Investing in Lottery Tickets?

Water Cooler
#1

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/25/us/group-invests-5-million-to-hedge-bets-in-lottery.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

From 1992:

In Virginia this month, one investment group came tantalizingly close to cornering the market on all possible combinations of six numbers from 1 to 44. State lottery officials say that the group bought tickets for 5 million of a possible 7 million combinations, at $1 each, in a lottery with a $27 million jackpot. Only a lack of time prevented the group from buying tickets for the remaining 2 million combinations.

Do companies do stuff like this anymore? Seems like you could work the odds by doing all the number combinations like this example.

#2

Did they end up winning?

#3

Such a strategy should take into account the possibility of multiple winners.

#4

And taxes. And multiple people usually win these enormous jackpots so yes

#5

They won $27 million ticket value with $5 million investment

After taxes, fees, and everything - I bet it was just nice to win, but definitely not life changing for those at the firm

#6

Seems like it’d be easy enough to get a probability for that, though. And yes, I think they won.