<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jun 30, 2010, at 1:34 AM, Damien Broderick wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><blockquote type="cite">Okay, so you admit you can't respond to my questions based on the playing field you first chose: lotto.</blockquote></div><div><br></div>Damien, I honestly don't know what the hell you're talking about. Go back and look at my past messages, I never mentioned the word "lotto", I was referring to lotteries in general.<br><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Are you sure the cumulative amount paid in prizes is very close to 50%, year after year? </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yep.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Would the despairing owners abandon this "scam," this "tax on the ignorant," if they only pulled in, on average, 49.9% of the takings?<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Nope, but one hell of a lot of statistically savvy scientists would sit up and take notice, and a hell of a lot of accountants would be scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do about the unexpected shortfall in profits, money that the laws of probability told them they should see but for some mysterious reason they don't. </div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>How often are the winning numbers posted?</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>In Florida it's twice a day.</div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><br></div><div>Have you got links to sites where there's more precise information on numbers of players betting, payouts, etc?</div></blockquote><div><br></div>I'd like to introduce you to a wonderful new invention, it's called "Google".</div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark<br><div><br></div></div><br></body></html>