Scratch and sue

A couple of losers are looking for a shortcut to get back to even:

The lawsuit alleges the lottery advertised over $8 million in prizes for its Cash Blast game from May 2005 to July 2006 that were not available. More than $20 million in losing tickets were purchased in that period, and the suit seeks a refund for losing tickets sold.

[. . .]

Two men, Jeff Frazer, Carmel, and Jeff Koehlinger, Auburn, filed the suit in Marion County for their losses in the game. Frazer purchased $40,000 worth of the $10 tickets and Koehlinger bought $2,470.

The overstatement of prizes occurred because half of the 5 million Cash Blast tickets printed were defective, according to their claims. The lottery reprinted the 2.5 million tickets, but did not delete the prizes from the defective tickets removed from the game when it listed the total prizes remaining, the suit says.

On June 22, 2006, the lottery said the game, which initially offered 10 $250,000 top prizes, had seven remaining, the suit says. By July 7, 2006, after the problem was detected, the number of $250,000 prizes remaining dropped to one.

Geez. No matter how many top-prize tickets there are, the odds of winning are so close to zero it's hardly worth making a distinction. You gambled. You lost. Get over it. Note that one of those doofuses spend $40,000 on one scratch-off game.

A bonus: How many pennies are currently in circulation, and how much space would they take up all in one place? (This has nothing to do with gambling, I admit. But I was looking around the Web for sites on odds, which leads you to sites on really big numbers, which leads you to amusing time-wasters like this.)