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Title: 'Lucky' woman who won lottery four times outed as University statistics PhD Post by: claws on August 09, 2011, 12:34:18 PM Quote She was called the luckiest woman in the world. But now that luck is being called into question by some who think that winning the lottery four times is more than just a coincidental spell of good fortune. Joan R. Ginther, 63, from Texas, won multiple million dollar payouts each time. First, she won $5.4 million, then a decade later, she won $2million, then two years later $3million and in the summer of 2010, she hit a $10million jackpot. The odds of this has been calculated at one in eighteen septillion and luck like this could only come once every quadrillion years. Harper's reporter Nathanial Rich recently wrote an article about Ms Ginther, which calls the the validity of her 'luck' into question. First, he points out, Ms Ginther is a former math professor with a PhD from Stanford University specialising in statistics. A professor at the Institute for the Study of Gambling & Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno, told Mr Rich: 'When something this unlikely happens in a casino, you arrest ‘em first and ask questions later.' Although Ms Ginther now lives in Las Vegas, she won all four of her lotteries in Texas. Three of her wins, all in two-year intervals, were by scratch-off tickets bought at the same mini mart in the town of Bishop. Mr Rich details the myriad ways in which Ms Ginther could have gamed the system - including the fact that she may have figured out the algorithm that determines where a winner is placed in each run of scratch-off tickets. He believes that after Ms Ginther figured out the algorithm, it wouldn’t be difficult to determine where the tickets would be shipped, as the shipping schedule is apparently fixed, and there were a few sources she could have found it out from. According to Forbes, the residents of Bishop, Texas, seem to believe God was behind it all. The Texas Lottery Commission told Mr Rich that Ms Ginther must have been 'born under a lucky star', and that they don’t suspect foul play. Source: dailymail.co.uk (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023514/Lucky-woman-won-lottery-times-outed-Stanford-University-statistics-PhD.html) Title: Re: 'Lucky' woman who won lottery four times outed as University statistics PhD Post by: Jack on August 09, 2011, 01:11:58 PM Good for her I say. If you're smart enough to figure out something that other people can't - and it's not illegal - then by all means make use of your skills.
Title: Re: 'Lucky' woman who won lottery four times outed as University statistics PhD Post by: InformationGeek on August 09, 2011, 02:31:30 PM Good for her I say. If you're smart enough to figure out something that other people can't - and it's not illegal - then by all means make use of your skills. That reminds me of that incident with Press Your Luck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHa4f3ebf-M Title: Re: 'Lucky' woman who won lottery four times outed as University statistics PhD Post by: Mofo Rising on August 11, 2011, 01:37:51 AM My statistics professor was banned from every casino in Reno for counting cards.
She told us that she won something like $30,000 playing blackjack. Unfortunately, she hit up three casinos in a row. Casinos talk to each other, and she was very firmly asked to never come back. She got to keep the money, though, so hooray for math. Remember, when people tell you that they don't need to learn higher math because "they will never use it," all they are saying is they are not inventive enough to make use of practical knowledge. Stay in school, kids! (Or learn it on your own.) I remember doing something as simple as keeping track of all the cards in a simple game of Rook (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook_%28card_game%29). I won every hand, but it was pretty mentally draining. I also didn't make any friends at that table, and I was playing against my family. If you've learned a skill, use it. Title: Re: 'Lucky' woman who won lottery four times outed as University statistics PhD Post by: lester1/2jr on August 11, 2011, 07:08:01 PM InformationGeek- They had a thing on that on NPR the other day
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea Title: Re: 'Lucky' woman who won lottery four times outed as University statistics PhD Post by: akiratubo on August 11, 2011, 10:31:05 PM She used her brain to make money. Good for her.
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