To rob or not, that is the question
The next thought turned out to be predictable - “I remember, what was going to become rich! I will rob the lottery!"- says Mohan. truth, grandiose dreams soon gave way to more practical reflections. “As soon as I understood, how much money will I earn, if I do this full time, then became much less excited - says Srivastava. “I would have to travel from store to store and spend 45 seconds to view each ticket. I appreciated, what could I do about $ 600 in a day, which is not so bad. But, honestly, I earn more as a consultant, and I find consulting much more interesting than endless opening of lottery tickets.
Instead of, to secretly clean up the lottery he decided to go to OLG (Ontario Gaming Corporation) and tell about the vulnerability found. Srivastava thought, what lottery officials will want to know about its opening. Who knows, may be, he would even hire him, to get tips on statistics. “People often assume, that I should be a highly moral person, because I didn't use the lottery ", - says Mohan. “I can assure you, it is not so. I just calculated everything in terms of mathematics and came to the conclusion, that winning the game is not worth my time "
When Srivastava contacted OLG he was given a man's phone, responsible for safety. But, it was not possible to make contact with him for several days, which could not but annoy, says Mohan. "But, then i got it, that might sound like crazy to him is one of those, who can hack the lottery, because last night's number was his birthday, written backwards. Not surprising, that they didn't want to talk to me "
Instead of, to try to convey the essence of the problem over the phone, Srivastava decided to send a parcel. He bought 20 Tic-tac-toe tickets, without opening sorted them into winning and losing, put in different envelopes and sent to OLG, while writing, that tickets were bought in different stores, and they can check the accuracy of his guess.
The package was delivered to 10 in the morning. Two hours later, Mohan got a call from Rob Zufelt., and told, that he correctly predicted the result in 19 cases from 20. The next day, the Tic-tac-toe lottery was withdrawn from stores.
