Woman in Texas has won multi-million dollar lotteries four times. Scammer?

There's a woman who has won a total of $20 million in four different Texas lotteries. Turns out, she's got a PhD in statistics from Stanford, and since three of the wins were scratch-off tickets, a reporter has a theory that she might have figured out some algorithms that could have led her to the figure out when and where those tickets would be sold.

What's more likely, do you think...that one person could just be that lucky, or that she could have possibly gamed the system somehow? I'm figuring it really does have to be the latter. But if it is, that's some impressive math wizardry. I'm thinking she's going to be in a spot of trouble pretty soon.

I hope she doesn't get in trouble. It doesn't seem like she broke any rules.

It might be like card counting on a grand scale. Not illegal, but not exactly welcomed by the Lottery Commission, either.

I read a piece about an unnamed person who had won several multi-million dollar lottery payouts. How they did this was pretty simple: After they won the first time, they spent $1K/day on tickets.

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Originally posted by Tuckerfan

I read a piece about an unnamed person who had won several multi-million dollar lottery payouts. How they did this was pretty simple: After they won the first time, they spent $1K/day on tickets.

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I was going to say, if you're apt to play the lottery and then win, maybe you just play a lot more so your odds are way higher of winning again.

The odds of me winning four major lotto wins is so low it might as well be zero. (Well, it is zero since I don't buy lotto tickets, but assume that I do).

The odds that someone somewhere out there will win four major lotto wins is so high it might as well be guaranteed.

The odds that this major winner happens to have a degree in statistics is reasonable.

So maybe she has cracked the system. But there's no evidence so suggest she has.