Hacking the Lottery
 

Last Sunday's New York Times Magazine had a fascinating story about a man who scammed a lottery by altering the code of the "random number generator" program used to generate the winning numbers. (I just got around to reading it today. The Sunday Times is a week's worth of reading.)

The article does run on a bit, but I thought you all would find it interesting.

Full Disclosure: I consider "state lotteries" to be acts of cowardice committed by politicians too cowardly to obtain revenue through the honest method of taxation. But that's just me.

I read this. People want lotteries. There used to be illegal lotteries, that's what 'numbers' as in 'the numbers racket' was. Legal lotteries are more honest, return more of the money bet to the bettors, don't fund 'real' crime, don't facilitate diversion of criminal proceeds.

A long time ago, when I worked in Center City Philadelphia, there was nice little coffee shop across the street from my building. It eventually closed. It seems the two primary employees were raiding the cash register to play the lottery.

I got nothing against legit gambling, though I know that gambling addiction is a real thing; heck, I once hit an Exacta at the Delaware Park race track.

I do have something against state lotteries solely for the reason cited above. It ain't the gambling which I disapprove. It's the legislative cowardice that gets my goat. For all practical purposes, state lotteries are an underhanded tax which generally "taxes" those with the lowest income.

Taxes are the price of civilization, though there seem to be many persons who don't realize that, who think that highways and policing and defense and fire departments and weather forecasts and libraries somehow don't need to be paid for. Grumble grumble grumble.

Just my two cents.

:D I also consider a State lottery to be another form of taxation on the poor, often the most gullible, because of lack of education. :(

The people who make poor decisions were making them before the state had a lottery. State lotteries make them less harmful.

I submit that state lotteries purposefully target such people. State lotteries are a regressive tax that dangles a promise of wealth to lure suckers.

Heck, you've got a better chance of winning Publishers Clearing House than you do of winning Powerball, and Publishers Clearing House requires only a first class stamp to enter.

The fact that some persons are suckers does not relieve the scammers--er, elected representatives--of moral liability.

Ya but what about the state(s) that hand out IOU's because they are supposedly to broke to pay?

Get real, if someone would actually win. What would they gain?

Ultimate Scam Deluxe.