Math nerd meets lottery ticket

Wired has a totally charming story of one man’s quest to understand and beat the confounding scratch-off lottery ticket:

Mohan Srivastava, a geological statistician living in Toronto, was working in his office in June 2003, waiting for some files to download onto his computer, when he discovered a couple of old lottery tickets buried under some paper on his desk. The tickets were cheap scratchers–a gag gift from his squash partner–and Srivastava found himself wondering if any of them were winners. He fished a coin out of a drawer and began scratching off the latex coating. “The first was a loser, and I felt pretty smug,” Srivastava says. “I thought, ‘This is exactly why I never play these dumb games.'”

The second ticket was a tic-tac-toe game. Its design was straightforward: On the right were eight tic-tac-toe boards, dense with different numbers. On the left was a box headlined “Your Numbers,” covered with a scratchable latex coating. The goal was to scrape off the latex and compare the numbers under it to the digits on the boards. If three of “Your Numbers” appeared on a board in a straight line, you’d won. Srivastava matched up each of his numbers with the digits on the boards, and much to his surprise, the ticket had a tic-tac-toe. Srivastava had won $3. “This is the smallest amount you can win, but I can’t tell you how excited it made me,” he says. “I felt like the king of the world.”

Delighted, he decided to take a lunchtime walk to the gas station to cash in his ticket. “On my way, I start looking at the tic-tac-toe game, and I begin to wonder how they make these things,” Srivastava says. “The tickets are clearly mass-produced, which means there must be some computer program that lays down the numbers. Of course, it would be really nice if the computer could just spit out random digits. But that’s not possible, since the lottery corporation needs to control the number of winning tickets. The game can’t be truly random. Instead, it has to generate the illusion of randomness while actually being carefully determined…”

Srivastava had been hooked by a different sort of lure–that spooky voice, whispering to him about a flaw in the game. At first, he tried to brush it aside. “Like everyone else, I assumed that the lottery was unbreakable,” he says. “There’s no way there could be a flaw, and there’s no way I just happened to discover the flaw on my walk home.”And yet, his inner voice refused to pipe down. “I remember telling myself that the Ontario Lottery is a multibillion-dollar-a- year business,” he says. “They must know what they’re doing, right?” [Link]

This story reiterated in my mind how important it is to have a good understanding of science and mathematics in modern society. Consider how many activities in your day are governed by a mathematical code or logical pattern of some kind. Every minute you spend on Facebook you are helping Facebook perfect and equation to predict what you might buy for example. Nerds are poised to inherit the future.

10 thoughts on “Math nerd meets lottery ticket

  1. Nerds are poised to inherit the future Yeah after the jocks have pumped, dumped, chewed and spat it out.

  2. nerds are already running the present and devising the future. non-nerds [ aka homo dumbus assus sapien ] just don’t know it……… if you don’t believe me, ask them.

  3. nerds are already running the present and devising the future. non-nerds [ aka homo dumbus assus sapien ] just don’t know it……… if you don’t believe me, ask them.

    i was going to say something to that effect…but i didn’t want to the plebs to know. but they can barely read anyway….

  4. So is “nerd” just a generic term for “having two brain cells to rub together” nowadays?

    In my day, being a nerd meant social ostracism, bad skin, and flabby, unathletic physique. BAH! You kids have it easy.

  5. Razib,

    Nerds may be running the show everywhere, but not in America. Outside Obama’s charmed circle and the Democratic caucuses, it is dumbo GOPers everywhere

    F’instance here’s one of the stupidest Governors anywhere, Rick “Goodhair” Perry of Texas,

    Well, there is a lot of fat to cut from our public schools, especially those in our biggest urban areas like Houston and Dallas. I am concerned that some the highly diverse Magnet public schools in this city are becoming hotbeds for liberalism. Do we really need free school bus service, Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, ESL, special needs and enrichment programs like music, art or math Olympiad? I think we should get back to the basics of the three Rs, reading writing and arithmetic. I mean when is the last time a 6th grade science fair project yielded a cure for a disease?

    Piyush and Niki aren’t particularly smart either, the former left his brains behind when he cast his lot with the fundamentalist RC wing of the GOPers, while the latter has decided it is better to spout bakwas, and leave the economy to the chambers of commerce.

  6. “Consider how many activities in your day are governed by a mathematical code or logical pattern of some kind.”

    Like, for example, asking a girl out?