The Mathematical Loophole that Broke the Lottery 

"Insane amount of math" Does only multiplication and division

The "H" in his logo actually has been standing for "Hot Dog Tuxedo Boy" this whole time

"Lots of math" *basic arithmetic* "The ACTUAL numbers" "To make the math pretty,..."

It seems that the lottery was already broken when they came, they just took the money

My grandpa played lotto for decades. He literally had books and books of numbers thinking he could find a pattern and then win all the time. He never won.

This guy is getting lots of sponsorships, I can tell because his stock footage is getting much more high quality.

Hold on there, Jasper. You're forgetting the fact that if multiple people win with the same numbers, they share the prizes, which reduces your take.

When you go down to calculating the number of tickets that are expected to have 4 match, you don’t count all 200,000 that you bought. You have to subtract the amount that were 6/6, and 5/6. They don’t get to count again

Side effects: Lupus? Nah, it can't be. It's never lupus.

This guy was obsessed with planes, trains, and now, he's with the lottery.

The grandpa buying thousands of lottery tickets sounds like the dude from the math books.

There's a movie coming out in less than a month based on this story starring with Bryan Cranston called Jerry & Marge Go Large

"American states have a god-given right to repeat the mistakes of other American states" sure has been our motto these last few months, hasn't it?

Actually the jackpot case is different because if you win the jackpot then the lower prizes will not get the rolldown so the actual expected value is probably a few percent lower than what the video says.

I wish school taught us how to file taxes and have a mandatory class for actual life skills

The insight people really need to take away from this is that once the rollover reached a certain size ALL lottery tickets had an expected value of more than their cost. Buying lots of tickets didn't increase the expected value but it did make making money off it practical.

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” ― Aristotle

So you two gramps are cons? - "Yep" What do you do? - "Rob lotteries" Where are your guns? - *whips out calculator* "Right here"

Hold up their only crime was buying lots of tickets. That means anyone playing would have the same odds. So they did nothing special they just bought tickets.

Alternate timeline where Walter White was a mathematician.

The Grandparents to their Grandchildren: *Do your maths and you can break the lottery just like us*

mistakes in the math: 1) counted the 3/6 & 4/6 and ... added them all together which means a 5/6 would also count as a 4/6 and a 3/6. Basically double counting - need to use the "Inclusion-exclusion principle" . 2) in the 2/6 the tickets you would get (from what i understood) would be used in a later prize pool which has a good probability to be lower. which means that their value would decrease. 3) and lastly the amount of time it would take to fill out all those form would be insane!!! if it would take 5 seconds to fill a form, which I doubt, it would take 1,000,000 seconds (5x200,000) which is 277 hours. A average work week is 40 hours therefor it would take almost 7 work weeks to fill out those forms. Average salary in the US is 52,000$ a year which is about 1,000$ a week. so add another 7,000$ dollars to the cost of filling out the forms. sorry for the long comment!

I remember reading about this quite some time ago. This was an excellent, easy to understand explanation, well done!

I was not expecting that Elon and grimes joke but it SENT ME

People seem to be ignoring the fact that they actually DID THIS for years and came out 26 million ahead

His videos are turning into more of him self-deprecating himself than the actual topic

Back in the early 90s, the Connecticut lottery was $14 million. Probably the highest it's ever been. I had 5 of the 6 numbers. Thinking 5 numbers had to be good for at least a 6 digit payout, I was pretty upset when I learned that they have a set amount that gets shared with other winners who had 5 numbers. Want to know how many other people had 5 numbers? 180! Never before, and never since, have that many people had 5 numbers on one drawing. I check the payouts and you never see more than 7 winners having 5 numbers. And I'm sure there are more people playing these days, than in the 90s.

It is important to mention that the overall expected return of the lottery was significantly less than one. The important part that he glances over is the two million figure he briefly mentions. The "winfall" only happened when that week the total prize rose above two million. So it was only profitable on the weeks where the winfall condition would take effect. Otherwise you would just be feeding the pool. There were groups that would put enough money in to unexpectedly bring the total prize pool over two million by buying hundreds of thousands of tickets, in order to get a larger share of the two million that was built up over previous weeks. The video makes it sound like the state was losing money, which was not the case at all. When mega millions rises high enough it is the same thing, where your expected value increases over time when there aren't any winners to the point where it may become above 1. Is it really a loop hole to buy more tickets when the prizes are higher?

