Page 40 - Unlikely Stories 1

Your Lucky Numbers

overs continue. That, too, is subject to laws of probability. I can
assure you that no lottery in the world, if structured properly, is
losing money. The house always wins, and human behavior is so
predictable that we can estimate ticket sales with ninety-five percent
accuracy based on the number of roll-overs; and that’s where those
estimations for the value of the next draw’s jackpot come from:
people like me. Each of the thousands of retailers selling tickets
makes very little on each one, but being an outlet pulls in customers
who buy other things, as well, and the shopkeepers share in the
jackpot when they sell a big winner. Thus they are a motivated sales
force, costing the state only the price of a printer and online
connection for each outlet. That makes an efficient business run
smoothly with a good profit assured by fixed costs and steady
demand. You have some experience of those variables with your own
cottage industry, Ty.”
“It does sound routine, the way you put it.”
“And it has been for many years. Its success, unfortunately, is
based on the ticket buyers not really grasping the reality of their
chances; thus it has, with some justice, been described as a tax on the
poor, who are the majority of lottery players. Their relative quotient
of superstition to mathematical knowledge is rather high, compared
to better-educated people whose level of economic desperation is
relatively lower. If most lottery players realized how low their odds of
winning were, they would not be players: yes, someone is going to
win, but almost certainly not any specific person. And all those
specific persons have, like second marriages, allowed hope to
triumph over experience. Furthermore, that hope is magnified by a
sort of syncretism with every kind of irrational belief they have about
their inherent luck, their ability to magically choose a winning string
of numbers and, way too often, their ability to invoke divine
intervention. The irony is obvious: each player, to some extent,
craves supernatural control over the numbers drawn, but would be
outraged to discover someone else had been able successfully to exert
such black magic or the power of prayer to win.”
Bernie relaxed a bit more as they crossed the state line.

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