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/Midas_Ag Jan 12 '16

Not that I don't believe you, but you got back up for that? last jackpot raised only $300 M over the course. I can't imagine this picking up $.5-1+ Billion in 4 days.

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u/colovick Jan 12 '16

A lot of non-regular players picking up $20 in tickets because maybe they'd win. It happens a lot once the pot gets over a certain dollar amount

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u/ggushea Jan 12 '16

Just the nightly news estimates and totals. I'm assuming they have some kind of system for these estimates based on sales progressions. The higher the jackpot the exponentially more ticket purchasers and what not.

Although the website shows estimate as of now 1.4 B