ok, do you read the four paragraphs of lawyer-ese on the back of a lottery ticket? Or do you see 75 THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! in the adverts?
see post #35
Edit: I’d appreciate it if you’d stop answering questions with questions; it’s not helping me understand your position.
Daniel
But what if buyers don’t know that? Does it make a difference then?
The buyer is paying for the perceived chance to win, not the actual chance to win. A losing ticket has zero actual chance to win, but it has a perceived chance to win regardless of the fate of the winning ticket, no? I put this forth humbly, don’t crush me too bad if I’m wrong.
The post you quoted in full was a response to post 35. You may wish to reread it; I don’t think you got what I was saying.
Daniel
Post 40 may need clarification.
You can’t win “up to X” with any ticket except the one that actually wins X. It’s not based simply on whether that one has been sold or not: it’s based on whether you’re holding that one in your hand. If that one hasn’t been sold, but you’re not holding it in your hand, you still can’t win up to X with the one in your hand.
Daniel
If I sell you a raffle ticket for money that I’ve already snorted up my nose, but you don’t know that fact, does that make the raffle legitimate?
If no notification of the top prize being already won was available anywhere, i.e. the state’s lottery website, then I’d say the guy would have a case.
That’s not the case. I don’t recall whether this info was there before the lawsuit, but I’m thinking it was.
Scratchers aren’t that bad of a deal compared to say Mega Millions or Powerball. It’s not uncommon to win something, be it $5 or whatever.
3 years ago, I bought a couple of $5 scratchers and put them in my kids Xmas stockings (yeah, I know, Dad of the Year here), and one hit for $50 and the other for $25! But being at least somewhat competent at math, I realize that sort of thing is only for the occasional lark, not a retirement plan.
But what if you could easily find that fact out, if you cared to check?
The states post the lottery results. If you can’t be bothered to check them before you buy, that’s your own problem.
But if the ticket has been sold then there is no possiblity of winning “up to x”; only the possiblity of winning (x-next highest available prize).
Bottom line: If prize X has already been sold, you have no chance of winning prize X with a subsequent purchase. So if I have an advert in the windows saying WIN up to PRIZE X!!! then I give you the false understanding that you can actually win Prize X.
If I lose the raffle, it makes no difference.
If I win the raffle, well you better find some cash for me.
So what? If the jackpot ticket was shipped to someplace upstate there isn’t a single ticket in your entire city that has any possibility of winning “up to x”, even if the winner hasn’t been sold yet. That’s just how scratch and lose tickets work.
The buyer already has a false understanding that they can win, provided they target a losing ticket for purchase. And whether or not that ticket is a losing ticket has nothing to do with the fate of the winning ticket.
How about this: What if after a buyer purchases a ticket but before it is scratched, all other unscratched tickets are destroyed. Does that change the perceived chance of the purchased ticket being the winner? Does that change the winner/non-winner state of the ticket? If the winning ticket has already been purchased, how is that different than it being destroyed?
You are paying for the perceived chance to win, not the actual chance to win.
All unscratched tickets have a determined perceived chance to win (say 1 in 1,000,000) regardless of what is actually happening to other tickets elsewhere and the buyer is unaware of their fate, whether they be the winner or losers.
All scratched tickets have a determined actual chance to win which is either zero or 100% depending on whether or not its a winner or a loser.
If it was the actual chance to win you were paying for, then you’d be purchasing scratched tickets, which are all losers (except one) for the big prize. And you certainly wouldn’t buy scratched losing tickets.
So, it’s the perceived chance you are paying for and that doesn’t change if the winning ticket has already been sold and you don’t know that.
(I think) 
As someone who works for one of the major lottery vendors in the world, I felt the need to jump in here.
I’m not going to read the writeup on the lawsuit, since it looks much like many that have been filed before.
Several things to consider in all this:
- The lotteries never know when a winning Instant ticket has been sold. The lotteries do not track instant sales. They also do not know the location of any winning ticket before validation. ( there are very good security reasons for this. they do not trust their own employees/contractors, or to put it more generously, they to not want to tempt the employees/contractors )
- many lotteries ( having finally learned from numerous lawsuits ) tend to be very careful in the advertising they use for the games ( the above mentioned “Up to $75,000” is a good example ).
