Think of a Number: Why Humans and Machines Are Bad at Being Random
A magician or a lottery might seem to offer you a free choice, but your answer will be surprisingly predictable
Ajackpot of $14.3 million is a lot of money, and it seemed strange that the person holding the winning ticket in Iowa’s Hot Lotto waited almost a year before claiming it. The draw took place in December 2010, but it wasn’t until 2011, just a few hours before the deadline, that an anonymous individual made the winning claim. While lottery winners are entitled to “no publicity,” they still need to identify themselves to the lottery company. The claim was turned down, but it raised suspicion with the authorities and sparked a long criminal investigation.
The lottery company knew where the ticket was purchased: a QuikTrip grocery store in Des Moines. In 2014, the company distributed CCTV footage from the store showing a white man in a hooded sweatshirt buying the ticket. In January 2015, a man named Eddie Tipton was arrested.
There were two interesting things about Eddie Tipton. He was an employee of the Multi-State Lottery Association, and therefore prohibited from playing, but more important, he was also the company’s director of information security. The lottery win was an inside job. Tipton was…
