Lottery Management Consulting, LLC
Building Insight from Information
A new look for lottery
And I mean a new ‘looking for’ as well as a new ‘look’. Rather than sticking to game mechanics that have simple, obvious math defining the outcome probabilities, let’s ‘look for’ play value first. Get the probabilities by numerical simulation (teaching a computer to play). The grid above could be worth significant money, in the game I describe in NASPL Insights February 2019!
Humans have a hard time with the abstract concept of randomness, especially as applied to rare events. A truly random process distributes rare events less evenly than we intuitively expect. In the lottery world, this can lead to some players winning more than seems ‘reasonable’. This can lead people to mistrust the lottery. Mistrust is amplified if some players buy winning tickets at a discount, from players who do not wish to identify themselves to the lottery. Lotteries may need to act quietly to preserve public trust, as I discuss in the December 2018 NASPL Insights.
Reflecting on what I heard from two different lottery winners, I realized that each played in a way that expressed their big-picture view of the world – and that neither view was compatible with probability theory. But knowing better would not have made anyone happier! Still, lottery professionals need to understand the reality, unintuitive as it may be. NASPL Insights August 2016
Now and then a player will challenge your published odds. Explaining can be a challenge- feel free to use this article, which might be helpful for people who work inside the lottery, too. NASPL Insights Feb 2016
For a person who is without illusions about probability, what is there to lie about lottery games? This is a question answered in NASPL Insights April 2014 by my friend M., the gambling economist. I don’t mean an economist of the gambling industry- I mean an economist who likes to gamble.
