Bad Day

‎"please don't take a picture. it's been a bad day."

hear that, philippine broadcast media? yeah, remember that next time you're thinking of shoving your cameras into the faces of grieving family members.

Hello?!?

Anybody there?!?

It's been more than a year since my last post. Haven't really had the time to blog lately. Also haven't been on a plane since my trip to Vientiane. Let's see, maybe we can still resuscitate life into this old blog.

So when does it make sense to play Lotto 6/49?

Ok, by "make sense" here I mean you don't lose money in expected value terms; i.e., you're not throwing money in the crapper by spending P20 on that Lotto 6/49 ticket (unless, of course, you think PCSO does great social work and that P20 is your corporal work of mercy for the day).

First let me explain what I mean by "expected value". In games of chance such as lotto, expected value is the amount of winnings (or loss) multiplied by the probability of winning. Suppose the game of chance is tossing a fair coin and you get P100 if heads come up and you get zilch if tails come up, so you have a 50/50 chance of winning and getting zilch. In this case, the expected value from the coin-toss game is

EV = (P100)(0.5) + (P0)(0.5) = P50

So basically the expected value is the amount you can expect to gain from playing a game before you actually play it (e.g., when you're thinking of buying the ticket). Of course, it "makes sense" to play if the cost of the ticket is less than or at least equal to how much you can expect to win. In this case you probably won't (or shouldn't) play the game if you have to gamble more than P50 to have a 50% of winning P100, but it'll make sense to play if your bet is only, say, P25.

Now let's look at Lotto 6/49. The game involves a player picking 6 numbers from 1 to 49 (hence the name). A lotto ticket, on the other hand, costs P20, which the player has to pay if he wants to have a chance of winning. PCSO, which manages the game, then (presumably) randomly selects 6 numbers and publishes it. If the player gets 6 out of 6 numbers he gets the pot, which could run to the tens to hundreds of millions of pesos. Getting 5 out of 6 numbers gets you P20,000; 4 out of 6 gets you P500; and 3 out of 6 numbers results in balik taya, or you get your P20 back.

So, and this is where it gets dicey, what are your chances of winning? If you buy one ticket, then you will win the pot if your exact 6 numbers are selected out of all the possible combinations of 6 numbers out of 49, which are 13,983,816 possible combinations (mathematically, this is 49C6). Therefore, the probability of your 6 numbers winning the pot is 1/13,983,816 = 0.00000007151.

But then winning the pot isn't the only way you can win-- you will also win something if you get 5/6, 4/6, or 3/6 numbers correct. Choosing 6 numbers is like getting 6 chances of getting 5 numbers correct since there are 6 possible combinations of 5 numbers from the 6 numbers you chose. Eh? Suppose you very creatively chose the following 6 numbers:

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Then the possible combinations of 5 numbers from the 6 numbers you chose are:

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [1, 2, 3, 4, 6], [1, 2, 3, 5, 6], [1, 2, 4, 5, 6] [ 1, 3, 4, 5, 6], and [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Similarly, you get 15 chances of getting 4 numbers correct and 20 chances of getting 3 numbers correct from the set of 6 numbers you chose. Using combinatorial mathematics, the expected value from the lotto game can be computed as:

EV = (1/49C6)(X) + (1/49C5)(6C5)^2(P20,000) + (1/49C4)(6C4)^2(P500) + (1/49C3)(6C3)^2(P20)

where X = the winning pot, which can change. The squared terms are there to take into account that both the player and PCSO choose 6 numbers.

Since the cost of a lotto ticket is P20, how much should the pot be so that the expected value from playing equals the cost of a ticket? Setting EV = P20, we can calculate X as... P261 million.

Yes, the pot will have to be at least P261 million before it actually makes sense to play Lotto 6/49. Any pot lower than that and you're basically throwing P20 into the crapper, just like paying P75 to play the coin-toss game above.

But then if buying that P20 ticket gives you the right to hope and to dream about what you will do in the off-chance you will win the pot, then by all means buy the ticket. After all, that's what PCSO (and all casinos, for that matter) are hoping you will think.

