Steven D. Moffitt, William T. Ziemba
arXiv 5 Jan 2018 · Econometrics · publishedWilmott (2019) · 1 citations (OpenAlex)
arXiv:1801.02959 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text
Despite its unusual payout structure, the Canadian 6/49 Lotto is one of the few government sponsored lotteries that has the potential for a favorable strategy we call "buying the pot." By buying the pot we mean that a syndicate buys each ticket in the lottery, ensuring that it holds a jackpot winner. We assume that the other bettors independently buy small numbers of tickets. This paper presents (1) a formula for the syndicate's expected return, (2) conditions under which buying the pot produces a significant positive expected return, and (3) the implications of these findings for lottery design.
appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 90% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.
The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.
| Reference | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | Main text | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moffitt, S. D. and Ziemba, W. T (2017) A Method for Winning at Lotteries self | 0.941 | 6 | 4 | 83% |
| 2 | Ziemba, W. T., Brumelle, S. L., Gautier, A., and Schwartz, S. L (1986) Dr Z's 6/49 Lotto Guidebook self | 0.693 | 5 | 1 | 100% |
| 3 | Walker, I (2008) Chapter 22 - how to design a lottery | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 4 | Stern, H. and Cover, T. M (1989) Maximum entropy and the lottery | 0.511 | 2 | 1 | 100% |
| 5 | Thaler, R. H. and Ziemba, W. T (1988) Anomalies: Parimutuel Betting Markets: Racetracks and Lotteries self | 0.511 | 2 | 1 | 100% |
| 6 | Ziemba, W. T (1995) Collection of Dr. Z Columns on Racing, Lotteries, Sports and Casino Gambling self | 0.511 | 2 | 1 | 100% |
| 7 | Clotfelter, C. T. and Cook, P. J (1990) On the economics of state lotteries | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 8 | Johnson, R. and Klotz, J (1993) Estimating hot numbers and testing uniformity for the lottery | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 9 | Joe, H (1987) An ordering of dependence for distribution of k-tuples, with applications to lotto games | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
| 10 | Chernoff, H (1981) How to beat the massachusetts numbers game | 0.405 | 1 | 1 | 100% |
Showing the top 10 of 18 scored citations.