Is the sales receipt lottery rigged?

True enough, the receipt lottery must be fixed, right?
In the States, if someone wins the big one, and people do, they at least tell you that someone in some city got it. No one knows who the exact individual is, but there is an announcement that the money was given out. Of course we have to trust them that they are not lying.
Here in Taiwan, since the sales receipt lottery began (with more numbers to match at the beginning, by the way) I have never heard of anyone confirmed to have won more that NT$10,000 and that figure is hearsay.
Does anyone win the big one? Does anyone win more than NT$1,000 at all?
I smell a rat

We have a neighbor lady here in Nei Hu, and her son, who teaches aeronautical engineering at a University in Keelung, won the top prize in a Taiwan sales receipt lottery a year or so back.

My complaint is that I think the printing of these receipts is a tremendous waste of paper. Also, as I understand it, the original intent of the sales receipt lottery was to encourage citizens to “oversee” that all shops were giving out such sales receipts. However, I can’t see that the populace is at all interested in doing that. I have never seen a local person argue with a proprietor in a small shop to the effect “You didn’t give me a unified sales receipt.”

I know that both Wolf and Hartzell have been here long enough to remember when some shops gave you a uniform sales receipt and some didn’t and those that didn’t were usually a dollar or two cheaper. I was always under the impression the uniform receipt thing was to do with paying sales tax or VAT. Some shops didn’t charge sales tax – and presumably didn’t remit it – and didn’t give out receipts. So the idea of the receipt lottery was to encourage people to ask for the receipts which would in turn encourage shops to join in the VAT system (what those that weren’t in the receipt system did in those days I don’t know, maybe small shops – it always was the small places where you got the lower prices - didn’t have to be in the VAT system).
Sometime in the early 90s the receipt system was made compulsory. In the mid-90s the size of the prizes was cut in half and since then the number of winning number has been reduced.

As to the remarks about never having known people ask for receipts, actually I have known quite a few Taiwanese friends who have been zealous in asking for receipts and scolded me for the unconcerned way in which I throw the things away.

What I would like to confirm Richard, is this: Did you personally see that this person won the top prize, the NT$2 million, or is this hearsay?

I really don’t understand this. is it compulsory or not? If it is why do some shops (even a few big ones) not give you them and when you ask they point to a sign saying that they don’t give out receipts?

Bri

Can’t say that I understand the economic or politics behind the receipt scheme or the fund from which the payouts come, but I do know that they must have just upped the odds cuz everybody who still bothers pulled in something last time around.

It’s been 2 years since I’ve even matched 2 numbers on one receipt. In the most recent raffle, the stubs that matched two number nearly equaled my newspaper recycle pile in bulk.

its compulsary…but who is going to raid the little shop on the corner for not giving out receipts?
I was in a shop once with a taiwanese friend and when the guy did not give her a receipt…she very bluntly pointed out to him by law he was required to

I thought the whole logic of the receipts was to ensure shops etc paid tax on all income. The customer should get a receipt and therefore everything the shop sells has been “recorded”
How does this recording process work though?.. is it like the lottery where all cash registers are connected to a central system or on a certain day of every month is the shop required to give rolls and rolls of receipts to Mr. Tax Man and somebody punches these numbers into a computer
I thought it should have to be the first way, otherwise the shop keeper could be dumping rolls everymonth so they could pocket some more money

You have to match the last three numbers, minimum. What lottery are you playing?

If I had 15kgs of 3 numbers matches I’d be too drunk to read this thread.

My point was that in this last drawing, almost every receipt was a near miss. The time before, out of 1000 slips, I think I matched one number once.

Something changed.

Then again, it could be statistics getting you. I have purchased lottery tickets with the six numbers you chose yourself (or the computer does) in the US and I have never even come remotely close.
Soon we will have the same deal here in Taiwan so there will be another place people can throw away their money.

It is as simple as a game of chance, but one that generally costs you nothing to enter. You would have purchased the relevant goods anyway, with this system you also get a chance to win some money.

As far as the purpose of the scheme is concerned, it is mainly one to try and stop local businesses from not reporting their turnover and therefore their profit correctly. Not that such a thing would ever happen here, perish the thought.
Only GUI’s not being used as company expenses can be used, hence why some months the prize may not be won.

