# A time traveller couldn't win the lottery, right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 28, 2016, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079 "2016-07-28T01:26:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/21 "2016-07-28T09:34:22Z")
> [@Ignotus](#): > > It might work if you set up a _really_ long-term account and also provide the banker with some useful hints about the future financial market (cf. Mack Reynolds, _Compounded interest_). I don’t know the details of the SF story, but a strategy is just depositing money to earn interest doesn’t work to create wealth, even over the really long term. Interest rates lag inflation, and over the extreme long term wealth is always destroyed periodically by some financial entities or entire financial systems going bust. Perhaps in the story that’s the “useful hints about the future financial market” that you mention? One dollar earning 3 percent compounded continuously over 1000 years gives you 7 trillion dollars, and since it’s clear that the money people really had 1000 years ago did not grow 7-trillion-fold, nor will the money of a hypothetical time traveler if it’s just left in a bank passively. As Malthus could tell you - such growth is unsustainable, wealth must be destroyed. So the time traveler needs to be exploiting inside info about the financial markets to get rich - which he could do by going back just a few decades. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/22 "2016-07-28T09:42:13Z")
**Über-Morlock:** _“You built your time machine because of Emma’s death. If she had lived, it would never have existed. So how could you use your machine to go back in time and save her? You are the inescapable result of your tragedy, just as I am the inescapable result of you. You have your answer. Now go.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/23 "2016-07-28T13:43:50Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Skip the lottery. Stick to betting on sports events. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > That’s the one that gets you killed without any need. Why? I’m no expert, but I’d think, with only a small amount of care and planning, one could go on indefinitely betting $5,000 a week at Vegas Sportsbooks and winning $6,000, without having anyone annoyed enough to want you dead. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you still got free drinks with it. ---
**Author:** ![Ignotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ecc23a/32.png) [@Ignotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignotus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/24 "2016-07-28T14:01:19Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Why? I’m no expert, but I’d think, with only a small amount of care and planning, one could go on indefinitely betting $5,000 a week at Vegas Sportsbooks and winning $6,000, without having anyone annoyed enough to want you dead. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you still got free drinks with it. Especially, as you could spread out your winnings over several years, not to say decades… (Assuming, of course, the possibility of multiple time travels!) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/25 "2016-07-28T14:08:30Z")
Take $12,000 and buy 10 oz of gold. Go back to Microsoft’s (or Apple’s) IPO, convert the gold into cash and buy as much of the stock as you can. Come back to the present and sell those stocks. Guaranteed to go up by a factor of 100. Even better, start with $120,000. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/26 "2016-07-28T14:24:59Z")
Just for kicks, I’d go back to April 24, 1980 and [play “666” in the Pennsylvania lottery.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Pennsylvania_Lottery_scandal) Nick Perry and friends fixed the number that day. I do not know, nor have I ever had any contact with them. My 100 tickets would have to be honored, and lottery officials would be scratching their heads trying to figure out how I did it. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/27 "2016-07-28T15:14:01Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > Gold or gems? > Damn. You mean all those books about super-rich immortal vampires are wrong? No, because they’re investing just as you suggest. They have to, because they’re moving from country to country, and sometimes naoutlive nations and currendcies ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/28 "2016-07-28T18:10:33Z")
A great novel on this topic is [Replay](https://www.amazon.com/Replay-Ken-Grimwood/dp/068816112X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469728925&sr=1-1&keywords=replay) by Ken Grimwood. It starts with a guy dying at his desk at work, then waking up 25 years earlier in his college dorm room. He still has all of the memories of his former 43 y.o. self. (BTW, the plot description in the Amazon link is incorrect.) Once he realizes what’s happened, he bets all the money he can get on a long shot in a horse race and starts on the way to becoming impossibly rich. