January 13, 2016
“Fantasizing about winning the lottery activates the same parts of our brains that would be activated if we actually won, notes Daniel Levine, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington, and an expert on decision theory and neural networks. Picturing ourselves in a limo activates visual areas of the brain, while imagining the clink of champagne glasses lights up the auditory cortex.”
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May 18, 2013
While I was waiting in line to buy these tickets, it felt dirty and wrong. A large part of my brain knew that the odds against winning are just ridiculously bad, worse than bad even. And the fact that my wife has a Master’s degree in Applied Statistics means I should really know better. But there I was, waiting patiently behind four other people so I could hand over my money.
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August 1, 2011
I’m updating the blog over lunch, so I don’t have a time to elaborate here… but this is an absolutely fascinating article about how a select few people are gaming a Massachusetts lottery game called Cash WinFall. One example is 70 year old Marjorie Selbee and her husband: Over the next three days, Selbee bought $307,000 worth of $2 tickets…
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March 2, 2007
At work, Phil got a bunch of folks to do a big group-buy for the lottery. Jackpot is somewhere around $275M, and roughly 60-some folks chipped in $2 each. All told, I think there was someting like 126 tickets. I’m not one to play often, but on rare occasions like this – I feel like throwing in just to see…
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