I ’m not a drawing musician – I do n’t like throwing my money down a statistical muddle in the ground – but I ’ll take on that on occasion I have been the recipient of a scratch - off drawing slate , and I have scrub it , and have n’t get ahead anything . What a bummer . But I call back one occasion as a kid when a champion of mine received 20 scratch - off tickets ( $ 1 each ) as a birthday present . He " bring home the bacon " $ 15 and was very excited about the affair . Two thing about this bothered me : first , that his full birthday gift was actually less money than had been spent to give it to him ; and secondly , that he actually sat there , scratching away and trying to figure out whether each board was a success . " Why not just hand the tickets back to the cashier and have ‘em run down , to see if they ’re winners ? " I asked . " Because it ’s fun ! " he do – and this , evidently , is the result to both of my objections . There are mass ( apparently many mass ) for whom the scratching off , and the charge of winning little pecuniary advantage , is really enjoyable . So my champion was actually proud of that he got both his $ 15 , as well as the exciting experience of scratching off 20 cards . I still do n’t get it , though I see it every twenty-four hour period . ( See the HBO documentaryLuckyfor a sound overall look at lottery systems , succeeder , and losers . )
Yesterday , Jonah Lehrer put up a fascinated Wired narration calledCracking the Scratch Lottery Codein which an MIT - cultivate statistician finds mathematical flaws in a particular scratch - off card in the Ontario Lottery , allowing him to predict winning circuit board about 90 % of the time . Here ’s a snippet :
What happen next isactually very surprising .
( Photocourtesy of Chris Winters , who writes : " Breakdown was : $ 58 in immediate payment ( left ) , 15 free tickets ( center , not yet redeemed ) , the difference losers ( right ) . " Photo used underCreative Commons permit . )
