The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Monday, November 05, 2007

I wonder what grade this would get at the Harvard Business School?

And speaking of lotteries tax breaks for the smart …

In 1992, a group of Australian investors—led by math whiz Stephan Mandel decided they could literally buy the $27 million jackpot in the Virginia state lottery. Racing against the clock, they bought 5.6 million of a total 7.1 million possible combinations.

The Australians walked away with the only winning ticket—and $27 million.

Big lotto jackpot not what it seems

Actually, I'm surprised this hasn't happened more often (or maybe it does and is underreported). In our own little lovely state of Florida, our little state lottery has a 22,957,480:1 odds of winning, so it would seem that somebody would try it, once the pot has grown to, maybe, three times that amount, which does happen, to make it profitable, if maybe a bit logistically daunting.

I would also expect that the Australians probably did a bit better than the $27 million, because lesser combinations (like 5 out of 6) also pay out.

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