So the couple didn't break the lottery, the lottery broke the lottery.

There is 1 thing I learned from the video: Sam likes stealing hot dogs

"Bonkers amount of math, srsly this math so hard hur dur" > 8th grade math barely qualifying as "statistics".

Here I am wondering if the “Lupus” was a reference to House.

I'd like to point out that the video fails to inform us that Selbee was not alone in investing his money in the lottery. Firstly, Selbee had already been buying lottery tickets for other lotteries with positive expected values before moving on to Cash Winfall in Michigan. Secondly, he was part of a 32 person betting group, so this wasn't just a story on "how two grandparents broke the lottery". Finally, they weren't the only notable group playing the lottery this way. There was an MIT group of about 50 people who used the strategy, going on to make a business out of it. Some biomedical researchers from Boston University got involved as well. If you liked the story in the video, I'd recommend reading "How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking" by Jordan Ellenberg.

Lottery: Exists Mathematicians: It’s free real estate

4:55 I noticed a math error. You are still determining the Ev based on 200,000. A ticket that won on 5 numbers can't win on 4 or less. And a ticket that won 4 can't win 3 or less. You'd have to subtract the expected number of tickets at each step before the next step. The incorrect way you did this makes it *just* above the EV, so I don't think it works if you did it correctly.

So the lottery was basically always doomed to lose money and they just realized that buying much would lose the lottery much? Damn, that was some advanced math right there, glad it was pretty math

Says "$484,463.5", but has $484,206 on the screen. Meanwhile in my brain: "Cannot compute, malfunction, malfunction!"

What was here?

Great technique to get folks to watch the entire vid. You prep’d us for an insane amount of math then showed a regular amount. Nice!

New startup idea : investors i need seed funding 😂 business model : buying tickets

“Sire! The people are revolting!” Oh my, what do they want? “They want Bricks my lord... Bricks!” NEVER!

I think I spotted a slight error in your math: you used 200.000 tickets for all calculations, but if you won for example the 3 matching prize, you wouldn’t have a chance to also win the 2 matching prize with that same ticket. So the expected value will be a bit less. -I myself honestly don’t really want to do that correct math but maybe someone else does.- (you would need to calculate how many tickets win the 5 matching prize, and subtract that from the total in the next smaller calculation and that for all the numbers) Maybe this was just an oversimplification for the video, but you could have mentioned it. Anyway, keep up the great work

"If not, then this video will make as much sense as the relationship between Elon Musk and Grimes" 😂😂😂😂 the jokes are on point!

This is more like a commentary video rather than an infotainment video

Haha let’s point and laugh at hot dog tuxedo boy 😂

"American states have a god-given right to repeat the mistakes of other American states."

"The older you got, The wiser you are"

You had me worried about the math, but like it was middle school math a worst

“You know what isn’t a mistake getting a pair of raycon earbuds” yes it is a mistake they are horrible for anybody who’s used either the base or “high quality” pair

NO WAY!!! YOU'RE HOT DOG TUXEDO BOY!!?? Dude we have to reconnect!

Surely if you've already taken into account the tickets where 5 numbers match you wouldn't put them in the category for if 4 numbers match? Just like probbilities with or without replacement. You did with? Which isn't realistic? Or did i follow on wrong?

I wanna know how long it took to fill out and purchase/print/check all those tickets 🤣

Half as Interesting: like when the Fire Nation attacked... Me: *ah, a cultured man.*

The only loophole I know is in youtube that makes it possible for Half as Interesting to be popular with such bad jokes.

Did you use the numbers without replacement or could the 5/6 odds tickets also win the 4/6 and 3/6 odds winnings?

Sounds a lot like the new Paramount + movie Jerry and Marge Go Large

I've thought about similar schemes with the lotteries in my area, and I'm pretty confident it wouldn't work. My understanding is that these lotteries don't award the full prize to every winning ticket; they split the prize between each winning ticket. So if I win the jackpot but so do two other people, then I only win a third of the jackpot. Might be fine though, because I don't know if it also works that way for lower division prizes.

Wait you have to learn math before breaking a mathematical loophole in a lottery? Ok I’m gonna go out now

I really liked how you went in-depth! The explanation of a confusing story to make it in lay-mans terms was a great process.

