US gambling syndicates making their own luck

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According to the adverts "it could be you". But if you happen to live within driving distance of Massachusetts, boast a decent understanding of school mathematics and can get your hands on a few hundred thousand dollars in fairly short order, there are times when it almost certainly will be you.

A select group of semi-professional gamblers has exploited a little-known quirk in one of the state's lotteries to make guaranteed profits from the supposed game of chance. By purchasing vast quantities of tickets, they have, on select days, been able to win more than two-thirds of all its individual prizes.

This example of effectively buying your own luck owes its existence to a game called Cash WinFall, whose rules dictate that, on days when the jackpot rises above US$2 million ($2.37 million) without being won, the value of lesser prizes increases, often dramatically.

On these so-called "rolldown" occasions, syndicates of gamblers who have investigated the prize allocation system have toured the state, buying hundreds of thousands of US$2 tickets. As a result, they are able to monopolise the inflated prize pool.

No one knows exactly how many millions of dollars they have won in this fashion, but during one typical "rolldown" day in May, state records revealed that 1105 of the 1605 prizes worth about US$600 each were collected by only three individual organisations.

"Cash WinFall isn't being played as a game of chance," said Mohan Srivastava, an MIT-educated statistician famed for exposing a similar flaw in a Canadian scratchcard game. "Some smart people have figured out how to get rich while everyone else funds their winnings."

To be virtually sure of making money from the "rolldown" system, you have to invest large enough sums to minimise the possibility of missing out on prizes due to a possible round of bad luck.

- INDEPENDENT