- Many of the lotteries do advertise when the top tier winners have been claimed/cashed. They might not shout it from the rooftops, but the do make the information available.
- touching more on point 2, when they advertise a game at all ( some states/countries are really bad at doing any advertising ) it is usually in the vein of “Maximum prize $X, overall odds 1 in Y” just because the claim/payout of a top tier ticket does not effect the overall odds out to 5-7 decimal places, and so is well within the rounding error of the published odds, typically at two decimal places.
There is a reason that a lot of the insiders refer to lotteries as the government tax on people who are bad at math. The odds truly are bad. Sure most online games ( powerball , megaball, single state lotto games, numbers games ( pick 3/4 ) ) have payouts between 50% - 60%, but for number games this means the odds of winner for a normal wager on a pick 3 game are 1 in 1000. For a lotto game they start at about 1 in 6 for the break even payouts and get worse from there. The house does not lose in the long run.
Not stating employer/location for obvious reasons.
To late for the edit window ( I think ).
What in the world an I doing starting off posting as a member to the SDMB in the Pit?
Glad you jumped in! Ain’t the (sewer) water fine?
Thanks for the insider input.
Oh Virgin Mary eating a Push-up on a Pogo Stick what will somebody sue for next…
IANAL but it seems to me that if the 6 Grand Prizes were printed then it’s unreasonable to assume that the state should send out a big “THIS MILLION DOLLARS ALREADY CLAIMED- IF YOU’VE SOLD YOUR HOUSE TO BUY LOTTERY TICKETS THEN MOVE ONTO ‘WHAMMO-BLAMMO’ OR ‘SHOW YOUR TITS’ OR ‘FIND THE CHERRIES’ CAUSE THIS ONE’S SPENT” signs that nobody’s going to read anyway. I’m guessing there were still lots of “Free Tickets” and $40 prizes still out there.
I buy an occasional scratch off- I even buy an occasional lotto when it’s waay on up there, figuring “it’s only a buck- I have one chance in infinity of winning but then that’s the same as any other ticket, and if I win nothing the money goes to education and it’s only a buck”, but now damn it this gets me thinking. I’ve probably paid a hundred bucks on lottery tickets over the years and I WANT MY MONEY PLUS INTEREST PLUS PUNITIVE DAMAGES cause some of those had probably already had the grand prize given out. I want my $3 million pain and suffering money!
Or 3 million $1 scratch offs, whichever. (Ooh- that’d be cool- the jury should give a scratch off verdict---- scratch off 9 boxes, 8 of which read ‘You’re a dumbass asshole’ and the 9th reading the exact same thing.)
Sorry to disagree with you but Florida DOES provide this info to anyone with a desire to lok it up. See here. (Scroll down the page slightly to see the table.)
I agree the lawsuit is without merit, but I think it the guy might have a point if the tickets were printed after the grand prize had been awarded. If the lottery agency prints all of the tickets as one large batch, I can’t see anyway to effectively fix the problem. But, if they award the top prize on Monday, and are printing more tickets advertising the top prize on Tuesday, I think it’s kinda unfair. If that were the case, a game can continue indefinitely without prizes actually being available to win.
Also, there is a logical and an emotional side to this. Logically, the guy is on very shaky ground. Emotionally, I can feel his frustration. It’s kinda like betting on an event that has already happened, but that you don’t know the outcome of. Most people would be far more comfortable betting on who will win the World Series this year than who won in 1930 (assuming they don’t know, or have access to the info). I understand it is a different situation, but there would be a similar sense of emptiness for most people when betting on a past event. Even if your odds are the same, the spirit of the endeavor is very different.
Also, scratch-offs are big business. There are $50 scratch-offs now. For many, it’s not a matter of a wasted dollar, it’s serious money. Money poorly spent, but money none the less. I think “reasonable” people would think twice about spending that kind of money if they knew the chance of winning big was zero. The reason why the tickets are marketed the way they are is the enticement of winning the grand prize. Fewer people would buy a ticket without explicit grand prize information. That’s why they don’t say “Big Prize”, but rather “up to $XXX”.