Mohan Srivastava, a geological statistician living in Toronto, figured out a way to tell which scratch-off lottery tickets were winners, with 90% accuracy. He told the Ontario lottery authorities, and they took that particular game off the market. But most scratch-off games are flawed in similar ways. Here's a fascinating article from Wired on how he did it, and other flaws in the lottery systems.
[Thanks for the pointer, Jan.]
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I found interesting the statistician's comment, “I’d have to travel from store to store and spend 45 seconds cracking each card. I estimated that I could expect to make about $600 a day. That’s not bad. But to be honest, I make more as a consultant, and I find consulting to be a lot more interesting than scratch lottery tickets.”
ReplyDeleteI also checked out Jan's blog and have added it to my reader. Thanks, Sue!
Paul Hawking
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