Statistician Cracks Code For Lottery Tickets 374
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Lottery Post has an interesting story about Mohan Srivastava, an MIT educated statistician who became intrigued by a particular type of scratch-off lottery ticket called an extended-play game — sometimes referred to as a baited hook — that has a tic-tac-toe grid of visible numbers that looks like a miniature spreadsheet. Srivastava discovered a defect in the game: The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating. Nothing needed to be scratched off — the ticket could be cracked if you figured out the secret code. Srivastava's fundamental insight was that the apparent randomness of the scratch ticket was just a facade, a mathematical lie because the software that generates the tickets has to precisely control the number of winners while still appearing random. 'It wasn't that hard,' says Srivastava. 'I do the same kind of math all day long.'"
Re:Horatio Caine says (Score:3, Insightful)
Where is the "Stab that guy in the face over the Internet" device when you need it?
Re:Coolest part of the article (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you know any stores that will allow you to inspect their scratch-off lotto tickets to pick out the specific ones on the roll you'd like to buy? How would you pull this off?
Re:Coolest part of the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but those are big crooks. Ripping off the lotto to the tune of $150k a year makes you a small crook, and small crooks do big time.
Re:Small typo (Score:5, Insightful)
Statistics isn't hard? Let me guess, you base that on a couple of college courses? As an engineer, I've frequently run into statistical problems that neither I nor my coworkers have even the foggiest notion of how to approach. Things can get really ugly when you start dealing with the real world.
You're certainly right about one thing though - most mathematicians do the math because they enjoy it. Those aforementioned problems that were beyond me? I typically recruit some mathematicians and physicists I know from college, and they solve them for free.
Re:When was the last time you picked.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 1) Be a retailer, or get a job for a retailer, selling lottery tickets. This would get past your "there is no real way to get only the winners"
Step 2) Take all the scratched tickets that people throw away onsite, and scan them for hints as to how to pick winners.
Step 3) Buy a bunch of probable winners to see how accurate you are, and if you are accurate, profit.
Now a few things come to mind.
Many people like to buy the "new" tickets as they seem to "win" more often. This would be normal if took a few weeks for retailers to get a handle on how to pick the winners. You win more often when "chance" is in play, and less often when the probably winners have been weeded out.
It would also explain how retailers cash a high percentage of winners, in Canada at least, were this has been in the news for the past few years.
Here is one such article, and note, this has led to changes in Canada. Seemingly not good enough.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=4be28910-9cec-4785-b471-f37849a29008&k=17633
If you'd Read TFA ... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you tell the difference between an MIT mathematician and a smart MIT mathematician? One talks to the media, the other is a millionaire.
If you'd read the fine article, you'd have seen that he calculated how much he'd earn by using his system and how long it would take - and found that it was far lower than his consulting pay rate. So if he spent time doing it rather than his day job he'd be taking a pay cut.
Sounds to me like a GOOD mathematician - one who applies math to ALL the aspects of the problem and comes to the right conclusion.
The flaw in the "system" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Small typo (Score:-1, Insightful)
Re:Small typo (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow defensive much...
He is just stating statistics (at least those that he bumps into in his line of work) isn't easy, and what's wrong with asking his "former peers" for help if they don't mind.
Where did he say he is an Excellent engineer?
What makes you think he is obsessed with money? It's a job of course you do it for money.
Prestige? You speak as if academics don't have any prestige to their jobs.
Re:Small typo (Score:5, Insightful)
Well you're an arrogant arsehole, aren't you? You've just accused the guy of a bunch of stuff you've derived from your own assumptions, you appear to deride the guy as being obsessed with prestige and then you go on to blow your own trumpet.
You come off as an arrogant and hypocritical prick. And while you might be good a mathematics, I would hazard a guess you're not much use for anything else... case in point: you deride people who, knowing that they don't have the skills to do a task on their own, call on friends for help. Going it alone is generally a less successful strategy if the sum of human achievement is anything to go by.
Re:Small typo (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken like a true parapsychologist. More bad science comes out of researchers underestimating statistics than out of all other sources combined.