Day 307 : Probability

Dinner Menu:

• Coucou de Rennes au vin blanc à la Romertopf
• Gratin dauphinois
• Yaourt de brebis avec banane et myrtilles

My friend Shane who is slowly recovering from some pretty major medical procedures asked me today to help him develop an excel model to beat the Casino at roulette.  He gave me the principles, I just had to translate into an Excel model.  I'm counting on my share of the winnings to retire early! In reality lotteries and other games of chance are just an unfair tax on the poor, the odds of winning are usually 50 Million to 1.  We should make them illegal and replace them with more interesting lotteries:

1. Democracy lottery: At each election a random voter would receive 10 Million € (This would be a big incentive to get people voting)
2. Traffic Ticket Lottery: Every month one person who had payed his traffic fine on time would receive a brand new (electric) car
3. Education Lottery: Every Term one school child from each year who had not missed any classes would be picked to receive a full 4 year full scholarship to university
4. Income tax lottery: Every year one randomly picked tax payer would get a "tax free card" exempting them from income tax for the rest of their life
5. Immigrant lottery: 1 (participating) foreigner from each country in the world would receive a French Passport.  

I'm sure we could think of more, and it would be a more interesting TV show than just watching some numbers pop up.