care about your current circumstance and everyone has an equal (equally small) chance.
Secondly, because everyone realizes the chances are small, the real product being sold is Hope. Even the advertisements for the lotteries address this. The thing you're buying is 30 seconds of daydreaming so you can comfortably tackle the rest of the day.
I rarely play Powerball Mega millions but when I do, it's fun thinking about how you'd spend (and protect) your winnings. "First I'll pay off that old debt, then I'll buy a new car, then I'll buy that cute house I've been driving past everyday. Then I'll call my boss and tell him to suck a fat one".
I spend about $10/year on scratchers since I like the causes they support. But most of the volume that I see being bought at the corner store down the street comes from folks who really don't appear to understand the odds.
What I love about this is how it demonstrates that the waiting is the most powerful part. That week is where a lotto user’s brain does all the work for the lotto corp. The anticipation! The excitement. What if? Oh let’s daydream! Oh the dopamine!
You don’t even have to sell them hope. Just sell them the sensation of hope.
I would be really curious to see the money side of this. I am not sure about Powerball, but with EuroJackpot, some of the smaller wins can cover the cost of the ticket (or even cover a holiday!).
It would be really interesting to watch the expected value play out over repeated plays!! I am imagining a running balance where you keep track of total spend versus total returns. Most of the time the balance steadily goes more negative, with occasional jumps back up when you hit a partial match, and very rare big spikes from a larger win.
I think for most people, they just think _someone_ will win eventually and you can't win if you don't play, so why not part with some (hopefully) disposable income that could turn their entire life around.
Neat. I like that multiple clients get the same websocket data, as opposed to each just running their own simulation. I will be watching https://lotteryeverysecond.lffl.me/wins with interest. ;)
I think it would be interesting to have a version where the chosen numbers were the same every time. We all know the odds won't change but there are countless people who play the lottery this way. They have "their" numbers and they never deviate for fear that if they do, that's when "their" numbers would pop up and they'd miss out on the win.
The thing that annoys me most about the lottery is the tradeoff between risk and reward is so dumb as to become actually dangerous. The linked site says the Eurojackpot has a 1 in 139,838,160 chance of a jackpot and a payout of €10,000,000, where for most people a payout of €50k-€250k would be completely life changing and I expect there exist risky bets/gambles/investments which would give you that payout for much better odds.
Not to mention that once your winnings goes over a certain threshold the chance that you end up dead from bad choices or straight up murdered seems to skyrocket.
What would be cool is being able to enter a ticket price, and keep a running count of financials to show how underwater you are on a net basis.
Could also change the cadence for tallying purposes (so 1 second = 1 week/fortnight/month) to keep track of how many weeks, months or years one has been doing this for. But that might get depressing!
Insightful. Similar to worldometers.info.
Reminds me of VSauce’s mind blowing YouTube video visualizing how big 52 factorial is.
A useful statistic to include is the probability of becoming a successful business owner, or better yet, the probability of getting a job that pays an annual salary of 200k, 1mil. etc. Maybe that will inspire people to dream more practically.
Another insightful feature would be to emulate playing at the rate of real life (approx. tickets per second in real life).
So what happens if this wins after a very low number of plays? What if it won twice in a row? Would the plays be reset because it isn't representative anymore? Or should it be left up to give a different message?
This reminds me of a (dirt cheap - about 0.5€) scratch ticket available when I was growing up. The number of winning tickets, as specified on the ticket, was 51%. The 2% up from the usual 49% meant you won more than you lost. The smallest prize was about twice the cost of the ticket. We would run to the store on our lunch break, buy a couple of tickets, rinse and repeat a few times, and have money for whatever food we wanted for the day.
(and no, you wouldn't be able to farm them - the store only carried X amount of tickets, and they usually sold out quickly)
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 62.7 ms ] threadSecondly, because everyone realizes the chances are small, the real product being sold is Hope. Even the advertisements for the lotteries address this. The thing you're buying is 30 seconds of daydreaming so you can comfortably tackle the rest of the day.
People chase the jackpots but there are multiple $1,000,000 winners every drawing, 2-3 times a week
At the end of the day, gotta be in the game to win it
Maybe try shouldIplaythelottery.com
You don’t even have to sell them hope. Just sell them the sensation of hope.
See also: Simulation Clicker.
I know how my brain works these days.
It would be really interesting to watch the expected value play out over repeated plays!! I am imagining a running balance where you keep track of total spend versus total returns. Most of the time the balance steadily goes more negative, with occasional jumps back up when you hit a partial match, and very rare big spikes from a larger win.
Very cool project!
https://archive.org/download/HeliganSecretsOfTheLostGardens/...
This seems pretty reasonable, actually! Somehow it makes the 320M seem manageable.
Not to mention that once your winnings goes over a certain threshold the chance that you end up dead from bad choices or straight up murdered seems to skyrocket.
And that dream lasts right up until you check the numbers.
That’s the part rational investors tend to miss … the power of dreaming.
And I’ll admit it - I play the lottery too, even though I already live a pretty comfortable life.
Could also change the cadence for tallying purposes (so 1 second = 1 week/fortnight/month) to keep track of how many weeks, months or years one has been doing this for. But that might get depressing!
A useful statistic to include is the probability of becoming a successful business owner, or better yet, the probability of getting a job that pays an annual salary of 200k, 1mil. etc. Maybe that will inspire people to dream more practically.
Another insightful feature would be to emulate playing at the rate of real life (approx. tickets per second in real life).
(excluding the smaller pool draws of 5/6, 4/6, etc)
One ticket as the width of a human hair (60-80 µm).
The winning numbers are a hole the width of a human hair.
The odds of winning 1:14m is hitting another hair head on in a line 14,000,000×0.00007 m=980 meters wide. (~840 meters to ~1,120 meters)
The odds of winning 1:33.3m is hitting another hair head on in a line 33,294,800×0.00007 m=2,330.636 meters wide. (1,998 meters to ~2,664 meters)
(calculations by ChatGPT)
If I buy a ticket, it's so I can daydream for myself.
(and no, you wouldn't be able to farm them - the store only carried X amount of tickets, and they usually sold out quickly)