Hacker News Reader

Comment by lkxijlewlf | Hacker News Reader

I've told the few people I know who play the lotto they should pick "1,2,3,4,5,6" and their faces screw up. I tell them it's just as likely. They don't believe me. I ask, then why are you even playing if you don't understand the game? That doesn't go over well.

View on HN

I used to do the same. Told my mom to buy that ticket, and explained to her she was wrong. And that made her sad to realize.

She buys the tickets because she enjoys the pleasure of forward predictions: what will she do with the money. Go to the bahamas, buy a villa. Relax.

That forward projection means dopamine and norephedrine release -- similar to taking a drug. She enjoys that pleasure that's why she buys it.

Hear hear. That's exactly why I occasionally buy a lotto ticket or 20 when the number gets REALLY big. I consider $20 every year toward an hour of fantasizing about what I'd do with a $500M lump sum a worthwhile investment.

($500M lump sum...$250M after taxes...invested into triple tax-free muni bonds paying 2.5%....ahhhh...$521,000 a month for life...mmmmmm)

Norepinephrine?

It may be just as likely to win but it's not just as good, the expected value of the prize is much smaller because the prize will be shared with a large number of people. Better to choose a random set of numbers.

But that's a completely different point.

It isn't because if you play every week you should be looking at EV and returns - not the likelihood of winning the entire jackpot on one run

With prize pools often paying down to a few numbers selected you could be +EV over the field if you pick numbers they don't

I don't play.

The point was, the people I talk to who do, don't understand probability. Nothing else matters until they understand probability.

But they seem to have had an intuitive grasp for something out of your reach. Seems like a wash on superiority complexes.

You're making some assumptions here about people, their conversations and motives, all of which you don't know, to come to some sweeping negative conclusion.

I have no trouble at all believing that guy knows some people who have a bad grasp on probabilities, especially if they also happen to play the lottery. ;)

But it doesn't seem like you have a very good understanding of EV and probability either since you recommend a completely sub-optimal strategy.

He's not suggesting a strategy, he's highlighting a controversial pick to get them to question their assumptions.

I'm not trying to help them win. I'd rather they not play at all. It's throwing money away.

You're stating it like only lottery players don't understand probabilities. Read the top comments in the thread, plenty of educated, intelligent HN readers have no clue how to calculate these probabilities either.

In fact, most lottery players I've met DO understand probability, or at least grasp the fact that their "investment" is, in the long term, an expensive hobby.

> You're stating it like only lottery players don't understand probabilities.

OP doesn't say that literally, and I'm not reading it that way, either.

> In fact, most lottery players I've met DO understand probability

That's great! However, OP might be talking to and about different people here. People who don't know probabilities well exist, and some of them play the lottery. In fact, I think there's a lot of them.

I think all OP is saying that it's better for people to understand probability better, and then decide to play the lottery, like the people that you're talking to.

Yes, but it's also a good point!

As we see from this very article, while 1,2,3,4,5,6 has the same chance of being drawn it has a higher chance of being called a scam. So lower chance that you will see money wired to your account.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com