Oh, I'm certain that Baby Obot Phoebe is learning how to snark like a champ. I have no doubt that her auntie and uncle are are training her well.

We do like to indoctrinate the children young!



Phoebe is seriously, seriously adorable! And her auntie has some mad crochet skills!

Baby obots. Is there anything better?

I think the people buying that many tickets are doing auto-lotto ---letting the thing generate the numbers. Each number has an equal probability of coming up so it doesn't matter other than if you pick numbers people avoid, like 13, you might decrease the likelihood that someone else has a matching ticket and you'd have to share the prize.

That was the case in the instance that I saw. It did not seem to be a case of a worker buying for an office pool.

I just believe in fate. If you're gonna win, you're gonna win no matter if you buy 1 or 1,000 tickets. So I buy 1.

I believe that my odds of winning are only slightly different if I buy 1 ticket or zero tickets. I buy zero. W2 buys one whenever the pot exceeds $400 million. He's a stats geek.

Howzabout just buying me burial insurance instead? I'll live longer that way.

I bought 5 quick picks this morning and a scratcher, which paid $20 so I bought 20 more quick picks. I got a little carried away.

While I was buying my tickets, the TV was interviewing a California man who has won a large super lotto or megamillions jackpot 7 times. I want to rub his head for luck.

I thought about that. If you won a big jackpot would you ever buy another lotto ticket?

I'd like to know his sunk cost. Is he just addicted, and buying $10,000's of tickets, thus increasing his odds to reasonable ranges? His story makes next-to-no-sense otherwise.

I've heard of consortia (with the big jackpots) putting up enough to buy every combo, guaranteeing a win. If they have to share with other winners, they may lose money; otherwise.... I haven't figured the probabilities. Certainly with so many tickets sold the probability of multiple winners goes up, so on average the winning pot is no bigger than usual.

On a semi-related note, I watched the Maddow clip (Chris Hayes sitting in) on the defeat in the Senate of the bill ending oil & gas subsidies. He made the case that at least part of the issue is campaign funding. The 51 senators who voted to end subsidies had taken in $8m in donations, and the 47 against had taken in almost $24m.* Not causal, necessarily......

But the point he didn't make, and which amused me ( ) to think about: Congress votes to give subsidies to Big Oil. The money comes from taxpayers (you and me). Big Oil, in turn, gives it to Congress, who spend it on ad campaigns, polling, etc., so we'll return them to Congress to perpetuate the cycle.


On another semi-related note, Maddow herself was on Jon Stewart last night pumping her new book "Drift" (which looks fascinating), the thesis of which is, in part, that American society has become psychically disconnected from its wars and its armed forces (an immoral state of affairs, IMO). Except for a few weeks right after 9/11, there was no sense of shared sacrifice in the Iraq or Afghanistan adventures, and in fact the economy boomed (before the bust) with tax cuts and deregulation and a Roaring Twenties mentality, a refusal to consider Peak Oil or climate change (both intimately connected with the root causes of Iraq in the first place), and the magic of paying for the wars "off budget"....

What is the semi-related theme that runs through these observations, including the lotto?

Humans -- and especially societies, in aggregate -- are horribly, horribly bad at accurately measuring, balancing, and managing risks, costs, and probability, especially when very large numbers are involved.

Individuals, on the other hand, can be quite good at it, for their own personal gain -- I'm sure Cheney considers Iraq a monumental personal succe$$ -- but some of those people should not be in charge.

I've never bought a lottery ticket of any kind. I'm not religiously opposed or anything.

But I'm pretty good at math

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This

I think the odds are 176 million to 1. so it would cost $176 million to cover every possibility. But with a (now) $640 million jackpot, you could still split with one other winner and come out ahead, post tax. Split threre ways, you lose money.
News reports claim 95% of all number comninations have been sold for this jackpot, and should there be no winner. the next pot will be $1 billion, ( ) and the numbers will be picked live in Times Square.

Even if the expected value looks right on paper, and I'm not sure that it does, what is really important is the net present value after taxes, which is almost always negative even with the largest jackpots. That varies by how long the payout period is and whether it can be structured to diminish the tax burden somewhat.

Back in '88 or '89 when the California Lottery started up, my mother in New Mexico gave me six numbers to play. I forgot to buy a ticket.

Five of her numbers were picked. Estimated fuckup: $494,000.

Guess it won't hurt to buy one or two this week. I'll give Mom a call.

My entire family lives in Reno, NV. My mama worked at the Sands for many years; she retired about 2-3 months ago. I hate casinos. They are too loud and smoky; there are too many mirrors, too many flashing lights, and the floor plans are mazes. Uggg.

It's fascinating is watching the rituals that gamblers develop. The little superstitions that gamblers develop are interesting and often hilarious. No matter how much I explain stats to my Mama, her brain understands the basic concepts, but her heart believes that she. is. going. to. win! She has a system for deciding if a machine is "hot" or if she should move onto another machine or game. The woman believes that she can determine when a machine is going to be a winner or not.

