- Curve, the all-your-cards-in-one app, adds support for Amex by TechCrunch. Keep in mind Curve is UK only currently, apparently they want to add offices in the US by end of the year.
- How a retired couple found lottery odds in their favor by CBS News.
- Microsoft Wallet for Windows Phone to be retired in February by Windows Central.
- Discover Cardmembers Can Now Make Payments on the Move with Garmin Pay by Discover. Always nice to see more options, fingers crossed they offer some type of promotion to use it.
Deals expiring at the end of today or starting today (view the full deal calendar here):
- Capital One Spark Cash $2,000 Signup Bonus & Spark Miles 200,000 Signup Bonus (6% Back)
- [Targeted] Get 40%-50% off Uber, 10 Rides, $6 Max Discount Per Ride
- [YMMV] eBay: $5 Off With Promo Code MYEBAY5
- Amazon: Spend $20+ on eBook’s and get a $5 Credit [expires 1/28]
Deals expiring at end of tomorrow:
We are trying something new where we also post some of the most popular posts from the previous day:
Keep posting good stuff. Cheers.
Lottery Story: “Jon Wertheim: So when you realized there aren’t a million people that have discovered this, it’s pretty much just you, what’s that feeling like?”
Answer: Like flying Emirates First class after opening dozens of BofA Alaska cards a week earlier.
The only way the lottery game mentioned could be profitable to both state and big buyers is that people with three four or five digit winnings don’t realize they won and don’t claim.
Not at all. Example:
Round 1-9 (no rolldown): Stupid people buy $100, state takes $20, pays out $60 to Stupid people, $20 rolls over
Round 10 (rolldown): Smart people buy $100 of tickets, Stupid people buy $100 of tickets, state takes $40, pays out $120+$180 from rolls downs ($150 to Smart people and $150 to Stupid people), $40 rolls over (or can be paid out, doesn’t change net result)
Net over 10 rounds: Smart people +$50, State +$220, Stupid people -$310
The big buyers are the Smart people — its the Stupid people playing with no rolldown that subsidize the system
Why then don’t they run windfall all the time. Sounds like a win win to me:
Greg Sullivan: And the state got very rich. The state made $120 million.
The investigation found no one’s odds of winning was affected by high-volume betting. When the jackpot hit the rolldown threshold, Cash Winfall became a good bet for everyone, not just the big time bettors like the Selbees
because humans are selfish and “only I should win” is the mentality. As soon as you introduce “we both win” once person’s selfishness kicks in and doesn’t want the best for the other.
Because it’s bad enough that the state steals from the poor & uninformed via the lottery, having the majority of the money go to already rich people would just be stupid
Was a asst. manager at a QT (QuikTrip) years ago. I feel for the poor employee that had to process and ring up all those tickets. The store owner was cool with as they also get a percentage of winning tickets as well as sales. IIRC QT even allowed tickets to be paid for with Credit cards. If only…… (running mental calculations) but nowadays I think most states are all cash or max of $50 per day or not at all
Regarding Curve, I use it for a long time already and it is very nice tool.
However, I don’t think they plan to support U.S. Amex any time soon. Currently only UK Amex, and maybe EU Amex in the future.
All the deals that are, “expiring at the end of today,” expired yesterday.
Opps
That lottery story is so old… it keeps surfacing every few years (similar to that guy with 2500 credit cards)
On the fintech side — Curve seems like it could be great (for consumers) but it always seems like making the move to America is difficult. The rules are very different and most “great ideas” seems to iterate down to “not worth it” quickly after making the move
Really liked the article about gaming the lottery. Nice find!
Cap 1 Spark $2000 or 200,000mi is dead