Caught Stealing

And it’s all perfectly legal, because it’s all in the math.

A game with a windfall for a knowing few

Billy’s Beer and Wine sold exactly $47 worth of lottery tickets the day before Marjorie Selbee arrived, just another sleepy day for the liquor store in this tiny Western Massachusetts town. But from the moment the 70-something woman from Michigan entered the store early July 12, Billy’s wasn’t sleepy anymore.

Over the next three days, Selbee bought $307,000 worth of $2 tickets for a relatively obscure game called Cash WinFall, tying up the machine that spits out the pink tickets for hours at a time. Down the road at Jerry’s Place, a coffee shop in South Deerfield, Selbee’s husband, Gerald, was also spending $307,000 on Cash WinFall. Together, the couple bought more than 300,000 tickets for a game whose biggest prize – about $2 million – has been claimed exactly once in the game’s seven-year history.

But the Selbees, who run a gambling company called GS Investment Strategies, know a secret about the Massachusetts State Lottery: For a few days about every three months, Cash WinFall may be the most reliably lucrative lottery game in the country. Because of a quirk in the rules, when the jackpot reaches roughly $2 million and no one wins, payoffs for smaller prizes swell dramatically, which statisticians say practically assures a profit to anyone who buys at least $100,000 worth of tickets.

During these brief periods – “rolldown weeks’’ in gambling parlance – a tiny group of savvy bettors, among them highly trained computer scientists from MIT and Northeastern University, virtually take over the game. Just three groups, including the Selbees, claimed 1,105 of the 1,605 winning Cash WinFall tickets statewide after the rolldown week in May, according to lottery records. They also appear to have purchased about half the tickets, based on reports from the stores that the top gamblers frequent most.

See also:
Elderly Couple Games Lottery, Wins Millions
Elderly Couple Finds Loophole In Massachusetts Lottery
How to Win the Lottery: Couple Profited From Quirk in Massachusetts Cash WinFall Game
Beating the System: Couple Spends $600,000 to Win Lottery Millions
Talk about making your own luck! Elderly couple who spent $600,000 on lottery tickets to win millions in prizes
Massachusetts Lottery Loophole Virtually Guaranteed a Profit
Massachusetts Lottery Players Exploit Game for Profit
How three groups collected almost 70% of lottery winnings
Gamblers find loophole in Mass. lottery game
Lottery scheme appears to cause trouble for area outlets
Massachusetts restricts lottery ticket sales after couple cracks secret to winning millions
Lottery restricts high-level players
Broken Lotteries

How stupid is Massachusetts for not catching this after the first time? Limiting the amount of tickets an outlet can sell in a day now is a lot like closing the barn door after the horse is long gone.

/oh well, all good things must come to an end and the Selbees are laughing all the way to the bank

Budget Hero 2.0

Find out how hard it really is to get us out of the economic mess we’re in. Do you have a better fiscal plan than Paul Ryan’s road map, can you destroy the country as quickly as Obama’s reckless spending spree?

Computer game gives people shot at managing budget

Think you might do better than President Barack Obama and congressional leaders in picking and choosing what government spending to cut — or taxes to raise — to stave off a debt showdown that could wreck the economy? A new computer game gives you, too, the chance to play “Budget Hero.”

“Budget Hero 2.0” is an update of an original version that came out in 2008. It shows players just how difficult it might be to carry out their grand policy objectives — universal health care, extending the Bush tax cuts or ending foreign aid — and still keep the government from either becoming irrelevant, or going broke.

“Our timing turns out to be perfect,” said former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who resigned this year to head the Woodrow Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank that developed the game with American Public Media.

Play the game:

Budget Hero 2.0

See also:
Budget Hero 2.0: Fun with debt ceilings!
Get Ready To Get Your Game On And Save The Country! (Civic Duty Meets Casual Gaming)
Computer Game Lets You Be a ‘Budget Hero’
Computer game gives people shot at managing budget
New Game Allows Users to Take a Crack at the Debt Ceiling
Computer game offers a chance to solve fiscal crisis
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
American Public Media
American Public Media

Okay, okay, so the game was developed by Lefties, as disclosed above. It’s still somewhat amusing, factual, and pertinent to our current predicament.

/give it a whirl, be a Budget Hero

Space Exploration In The Age Of Obama

Now that Obama has canceled the Constellation program and scrapped NASA’s plans to return to the Moon, NASA has been reduced to pretending to explore space, you know, when their not busy fulfilling their new prime directive of reaching out to Muslims.

NASA releases videogame, Moonbase Alpha

NASA has abandoned plans to return to the Moon but videogamers can explore the lunar landscape with a free new online game released by the US space agency.

“Moonbase Alpha” allows players to join an exploration team in a futuristic 3D settlement on the south pole of the Moon.

“In Moonbase Alpha, you assume the exciting role of an astronaut working to further human expansion and research,” NASA said in an explanation of the game.

“Returning from a research expedition, you witness a meteorite impact that cripples the life support capability of the settlement.

“With precious minutes ticking away, you and your team must repair and replace equipment in order to restore the oxygen production to the settlement,” NASA said

To accomplish their mission, players of the “first-person explorer” game use an interactive command center, lunar rover and mobile robotic repair units.

“Proper use and optimal allocation of their available resources are key to the team’s overall success,” NASA said.

NASA said the game is designed to “engage and educate students about agency technologies, job opportunities and the future of space exploration.”

Moonbase Alpha can be played by one or up to six players. NASA said it is a precursor to a planned NASA-based “multiplayer online game project.”

See also:
NASA releases free-to-play online game
New NASA Game Hands Over Keys to Virtual Moonbase
Game review: Virtual lunar life on NASA’s ‘Moonbase’
NASA releases videogame, Moonbase Alpha
NASA goes Lunar with online video game
NASA releases new online videogame about a lunar adventure
NASA Moonbase Alpha Now Available On Steam
Does a moonbase make for a good video game?
Moonbase Alpha Overview
Download Moonbase Alpha from STEAM

NASA, the once great symbol of American science and technology, relegated to making video games and reaching out to Muslims, anything except for the purpose it was created for, space exploration.

/what a shame, how the mighty have fallen