math nerds think ya and this is why theyre homeless XD

Yes. Most of the time, you can beat them by hosting them, which is why casinos make money.

>>8170220
It's possible to make money, if you're smart enough. However, for most, it's a pretty bad idea.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/07/how-mit-students-scammed-the-massachusetts-lottery-for-8-million/

>>8170226
if they were math nerds, they'd know the odds and they would have won or avoided it. What were you trying to say?

>>8170220

State and federal lottery games in the United States (and I'm assuming elsewhere) are mandated by law to advertise their expected values.

The cheapest tickets (which have the lowest prizes and the highest expected values, costing 1 or 2 dollars) are typically around 0.6. There is absolutely no way, without cheating, to achieve an expected value greater than this.

>>8170267

Fun fact though: there are better ways to spend, say $100.00 on lottery tickets than others.

To calculate the smartest way to bet you need to find the card that has the highest expected value. Look at the odds and prizes on each ticket. For each prize, multiply the prize value by the odds. Then sum all of these products. Multiply this by the number of tickets you're buying. This number will be your expected winnings. Spend all of your money on the card with the highest expected winnings (although, as mentioned, this will 100% sure be less than 100, probably around 60).

(Example: a ticket has 3 prizes and costs 4 dollars. One prize is 100 dollars with a probability of 1/400. Another prize is 50 dollars with a probability of 1/200. The third prize is 1 dollar with a probability of 1/50.

Then for this card we take (1/400)*100 + (1/200)*50 + (1/50)*1 = 0.52.

The amount we would expect to win after spending 100 dollars on these 4 dollar tickets is then given by (100/4)*0.52=13 dollars.

>>8170220
From a mathematical perspective? No. But if you look at it as a low risk, extremely low success rate, extremely high pay out ordeal, then, yes, it can be worth it. There really aren't any other ways to get rich while doing nothing other than risking a couple dollars every week. Yeah, you won't win, but at least you have a chance. People who spend a lot of money on lottery tickets tend to be morons, though.

>>8170220
No these machines were designed by mathematicians to generate a certain amount of money.

If you play for long enough you will loose a well calculated amount of money.

>>8170248
>this article
>implying what the students did is bad rather than admirable

>>8170220
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

You can beat roulette in casinos, that allow you to bet, when the ball is already moving.

Will not go into details as literally every host bans people who are """too lucky""". Lists of banned are frequently exchanged, so really no point.

If you're a math nerd try online poker. HU of any kind is all the way applied statistics. Also games of constant bet size (tho prob. not much money here) and Omaha (much more complex and harder to model than holdem).

Forgot: ofc double betting ftw

>>8170220
>is it worth it playing lottery games?
You will get far less than a dollar for each dollar you invest in a lottery on average, so no, it's not worth it.

i prefer to just buy random books. it's my form of lottery. sometimes you get shit, sometime its worth it.