You're so nice, my teacher didn't warn me about math...

0:23 GLIZZY GOBBLER

In case anyone is confused, expected value is essentially just a fancy way to say ‘average value’ or ‘mean’. Expected value is the sum of multiplying each outcome by their respective probabilities (the likelihood the outcome will occur) instead of the sum of all terms (x) divided by the number of terms (n), probability is essentially number of favorable outcomes for an event divided by the total number of outcomes. Tldr, expected value just uses a rearranged formula to get the mean, expected value is just used for random variables (such as lottery winnings), while we typically use mean for samples.

I’m more interested in the hot dog guy lol

Lmfaooo the hot dog tuxedo boy story HAD ME ROLLING

I started watching this...then I got the notification for it. I am *SPEED*

It’s never Lupus Shoutout to all the House fans

‘At least, it *was* for THIS man.’ *shows a shelf*

" U STILL NEED A LOT OF LUCK TO PULL THIS OFF SUCCESSFULLY"

People: Break the lottery Gouvernment: wait you weren't supposed to do that

Me: How would math help me in the future? Teacher:

In my home state, the local lottery got so big once that the player had an advantage due to low sales. The lottery immediately changed the rules after the jackpot was won to only one person.

Grandparents: "1 + 1 = 6" Lottery: *shut up and take my money*

I remember watching this on 60 minutes back in January. They had a federal fraud agent coming after them because he thought they were cheating only to find out they were in fact playing the game fairly and there was nothing he could do. They also had storage lockers full of every single lottery ticket over the years in case they had to do some proving.

As an Arizonan, I will viciously defend my state’s right to repeat other states’ mistakes

oh that was a smooth segue into the sponsor. one of the cleanest ive seen in a while

That very specific prom story makes me choosing to work instead of going a lot less sad.

“Hopefully, you followed that.” *wasn’t listening at all, keeps watching*

I might break the lottery if I had a time-traveller

The fact that not a single person involved in the lottery figured out this loop hole, that only involves high school levels of probability and statistics, boggles my mind. America at its finest

Started doing this meditation at my wits end. I was suffering mentally emotionally and financially. Didn’t have a job. Started August 2019 and it’s now April 2020 I have had a job since November & got another job

“If a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.” ― Alan Turing

6:14 Yeah it is a mistake raycons are pretty horrible Its the reason why there so damm cheap there not high quality.

OMG i lmao when you started to list “side effects “ 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 I love Math 😍

Sounds like one of those clickbait/malware articles you find at the bottom of shady or sell-out websites, next to “You won’t believe what these child stars look like now” and “10 times celebrities went too far”.

editor: How much stock footage do you want? Half as Interesting: y e s

Imagine trying to find a stock video for “hot dog tuxedo boy”

Maybe I missed a point. But one ticket = one prize (i.e. if you match 4 numbers, then you can't get the lower or higher value prize with said ticket). How can they be added together as shown?

Crazy to think that Sam beat Hollywood to getting this story out there!

"And just like the fire nation attacked, the jackpot rolldown changed everything" Nice.

5:18 You said "$484,463.5" but put "$484,206" on the screen.

I don't get how the lottery could make such a mistake though. Weren't they basically guaranteed to lose money, whoever bought tickets? And isn't it their job to make sure they always have the advantage??

“Side affects may include unsubscribing” xD

I'm waiting to see a comment of the students HAI went with to school and see if they remember hot dog tuxedo boy

Video: Get top-quality, comfortable , and surprisingly affordable earbuds Description: Get top-quality, affordable, and surprisingly comfortable earbuds Which one is it HAI?

I got one more reason to follow this channel.. That is his on point "sense of humour" 😇 Wish you all the best.

Literally doubles the video length with tangents. Definitely a math guy.

How is nobody talking about that reference to Avatar: The Last Airbender?? He's a man of culture

Imagine going to prom 😏 -Or having the courage to ask someone to prom-

My grandpa uses to be a bookie. He wrote down every winning Ohio pick 3 numbers for the last 40 years and can go back to any date in his notebook and tell you the winners. He bets the most common numbers for the month, and wins kind of frequently.

I like math! I just stumbled onto your channel, will you have more like this to come?