Here we learned that when a woman might need to live through 3 successive universes (or something) to get so lucky in the Texas Lottery, the Commission just shrugged and said she was “born under a lucky star.” Others muttered that she was lucky all right … to be a Stanford math Ph.D.
Why must the Commission pretend it’s luck? Because if, as some suspect, she did it by figuring out the algorithm by which winning numbers are chosen, she probably committed no crime. Criminal charges are for those who, for example, run a variety store and pocket the winnings of feeble pensioners. But more, if the Commission itself suspects that is what happened, they can’t afford to acknowledge it.
They would, in effect, be saying that the Lottery is a game of skill, not chance, and open the door to a host of similar attempts by young math whizzes.
And the simple plods who buy most of the tickets get the message: Go back to wasting your time and money at the horse races. (At least you get an afternoon’s entertainment out of it.)
What would happen to the Commission’s bottom line if the Lottery becomes the next World Class Poker Tournament? Viewers don’t pay the way lottery ticket buyers do.
Look, it’s this simple: UD News staff don’t gamble and don’t know. What attracted attention, for some, was the fact that the Commission claimed lucky stars instead of vowing to catch cheats. Okay: We know it’s not lucky stars. They’re not claiming the customer cheated either. BUT, had the customer spied or otherwise interfered with the process, they could certainly have claimed that, and laid charges. So … the logical inference is that they had a code and she broke it. Not?
The design inference is probably way more unpopular with lottery commissions than even with the Darwin lobby. And it’ll stay that way.
Anyway, that Smart French GuyTM was right: A lottery is a tax on imbeciles.