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/29 "2016-07-28T18:28:30Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > The more I think about it, the more this strikes me as a good question. > > Let’s say you travel back to a specific point in time. When you get there, the complete state of the universe is the same as it was the first “time,” so everything should play out exactly the same from there on, except for changes caused by the following three types of factors: But it ‘can’t be’ the same as it was the first ‘time’ - since you are now there and not where you were - and if you’re in the same time frame as yourself, there are now two of you. Which means - for it to be ‘the same as it was the first time’ - you were already there the first time - and you ifyou didn’t win then, you can’t win then again. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/30 "2016-07-28T18:29:33Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But absent actual market knowledge, I don’t see any simple way to create wealth using just time. There are investments that do more than track inflation. The stock market is one, where a reasonable portfolio will return inflation plus a premium. You don’t even need specialized knowledge; invest in index funds or leave the money with an account manager who can keep it well invested. There is risk, but a diversified portfolio is safe enough. Going back earlier in time before corporate ownership, there are investments like real estate that can beat inflation when you combine capital appreciation with revenue streams from farming or renting. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/31 "2016-07-28T18:34:39Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Didn’t that nearly happen to Jake in 11/22/63? Not flayed, but yes. In both the book and the TV series Jake makes some big sports bets, but it… doesn’t turn out well for him. _Replay_, noted above, is a very good book that includes the same sports-bet subplot. In _The Time Traveler’s Wife_ by Audrey Niffenegger, also, the traveler buys what he knows will be a winning Illinois lottery ticket to provide some ready cash for his family. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/32 "2016-07-28T19:00:39Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You can’t do it in one bit win, because in sports betting, the amount placed on one team or other changes the odds. This is not necessarily true. I can bet $1 million on Denver who is giving up 3 points to Carolina. There are no odds involved. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/33 "2016-07-28T19:41:26Z")
Research rare coins, then travel back to when they were produced, and get uncirculated ones straight from the Mint. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/34 "2016-07-28T19:51:39Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > I’ve always thought that if I had a time machine, I would go back and play this week’s winning lottery numbers in advance, and cash in the big jackpot. But it just occurred to me that this probably wouldn’t work. Wouldn’t the lottery be too random? If I go back, won’t random events play out differently? Won’t there be a re-set of the timeline for those events, so to speak, leading to different numbers popping out for the Powerball? I think because of quantum uncertainty, the numbers would often end up different. But I think they would have the highest probability of being the numbers you knew about. The closer to the past you went, the higher probability the numbers would be the same. It would probably be like weighting a roulette wheel. You wouldn’t know the exact number it would land on every time, but you would greatly tip the odds in your favor. If you could time travel to buy lottery tickets, you’d probably have to do it a few times before your already-picked numbers actually got picked. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/35 "2016-07-28T20:16:54Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > There are investments that do more than track inflation. The stock market is one, where a reasonable portfolio will return inflation plus a premium. You don’t even need specialized knowledge; invest in index funds or leave the money with an account manager who can keep it well invested. There is risk, but a diversified portfolio is safe enough. > > Going back earlier in time before corporate ownership, there are investments like real estate that can beat inflation when you combine capital appreciation with revenue streams from farming or renting. But this really doesn’t work to make you rich just by the magic of “time”, unless you’re somehow going to do a repeated loop to do (say) one decade over and over again. The notion of going a long way back, investing a few bucks passively, and then just leaving it to appreciate until you come back to collect your immense fortune just doesn’t hold water. If this were possible, everyone would be rich and sitting on a beach. It’s possible to specify a porfolio of hard assets that will probably beat inflation in the long run in gross terms. But the excess over inflation won’t be large, so you need to invest it for a very long time. There are a plethora of problems. - Taxation will kill you. You might find a tax-free regime that’s stable for a few decades (optimistically), but not hundreds. Chances are, a lot of your money ends up in the hands of a government. - Over the long run, financial institutions go bust, entire financial systems fall apart, entire societies fail. The most likely outcome is that you lose everything at some point. - Real estate might be the best bet as