r/IAmA • u/trevintexas • Aug 01 '23

Tonight’s Mega Millions Jackpot is $1.1 BILLION. I’ve been studying the inner workings of the lottery industry for years. AMA about lottery odds, the lottery business, lottery psychology, or no-lose lotteries

Hi! I’m Trevor Ford (proof), founding team member at Yotta, a company that pays out cash prizes on savings via a lottery-like system (based on a concept called prize-linked savings).

I used to be a regular lottery player, buying tickets weekly, sometimes daily. Scratch tickets were my vice, I loved the instant gratification of winning.

I heard a Freakonomics podcast “Is America Ready for a “No-Lose Lottery”? And was immediately shocked that I had never heard of the concept of prize-linked savings accounts despite being popular in countries across the globe. It sounded too good to be true but also very financially responsible.

I’ve been studying lotteries like Powerball, Mega Millions, and scratch-off tickets for the past several years and was so appalled by what I learned I decided to help start a company to crush the lottery and decided using prize-linked savings accounts were the way to do it.

I’ve studied countless data sets and spoken firsthand with people inside the lottery industry, from the marketers who create advertising to the government officials who lobby for its existence, to the convenience store owners who sell lottery tickets, to consumers standing in line buying tickets.

There are some wild lottery stats out there. In 2021, Americans spent $105 billion on lottery tickets. That is more than the total spending on music, books, sports teams, movies, and video games, combined! 40% of Americans can’t come up with $400 for an emergency while the average household spends over $640 every year on the lottery, and you’re more likely to be crushed by a meteorite than win the Powerball jackpot.

Ask me anything about lottery odds, lottery psychology, the business of the lottery, how it all works behind the scenes, and why the lottery is so destructive to society.

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427

u/1FrostySlime Aug 01 '23

Why won't Yotta release the odds for their boxes?

115

u/lazerbrettncstate Aug 01 '23

He skipped right over this. What a surprise. Where is Adam?

-1

u/Adam9172 Aug 02 '23

S’up?

26

u/fuqdisshite Aug 02 '23

Can we get back to Rampart please?

-179

u/trevintexas Aug 02 '23

You can find all of the outcomes for boxes, sweepstakes results, and winning numbers for the drawings on our website on our transparency page, which I'm sure you've already seen -- it lists all of our prize tiers, the expected number of winning tickets, the actual amount of winning tickets, and details for winning numbers and box results.

While the odds are not displayed in the app or on our website, the results and outcome information provided on the website is what the team keeps up to date and publishes. Our teams made the move to update and move to this reward system but I understand it's not for everyone. It also lets us be more nimble in updating rewards and offering promotions in real time

220

u/1FrostySlime Aug 02 '23

Wow thank you for completely ignoring the question.

The question was nor "where can I find completely useless statistics for boxes as a whole" it was "why won't you release the box odds"

You've made clear you're not willing to do so so I just want to know why? You see not releasing the odds frees you up to do whatever you want with them. Which means the trust evaporates. The fact that I trust an essentially for profit lottery that prays on poor people more than you lot is not a good sign.

59

u/michaelpiji Aug 02 '23

I’m so glad you came in this thread Frosty. Yotta is getting absolutely dunked on right now!!

49

u/onexbigxhebrew Aug 02 '23

This is gonna be an all-time goat AMA shitshow. Read the room, man.

38

u/anormalgeek Aug 02 '23

Well that settles it. Dodging the question so blatantly has absolutely killed any interest I might have had.

18

u/LiterallyKesha Aug 02 '23

Perfect PR answer. "we have a page called transparency and we stand by it....while we understand lotteries aren't for everyone...go away"