Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The parable of the lotto player

Once upon a time there was a man who loved playing the lotto game. Everyday he studied the lotto draw, analyzing the numbers and looking for patterns within. He believed that the lotto draw is not random and with diligent effort he will be able to predict the winning numbers. Without fail he will buy the numbers he derived from his analysis of the past lottery draws.



One day, as usual he was having breakfast at his favourite kopitiam. He opened the newspaper and turned the page to the lottery draw, as he always did during his breakfast. He could hardly believe his eyes. The winning numbers matched the numbers that he had been playing for the past week. His hands trembling, he fished out the crumpled lotto ticket that he had been keeping in his wallet. There was no longer any doubt, his numbers were the top prize winner! He quickly rushed home to tell his wife the good news.

The next day, he went to collect his winnings. As he approached the place where he was to collect his prize, there stood a man with an angry look on his face.

"What are you doing here?", the Angry Man demanded.

"Um, well I won the lotto and I'm here to collect my prize", replied the Lotto Winner

The Angry Man pointed to a shop -  SureWin Sendirian Berhad - which sells lotto tickets.

"Did you buy from this shop?", the Angry Man asked.

"Um, no.", replied the Lotto Winner, " I bought my tickets from a shop near my house. What is this about anyway?"


"Only tickets bought from SureWin shop is allowed to win. Since you did not buy from them, you are not entitled to win", said the Angry Man.

 "But, but...the system drew my numbers, surely I deserve it"

The Angry Man  now his face very red started shouting: "You do not deserve to win! Only SureWin buyers deserve to win. You are cheating every SureWin buyer. In fact I think you fixed the system together with the lotto operators!".

Now the Angry Man was making so much noise, a crowd had gathered. The Angry Man grabbed the shoulder of an innocent bystander in the crowd.

"You! Make a police report. Fraud has been committed. This man" , pointing to the Lotto Winner, "should be in prison!"

"Why do you not make the report yourself",  the Innocent Bystander enquired .

Angry Man gets even more upset. "It's not my job to make police reports! My only job is to make as much noise and create as much confusion and chaos as possible".

"Then, did you buy any Surewin tickets?" the Innocent Bystander asked.


Angry Man: "No, no. I do not even know how to play Lotto". A lawyer type spoke up. "Then you have no locus standi at all"

"I don't need no stinking local standing whatchallmacallit" , screamed the Angry Man. "You must be a crony of this Lotto Winner". The Lawyer did not want to get involved further and quickly left the scene. Part of the crowd also started to leave. The Angry Man turned to another bystander.

"How about you? Report to the anti-corruption agency".

"What evidence do you have? ", asked the second Innocent Bystander.

Angry Man starts screaming. "It's not my job to collect evidence! It's not your responsibility either! The police or anti-corruption people should find the evidence. Go and lodge the report".

Some people in the crowd were seen whispering to each other. "Why is he not making any reports himself?". One more knowledgeable fella replied, "Making a false report is a crime, you know".

The crowd sensing who is the real fraud, started dissipating. "Wait!", the Angry Man shouted, "Come back! There's been fraud here. You must make a report!"

But nobody is paying him any more attention and the last of the crowd has left leaving the Angry Man and Lotto Winner alone. The Angry Man tries to prevent the Lotto Winner from entering the building to collect his winnings. But the Lotto Winner breaks free and managed to go into the place to collect his prize.

The Lottery Winner, his winnings in his pocket, is walking home. Thinking to himself, "Is it my fault, the system picked my numbers? What a strange and weird man".

Later he used the winnings to buy a round trip air ticket to Istanbul.







5 comments:

Anonymous said...

One may or may not like the selected team to the Olympiad but he must resist the temptation to follow the conclusions of "he whom we shall not name". The truth of the matter is that Yeoh Li Tian is a very strong player (playing at 2350 at least in my opinion). Any decent player would know this if he has bothered to look at the quality of Li Tian's games at Kasugi. I have looked at almost every top Malaysian players playing there and only two players impress me with the quality of their play.. Nicholas Chan and Yeoh Li Tian.. I'm sure every player, (who understands chess and is completely honest to themselves) deep inside their hearts of hearts, knows that they are the two strongest players in Malaysia at the moment...

An observer

SomeDaysLikeThese said...

I am definitely impressed with Li Tian but improving oneself at the game is a continuous effort. He must not stop working to increase and sharpen his skill.

Whilst I will probably stop short of naming him as one of the strongest player in Malaysia, he is certainly on his way there. But, looking at the pool of talent that we have, Li Tian and Nicholas would probably be in the top 10 - give or take 5 places :)

Jimmy Liew said...

Nicholas is still an impressive player even after being inactive for so long. One wonders what he could have done if he could have focused on chess.

Li Tian is still young and will be the strongest one day , but not at this moment.

SomeDaysLikeThese said...

By the way Jimmy, do you play lotto?
*LOL*

Jimmy Liew said...

Lets just say I know the *rules* of the game...

Post a Comment