The Government here actually matches all Business level transactions for the values being declared by both the provider of the GUI and the purchaser, any discrepancies in theory go out for questions and audits.

As far as some businesses participating and some not there are as usual various rules determining this, not unlike most western countries.
First one is in the form of level of turnover, if over then it is compulsory, if not you have the choice, though most choose not to join.
Certain types of businesses are also excused - not sure as to why, maybe someone had some good guanxi.

It is highly likely that a small shop or stall in the local market would not be reuired to register andf therefore would not be breaking the law in not giving a receipt.

The chances of winning - and i am no mathematician - are about the same, SLIM.

In several years of playing lotteries in various countries i have never got better than the minimum three number match. Maybe the new lottery here will bring better luck to all.

For the new lottery
The probability if there are 42 numbers is:

For the first number you have 42 choices, for the second number 41 choices, for the third number etc, and since the probabilities are dependant the probability of getting the six numbers is

(6/42)X(5/41)X(4/40)X(3/39)X(2/38)X(1/37) = .00000017

Since a probabilty of 1 means you definitly will win and a probability of 0 means you definetly won’t win… a probability of .00000017 means not much chance

The max number of combinations you would have to do to ensure you win the BIG PRIZE

42x41x40x39x38x37=

3,879,046,080

So there is no way you can do every combination and hope to win the money back

Are you sure of your math? I read that the chance is about one on 3 million or 1 in 5 million or something. I think that is the basic chance in other lotteries of this type. Ie if everyone buys a ticket the pool would get shared out by 5, 6 or 7 people.

Bri

I’m not a math-person either, but odds of nearly 4 BILLION to one seem a bit far-fetched. The current population of the entire planet is just over 6.2 billion. So that means that if every person on earth – except those in China – bought a Taiwan lotto ticket, no one might win, or maybe only one.


“Fifty of anything can kill you.”

The probabilty I calculated before is equal to 0.00000017. To find out the chance(odds)to win you must get the inverse of this.

(1/0.00000017) = 5882352

Therefore the chance of matching all numbers and winning or sharing in the top prize is 1 in 5,882,352

The total number of combinations is not equal to the probability since probability is based random nature and combinations are based on every permutation

Combinations and permutations is the total number of combinations that can be done. I do think my math is wrong in the last post though. There are repeats meaning the numbers are excepted in any order. For example any of the combinations below would still win you the top prize

123456

234561

345612

456123

561234

612345

Therefore to look at it like this, there are 37 choices for the first number, 36 for the second as the first number has already being taken, 35 for the third etc. With a total of 6 numbers picked it means

The max number of combinations is (37)(36)(35)(34)(33)(32)=1,673,844,480

Thanks Z. I’m feeling a lot luckier now!


“That wasn’t chicken you just ate.”

Still think your maths is a bit out Z. The Irish national lottery is also based on 42 numbers of which you pick 6. I remember a large syndicate tried to buy up every combination, and they certainly weren’t spending the type of cash your numbers would indicate. Anyway the guys were buying tickets in shops all over the country to try and get the required amount without arousing suspicion. Naturally with a computerised system someone realised what was happening and started shutting the system down (legal or not?!?). Turns out they had already got the winning ticket, but so had another person, so the prize was split. They still were in the money as they had a huge amount of match 5’s, 4’s etc. The government then tried to screw them with tax (supposed to be a tax free win) because by buying every combination they were in fact making an investment rather than gambling (they were sure to win). However the government had shot themselves in the foot by turning off the computers, thus depriving the syndicate of ever single combination possible, so they kept all the cash. And now that I think again at that time they lottery was based on 36 numbers, apologies Z!! It was changed to 42 to prevent someone buying all the combinations as easily!!! Still with all the cash and man power available in Taiwan, if the jackpot got big enough…

That story has the makings of a movie – kind of a “Waking Ned Devine II”

Thanks!

…or an urban myth.

I can’t remember the exact formula to calculte all the permutations and combinations based on the fact that the numbers can come in any order so I might be out a billion or so
I think you use nCr or someother probabiltiy formulae…anywoo if anyone knows how to do it corectly please tell us the odds