Sure the lottery is rigged for the state. IIRC my state lottery pays out ~60% of their gross, keeping 40%. I doubt there is any substantial bias in the game mechanics and they keep a pretty close eye on it to keep the employees from doing their own rigging. They watch the numbers picked and the winners awarded constantly. One time a fortune cookie company printed 'lucky numbers' that actually hit and a number of winners were investigated before the underlying pattern of (accidentally correct) number selection was discovered
Lotteries are a voluntary tax on the mathematically inept.
My preferred bet is in non-preferred common stock.
They have some unpredictable biases which make them a gamble. Their chief attraction is not that I think I am clever enough to pick individual winners. The chief attraction is that the odds of winning over time are actually in the player's favor. That's because the system is not wholly random. Instead, you are siphoning off a little of the equity which in a more fair world would be distributed to the workers generating it.
Start early and play consistently with the largest wagers you can comfortably make and can stand to lose.
Unless compelled, never, ever play any game with someone who sets the odds. Insurance companies hire the smartest actuaries they can, pay them well and try to keep their customers as ignorant as they can. When they've lobbied laws into effect to make betting with them manditory, there is only one course of action left to win in their game...Buy stock in their companies. Warren Buffett got Berkshire Hathaway kicked off by buying the National Indemnity Company and now they own Geico.
Lotteries are a voluntary tax on the mathematically inept.
My preferred bet is in non-preferred common stock.
They have some unpredictable biases which make them a gamble. Their chief attraction is not that I think I am clever enough to pick individual winners. The chief attraction is that the odds of winning over time are actually in the player's favor. That's because the system is not wholly random. Instead, you are siphoning off a little of the equity which in a more fair world would be distributed to the workers generating it.
Start early and play consistently with the largest wagers you can comfortably make and can stand to lose.
Unless compelled, never, ever play any game with someone who sets the odds. Insurance companies hire the smartest actuaries they can, pay them well and try to keep their customers as ignorant as they can. When they've lobbied laws into effect to make betting with them manditory, there is only one course of action left to win in their game...Buy stock in their companies. Warren Buffett got Berkshire Hathaway kicked off by buying the National Indemnity Company and now they own Geico.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