an asset, but it’s also the most management-intensive asset. Who’s collecting the income from your properties and maintaining them? Who’s doing it when they die? Who’s checking that aren’t defrauding you? When your properties are abandoned and derelict and you’re not around, are they still beating inflation? Is your title even likely to be enforceable? - Who’s looking after your investments overall? What proportion of financial institutions are still around 100 years later? For those that are, do you think any are still honoring abandoned accounts that haven’t been touched for 100 years? Are you expecting your financial manager’s great-great-great-grandchildren to be there waiting to pay out hundreds of years later? The time-travel trope of just investing a few bucks and then coming back decades or centuries later to cash in is based on misconceptions about the time value of money, and naivete about the long-term stability and riskiness of _anything_. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/36 "2016-07-28T20:28:06Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The notion of going a long way back, investing a few bucks passively, and then just leaving it to appreciate until you come back to collect your immense fortune just doesn’t hold water. If this were possible, everyone would be rich and sitting on a beach. Of course everyone isn’t rich and sitting on a beach, because this is NOT possible, because nobody has a time machine. Going back, say, 50 years, and putting money in a savings account with a bank you know is still around can be done. Go “Back to the Future” and collect the amount that is in there, and then take THAT amount back 50 years and put it in a savings account. Repeat until you are rich enough to sit around on a beach all day. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/37 "2016-07-28T20:56:30Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Of course everyone isn’t rich and sitting on a beach, because this is NOT possible, because nobody has a time machine. > > Going back, say, 50 years, and putting money in a savings account with a bank you know is still around can be done. Go “Back to the Future” and collect the amount that is in there, and then take THAT amount back 50 years and put it in a savings account. > > Repeat until you are rich enough to sit around on a beach all day. The common SF trope is not looping. I already explicitly specified that iterative looping is a way that could work. Without looping: ordinary non-time-traveling people were around hundreds of years ago, and they did invest money, and their modern descendants are not all magically rich. _That_ doesn’t work. Even with looping, you need to give it more thought than you have just done. You need to take your money back in cash. There are no banknotes that are valid both today and 50 years ago, so you need to shorten the loop to about 10 years or so. And cash transactions over $10k must be declared. You can’t account for the cash so you are likely to be busted as a money launderer. This is hard to circumvent. You’re basically in the same position as a drug dealer. ---
**Author:** ![SigMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SigMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SigMan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/38 "2016-07-28T21:29:08Z")
I have an interesting thought. Lets say you go back a week with the knowledge of the winning numbers and played the Powerball or Magabucks game. You cashed in and set up a bank account. Then you go home to the future. Will that bank account be there? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/39 "2016-07-28T21:33:58Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Of course everyone isn’t rich and sitting on a beach, because this is NOT possible, because nobody has a time machine. > > Going back, say, 50 years, and putting money in a savings account with a bank you know is still around can be done. Go “Back to the Future” and collect the amount that is in there, and then take THAT amount back 50 years and put it in a savings account. > > Repeat until you are rich enough to sit around on a beach all day. Would the bank call you out on discrepancies? Say you go back 50 years and deposit a thousand dollars as John Doe. You hop back to today and try to withdraw your deposit, but the bank says, “John Doe would be 90 years old today. You don’t look like that.” (You look 40.) ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2016, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079/40 "2016-07-28T21:36:09Z")
> [@SigMan](#): > > I have an interesting thought. Lets say you go back a week with the knowledge of the winning numbers and played the Powerball or Magabucks game. You cashed in and set up a bank account. > > Then you go home to the future. Will that bank account be there? Indeed. This is another reason why “looping time travel to get the interest” is kind of silly. You can do much better if you’re prepared to shrug off time-travel paradoxes. Forget the interest - after you loop once, haven’t you just doubled your money? Just as there are two copies of you around who might meet if you go back to a point in time after you were born. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-time-traveller-couldnt-win-the-lottery-right/761079.md?page=3)