Lotto

In my local area the Lotto prize often reaches $20 million and usually it is shared by ten winners who get $2 million each.

Here's what to do:

Pick the numbers you think will win the prize and play those same numbers on each of 90 tickets.

You'll probably lose but let's say your numbers win...

Normally there would be ten winners who each get a $2 million share in the total prize pool of $20 million - but this time you also have 90 winning tickets so now there are 100 tickets sharing the $20 million prize pool.

$20,000,000 divided by 100 winning tickets = $200,000 per winning ticket.

But you have 90 winning tickets so you collect $18 million and the other ten players get only $2 million between them - $200,000 each.

Works with any Lotto game - all you have to do is pick the winning numbers.

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I told a friend about this and he told me, "It doesn't work like that."

That's the great thing about blissful ignorance - the world works exactly the way YOU want it to work and to hell with the technicalities.

(I didn't bother to explain the situation more clearly to him. I just said, "Fair enough," and he went away quite happy; absolutely convinced that he was a genius and I was a bit of an idiot.)