So from what I gather, it wasn't outright rigged, it was just not well designed in terms of the ticket combinatorics and jackpot which made it exploitable to anyone with enough resources to buy up all the tickets, in combination with some fast and loose deals that enabled the logistics of buying every ticket but so far as is apparent no one was outright bribed or breaking a rule. They just weren't questioning things which weren't in their interest to question.
I'm not sure I see the problem here. Any normal person who bought a ticket still had the same chance if winning, and the cartel that bought all the numbers still had the risk that other ticket buyers had bought the same numbers and they would have to split the jackpot.
Step back from "legal" and think about what most people expect the lottery to be: Regular people buying somewhere between 1-100 (maybe, if in a big work pool or something) tickets to try to win a low-chance lottery.
Further, as I read it, the cartel bought all combinations of numbers, so there was no risk for them.
Ask yourself if you think this is something that should happen every time the jackpot goes above $25,000,000 - or if the lottery could survive with people knowing this was happening.
It clearly is against the spirit of the game, and any competent lotto administrator would see the red flags in facilitating it.
It cuts everyone else's EV in half if they'd have to split the money two ways in the event of a win. It wouldn't be a problem if the enterprising party hadn't been given an edge that's not available to other players.
Imagine winning the lottery and finding out that you only get half the jackpot because Texas officials broke the rules for and facilitated some corporation getting an assured win.
So from what I gather, it wasn't outright rigged, it was just not well designed in terms of the ticket combinatorics and jackpot which made it exploitable to anyone with enough resources to buy up all the tickets, in combination with some fast and loose deals that enabled the logistics of buying every ticket but so far as is apparent no one was outright bribed or breaking a rule. They just weren't questioning things which weren't in their interest to question.
I'm not sure I see the problem here. Any normal person who bought a ticket still had the same chance if winning, and the cartel that bought all the numbers still had the risk that other ticket buyers had bought the same numbers and they would have to split the jackpot.
If the expected return is positive then it would be negative for the organizers. I don't understand how is buying tickets in mass would make sense.
Step back from "legal" and think about what most people expect the lottery to be: Regular people buying somewhere between 1-100 (maybe, if in a big work pool or something) tickets to try to win a low-chance lottery.
Further, as I read it, the cartel bought all combinations of numbers, so there was no risk for them.
Ask yourself if you think this is something that should happen every time the jackpot goes above $25,000,000 - or if the lottery could survive with people knowing this was happening.
It clearly is against the spirit of the game, and any competent lotto administrator would see the red flags in facilitating it.
It cuts everyone else's EV in half if they'd have to split the money two ways in the event of a win. It wouldn't be a problem if the enterprising party hadn't been given an edge that's not available to other players.
But if individuals had bought all those tickets, it would be exactly the same.
https://archive.is/JoL2Z
Imagine winning the lottery and finding out that you only get half the jackpot because Texas officials broke the rules for and facilitated some corporation getting an assured win.