Well, one game counting for just 1% of the Commonwealth's take. Via Boston.com:
Mark Kon, a professor of math and statistics at Boston University, calculated that a bettor buying even $10,000 worth of tickets would run a significant risk of losing more than they won during the July rolldown week. But someone who invested $100,000 in Cash WinFall tickets had a 72 percent chance of winning. Bettors like the Selbees, who spent at least $500,000 on the game, had almost no risk of losing money, Kon said.
Only once in the history of Cash WinFall did Kon’s calculations not apply. During a rolldown in 2008, Wenxu Tong, who earned a doctorate at Northeastern and now works in California, won the nearly $2.5 million jackpot, leaving no jackpot to spread among the lesser prizes.
So if you have half a milly lying around, get in there!
Update 8/2: It looks like they've decided to crack down a bit on the high rollers:
Under the new rules, no store will be allowed to sell more than $5,000 worth of Cash WinFall tickets in a single day, making it much harder for the gamblers to continue their high-volume purchases.
Grossman also said that Cash WinFall, which has seen declining sales since it was introduced in 2004, will be phased out next spring as part of the normal rotation of games.
(99% of my life I've been lied to) I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
Poor Ozymandias (merely Ozzy to his friends)! Let us pity him. Not only for being a failure who, as a great and egotistical King of a forgotten Kingdom, had assumed it would survive forever, But because, having only a singular title and lacking I.D. he'd get insta-banned from Google+.
Oh, I mean suspended. Indefinitely. Google isn't evil. It doesn't do banishment.
Were you expecting me to immediately tie Shelley's poem in to Google's failures in social media? Hey, I'm not that crass; I waited a whole three paragraphs.
By the way, that person who wrote that blog post isn't a real entity online, did you know? He has numbers in his name (one presumes Conan776 is a "he" and I happen to know) and, with some measure of wisdom, Google has decided anyone who, ten years ago, picked an online identity involving numbers isn't fully human. And that's not evil, is it?
YES IT IS. Hey, guess what, THE REST OF US DON''T WORK IN HIPPIE DIPPY CALIFORNIA FOR HIPPIE DIPPY GOOGLE. WE WANT TO KEEP OUR JOBS WHILE BEING ABLE TO HAVE A LIFE ONLINE!
I'm a pretty political cat. My employer knows my "real" name. How often do you see high profile people fired for something they said online? Once every few months, for a while, although the chilling effect has come. For us low profile people, don't you think that's a 1000x fold?
But, Google+ has decided to sell everyone else down the Corporatism river. Just like on FaceBook, we all should watch what we say and look over our shoulder lest we disrupt the Corporate status quo, Wow, that's realllly Evil. And it is really sad that our One Hope, the corporation who swore their policy was not to do "Evil," has shown its true colors, imo.
Signed, Conan776
(although Conan Seven-Seven-Six has a nice ring to it)
the following videos are not safe for work!
Eminem -- My Name Is
2 Live Crew -- Banned in the USA
What is this?? Is this not America? This is not China! This is not Russia! This is not the place where they brought down the wall This is America! We have the right to say what we want to say, We have the right To do what we want to do, And what I do in my house, You might not do in your house! So what I do in my house is my business! And the simple fact Of it all is that we are BONDED by the First Amendment! We have the Freedom of EXPRESSION! We have the freedom of CHOICE! And you, Chinese, black, green, purple, Jew, YOU have the right to listen to whoever You want to, and even the 2 Live Crew! So all you right-wingers, left-wingers, bigots, Communists, There IS a place for you in this world! Because this is the land of the FREE, The home of the BRAVE! And 2 Live is what we are!
(Oh sorry 2 Live Crew, you have a number in your name, so Google Plus says: Go F*** Yourselves!)
UPDATE: April 5, 2012! Hello,
Thanks for sending us your appeal. You're right: your name does comply with the Google+ Names Policy. Your name has been updated on your Google+ profile. If you submitted the appeal during sign up, your profile has now been restored. Log in to Google+.
Sorry for the inconvenience,
The Google+ team.
Wow, so now I'm free to roam Google+. boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away