Thankfully my mama doesn't gamble much. She likes bingo, and worked in the bingo parlor of the Sands. Bingo parlors are like local soap operas; local players get really mad if you sit in "their" seat, even if you had no idea that it was "their" seat. Players have lucky dauber colors. Little old women cuss out the callers and other players regularly (under their breath). The love/hate that develops between players is rather amazing. DoG forbid a tourist win!

My mama would talk about retired players who would spend several hundred to thousands of dollars per week playing bingo. Now, folks like my mama who like to play a few times a month don't spend much but enjoy the social aspect of bingo. But it is hard to see retired folks blowing their retirement money at casinos.

But hey; they. are. going. to. win! Doubt them at your own risk!

Whitey Bulger was alleged to have strong-armed lottery winners into giving him their jackpots as a way of laundering drug money. that way he had a legitimate source of cash.

I have about half the jackpot spent already. I like to plan ahead.

I bought $10.00 worth of tickets this evening. I figured what the hell.

In other news today I launched my Annual Easter Lily Rescue Campaign. Those poor babies are out there destined for the trash unless you rescue them!

http://crittersbybritty.wordpress.com/w ... ostpost=v2

But did he say how much he had 'invested' in tickets in order to win that many times?

I heard on GMA this morning that most winners had spent everything within 5 years.

I knew a guy from work a long time ago who would make an annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas. The guy never lost money. Well, he always told us about his winnings. "I pulled the slot handle and won $2,000" and such. Those kinds never tell you how much they lost invested to make those winnings. You have to wonder why he didn't just quit his job and live off his hobby.

What have you already spent $ 320 million on, a new 737? If my one ticket wins it all, I certainly will wait till after the elections to claim the money. Never know, the Republicans might introduce "no taxes on lottery winnings" legislation in 2013.

I plan to adopt a school in inner city Belize and guarantee every 5th grader who graduates will have A free college education paid for, plus get the resources for them and their siblings to make it. Also build dorms for homeless and at-risk kids so they can finish school. Plus a better view of the city. Maybe a car with magic doors and a driver. And I'll visit all y'all. stuff like that.

When I lived in England, a group of us would stop at the local betting place (or turf account as they say.) I worked out a really good system for betting on horses. It was quite elaborate if I do say so. I included everything from if the horse was handicapped (had to carry extra weight), the jockey, the track and a number of other factors. Back then, you could place a bet for 25 pence which was worth about 50 cents in those days exchange rate. I never bet more than a pound on a race.

My system was pretty good since I usually won 2 or 3 times for every 4 times I bet. I think the thing I enjoyed most was seeing how well my "calculations" compared to the results. It was more of a mental game more than just putting money down. My best bet was what they called an accumulator. You bet on a number of horses. If you win the first race, that winnings were then bet on the second and so on. If one of your horses lost, you lose everything. My bet was on 11 different races -- and my picks were all winners. I made about 150 pounds on a one pound bet. When I left, I ended 600 pounds to the good. If I'm going to bet, I like to have some input like studying the races and using a number of factors to pick my bets as oppose to an almost totally random system like the lottery.

I could not spend even half a million. With 640 million I would fix up the house, put on some additions, decorate, expand the bathroom, that sort of stuff. After that I would give a boat load of cash to my relatives, I would call the local Wildlife rehab center (Possumwood Acres) and ask them what it costs them to run for ten years and write them a check, I would give a boat load to Carolina Animal Protection Society, Planned Parenthood, the local homeless shelter, all that kinds of good stuff. I would give a couple of million to my boss to make sure he could retire so that I could. I would build and open a pub called "The Duke of Lancaster" and run it for fun. I would fund a scholarship fund for my husband's band, making sure his kids could go to college. I would open a no kill animal shelter for abandoned pets. I would open a free clinic for people without medical insurance. I would open a free dental clinic for people who cannot afford to visit the dentist. I reckon that the interest on 640 million will take care of that and I can figure out what to do with the real bucks later.

Not nearly that expensive. Unless ya really trick out the interior.
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/prices/

We bought new 747-400 freighters back in 1998, got a dozen at 175 mil apiece. I haven't' seen what we paid for our new 747-8 machines which we're just taking delivery of.

Three or four years ago, horse racing introduced the 10-cent superfecta. You had to get the top four horses in the right order. You can make a lot of bets for 10-cents. It soon became my favorite bet when I could eliminate all but four horses and box those four. The odds are you can get your money back and have a good time doing it. I get no thrill out of filling out a lottery ticket and never got more than two numbers right.

When we lived in Omaha in the 1970s we used to go to the racetrack once in a while. I think it was the regionally famous AK-SAR-BEN track, which has since closed. With free admission for the kids (who were not permitted some places), it was cheaper than the movies, and the kids loved the start of the races.

My wife grew up on a Texas ranch and felt that she "understood" horses. So she would go down to the track and look at the horses, not at the Racing Form. Then she would bet on a horse that she expected to place at least. As I recall, she won more money than she lost, but it mostly went for Omaha hotdogs at the track. They competed well with Vienna Beef. It was mostly just noisy fun.

The odd thing was that the only horses that she had ever actually known were quarter horses, not Thoroughbreds. She was a bit disdainful of Thoroughbreds or Arabians; they struck her as dumb.