Cracking the Scratchie. With cheating and money laundering and statistics, this story seems like it should be about something more exciting than scratch-off lottery tickets. But it isn't.
posted by jacquilynne
on Feb 1, 2011 -
92 comments
Amidakuji, or "Ghost Leg," is a lottery party game from Japan. At the top of a sheet there are a number of spaces for people to write their names. At the bottom there are prizes. There are an equal number of each. Between them is a map obscured behind a sheet. The map is made of straight vertical lines connecting the names and prizes. Connecting those lines at random intervals are horizontal lines. When it's time to pick winners, the sheet is removed and players can follow the lines to find their prize. You follow the line from your name down until you encounter any horizontal line, which you must follow, then continue down, continuing to follow all horizontal lines you encounter, until you reach your prize. No two horizontal lines can touch. Provided that, the process is perfectly deterministic and reversable. The same ends are reached whether you follow from the top down or the bottom up. If you have difficulty visualizing this, check
the Wikipedia page.
[more inside]
posted by JHarris
on Dec 24, 2010 -
18 comments
A simple idea: take an ordinary savings account, but instead of paying interest to account holders, hold a lottery to see who gets the lump sum. Freakonomics Radio investigates Prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts (
Part 1,
Part 2), which combine two things that seem completely at odds with each other: saving money and gambling. In Highland Park, MI,
PLS accounts have been very successful at converting "non-savers" into "savers". Why hasn't it caught on in the US? It's illegal in most states, of course.
posted by Jonathan Harford
on Dec 2, 2010 -
33 comments
In Hoxton, there's a shop. Run by the Ministry of Stories (and funded by the National Lottery), the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies shop provides a free space to stimulate creative writing with workshops, publishing projects and one-to-one mentoring.
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posted by jim.christian
on Nov 28, 2010 -
18 comments
When Money Buys Happiness.
List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists. [more inside]
posted by zinfandel
on Jul 2, 2009 -
82 comments
The day after a senator from Illinois, is elected president, the Pick 3 lottery in Illinois
comes up 666. It's
happened before, notably in Pennsylvania (12 times, including one time as
part of a scam and once earlier this year,
in Maryland. Some are jokingly (I hope) calling him
the antichrist as a result. Others, namely numbers geeks like me, are spending their lunch hours looking up the history of lotteries drawing triple numbers and sharing it with MetaFilter.
posted by sjuhawk31
on Nov 6, 2008 -
70 comments
I Love My Life The Way It Is. A collection-in-progress of unscratched scratch-off lottery tickets, the project is the brainchild of Ali Alvarez, who hopes to collect at least 8000 tickets, enough to fill a 12x12 room from floor to ceiling. Alvarez is soliciting donations of unscratched tickets from volunteers around the world, and has posted pictures of some of the ones received so far. The idea of an unscratched lottery ticket makes some people "a little crazy," but Alvarez hopes the collection will cause people to explore the ideas of "getting your hopes high, dreaming, escaping, and then usually being let down."
Via.
posted by amyms
on Jun 14, 2008 -
75 comments
When the working poor turn to addictive drugs to manage pain so they can keep working, that's
"moral weakness, not a public health problem.":
Every morning before sunup, Trapp drives 120 miles.... "This methadone makes you feel like a human being again," Trapp says. With disability rates as high as 37 percent in coal-mining areas such as Buchanan County, the region has many people with long-term pain management needs. As is the case with lots of aging miners, Trapp's addiction to pills began in a doctor's office, not a back-alley drug deal.... The clinic's counseling staff members say that many patients need to be on some sort of drug to cope with severe, long-term pain and that methadone has made them functional. And for those who lack insurance or access to more personalized care, it is often the only affordable option.
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posted by orthogonality
on Jan 15, 2008 -
44 comments
Humraz is an auction site with a twist. Pay to bid, then once enough fees have been received, the lowest unmatched bid wins. Shall we play for
£500? Or a
house?
posted by imperium
on Jun 20, 2007 -
21 comments
We won the f*ing lottery! Ingredients: TiVo of last week's lottery run, trusting friend, friends looking to capitalize on the relationship between the two and a lottery ticket for
this week's lottery to seal the deal.
(Um, yes, via) WARNING: Contains video, profanity, Milli Vanilli
posted by Ogre Lawless
on Dec 30, 2005 -
37 comments
Lost Numbers. I won't get to see any of the second season of Lost until summer 2006 'cause I live in Ireland. I also didn't care enough about the first season to use the "numbers" as my lottery numbers. I should have, they (almost) came up in the National Lottery on November 19. I say almost, instead of 42 it was 24 (sorry Douglas).
posted by Elmore
on Dec 16, 2005 -
31 comments
Va. Man Claims $239 Million Jackpot Note in passing that this took place during the Bush administration!
"A retired truck driver claimed a $239 million Mega Millions jackpot Thursday, calling the second-largest lottery payout in history "no big thing to me." His wife vowed to "shop till I drop.""
posted by Postroad
on Apr 1, 2004 -
27 comments
Is he the world's
unluckiest man or the
luckiest? Either way, Croatia's Frane Selak, who had already
gained attention for escaping death
seven times, has just hit the jackpot with his first lottery ticket in forty years. How can we normal mortals compete?
posted by rory
on Jun 19, 2003 -
13 comments
A good omen? Here's hoping 2002 turns out to be a better year than 2001. This seems like a good enough start.
posted by tsumo
on Jan 1, 2002 -
10 comments
Lottery Madness Grips the Delusional Nation Odds of winning Powerball: 80 million to one
Odds of dying in an airplane crash: 7 million to one
Odds of being hit by lightening: 600,000 to one
Odds of perishing in a California earthquake: 600,000 to one
Odds of dying in an automobile accident: 20,000 to one
While legalized gambling may suck, at least your life is priceless?
posted by yarf
on Aug 22, 2001 -
32 comments
Cha Ching! I am not a person who really support the lotto but I couldn't be happier that a poor grocery bagger won millions of dollars. What makes me even happier is they plan to give some of it back to the community.
posted by aj100
on Jun 29, 2001 -
31 comments
US Woman Killed in Malaysia "Police believe an American woman whose remains were recently unearthed in Malaysia was used as a human sacrifice in a ritual to obtain lottery numbers from the spirits..." The article didn't say if they won. Not that it matters.
posted by mcsweetie
on Jun 26, 2001 -
8 comments
Who wants to be a...Grab.com is giving away $1 Billion Grab.com, an email marketing company announced it would give $1 Billion to the player who selects the same series of seven numbers between one and 77 that Grab.com picks at random on Dec. 28.
As the article points out, the odds of any one individual claiming the $1 billion prize are a subatomic 1 in 2,404,808,340. Compared to the chance that Berkshire Hathaway will have to cough up $1 billion this year to cover one of its natural disaster insurance policies which is something like 1 in 100.
posted by brian
on Oct 9, 2000 -
17 comments
I bought 3 Quick Picks for the Lottery this week, thinking that if there were any balance in the universe I'd be due for a big payoff...
If SuperLotto was High/Low, I'd have nailed it. I got
one number.
ONE.
5 number for lotto x 3 quick picks = 15 potential correct numbers. I got
ONE.
On the upside, I'm still
due. Touch me now, I'm jam packed full of luck potentiality...
posted by CrazyUncleJoe
on Mar 4, 2000 -
5 comments
