impossible<\/em> based on our claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNeedless to say, he was quickly shown the door!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What worked with this kind of scam was the\ninability of most people to comprehend numbers beyond a certain size and our\nability to quickly distract them with promises of easy money based on a\ncompelling idea that was little more than a bedtime story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short, the idea was easy to grasp but the\nreality was harder to recognise because the numbers were simply too much to\ncalculate, unless you had developed the habit (and the mental muscle) to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lottereality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n Going back to the UK Lotto: Millions of people\nbuy tickets every week and if I were to ask any of them to quote the odds, I\ngenuinely believe many could quickly state around 14,000,000 to 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This may have been true at some point and has\nsomehow stuck with people as the \u201cbig number versus small number\u201d that they are\nhappy to live with but the true odds of 45,000,000 to 1 are far worse yet would\nonly be interpreted as another \u201cbig number versus small number\u201d and would fail\nto have the impact it should on their understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In actual fact, while the odds are bad, the\npotential prizes are far worse in terms of return since the minimum prize is\nonly \u00a32.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While many would quickly mistake this as being\npaid odds of 2,500,000 to 1, smart gamblers would remember that a ticket costs\n\u00a32, so the average return is half of that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being paid 1.25 million to 1 on a bet of 45\nmillion to 1 against is a staggering mathematical advantage for any lottery but\nit has to be remembered that they all pay out many more prizes (for less than\nsix winning numbers) and the easiest prize to win (by matching two numbers) is\nstill 10 to 1 against and all you win for that is a free ticket for the next\ndraw!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps people should consider the smallest odds rather than the largest to gauge just how fair a proposition is, but truth be told, that simply creates more possibilities for fraud, deception or manipulative psychology<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of my favourite performance pieces is an absolute miracle with a borrowed deck of cards, created by the Spanish …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":31232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3644],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Why The Lottery Is A Waste Of Your Time - Terrible Lottery Odds<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n