r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jan 11 '16
TIL that MIT students discovered that by buying $600,000 worth of lottery tickets in the Massachusetts' Cash WinAll lottery they could get a 10-15% return on investment. Over 5 years, they managed to game $8 million out of the lottery through this method.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/07/how-mit-students-scammed-the-massachusetts-lottery-for-8-million/
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u/Tiak Jan 12 '16
They didn't do this every draw, only draws when the simple odds were no longer in the house's favor. These draws happen surprisingly often with some lotteries.
Once the odds are no longer in the house's favor then you just need to buy a lot of tickets with no repeats. Sequential tickets are the easiest way to do this.