Paul A. Samuelson, 94

Paul A. Samuelson, Economist, passed away on 13 December 2009 in his home in Belmont, MA. He was 94. He is probably best known for his Economics textbook, which, even after n editions, must be among the most widely used textbooks in history. First written in 1948, I used the textbook when I took Economics 11 in 1997 and it is probably still being used at the School today.

In the name of everyone who had to study introductory economics whether as a required subject or as the first step in a life-long exploration of this science, thank you.

Vientiane, Day 1

Currency: Lao PDR Kip (LAK)
USD 1 = LAK 8,450; LAK 1 = PHP 0.0055

Didn't really have much chance to do any exploring as the whole day was just too crazy and hectic. The main places I've visited so far are the Lao Plaza Hotel, the Bank's Resident Mission, and the Ministry of Health compound. A few off-the-cuff observations:

1. Vientiane is a small city that feels like one of the smaller provincial capitals in the Philippines. The tallest building is the Lao Plaza Hotel where I'm staying, standing at a sky-scraping seven storeys. It's very clean and has a quaint smell of incense in the background, probably due to all the Buddhist temples dotting the city. It's also quite common to see saffron-clad monks walking around the sidewalks. Speaking of which, the city is very walkable-- everything is walking distance, the streets are relatively safe, and the city is well lit during evenings. I also don't see any beggars or street children loitering the streets, although I did see one (only one) taong grasa walking around.

2. There are many, many Western tourists in Vientiane, so many that it takes hours to get through the visa-on-arrival section at the airport. Most of the foreigners are undoubtedly on vacation as I am one of the very few non-Laos who is wearing a suit and tie in this swelteringly humid weather. The tourists are probably here because Laos can still be considered "exotic"; i.e., not so Westernised like, say, Bangkok or Manila.

3. Laotian people are very friendly. They are always smiling and accommodating. On the down side, they are so, um, relaxed when it comes to time. Filipino time is very punctual in comparison. Everyone operates in a very laid-back mode-- great when you're on vacation, not so great when you're organising a technical workshop.

4. I've had two non-hotel restaurants in Vientiane, both of them in the more posh restaurants:

4.a. Rashim's Indian Fusion, right in front of the hotel, serves the shrimpiest shrimp curry and the greenest palak paneer I've ever had-- no ingredient was scrimped. I paid LAK 70,000 for the meal-- not bad, considering the amount and quality of the dishes I was served.

4.b. I forgot the name of the restaurant, but it's a French restaurant that serves Thai and Laotian cuisine as well. I tried some local food: some chicken larb (cooked version) with sticky rice. The larb is basically minced meat sauteed with pepper, basil, and I think fish sauce served with lettuce and sliced cucumbers. The sticky rice is, well, sticky rice steamed (not boiled) and served in a bamboo basket. Although the rice is very glutinous (really a misnomer since rice does not contain gluten), it does not tend to stick to your fingers or the bamboo basket. I paid LAK 58,000 for the meal.

5. The French influence is strong in the architecture and cuisine. Buildings are a fusion of French and Laotian and street names, when written in Latin script, begin with rue. I also see a lot of street stalls that sell what look like Laotian fare served with baguettes. Hopefully I'll get to try one of these less posh Laotian food places before I leave (which is tomorrow evening).

Bangkok, T minus 30 minutes

This'll be a short post.

Two words set apart the TG lounge in BKK: free massage. They offer free Thai-style foot or neck/shoulder massages to their business class passengers. I got the neck/shoulder massage since I just got a foot massage last week.

On to Vientiane.

Manila, T minus 14 hours

Going to Laos tomorrow (well, later today since it's already midnight), returning home on Wednesday. I'm taking the MNL-BKK-VTE-BKK-MNL route flying on TG.

Usually I'd be pretty excited to go on travel by this time, especially considering I'm going somewhere not on the usual tourist path. But I'm not. Not really looking forward to being away from my Dear and Lucas. And I'm not particularly happy that this business trip will eat into our weekend, which is always too short as it is.

I'm also travelling with the boss, which should be enough to explain my lack of enthusiasm for this particular trip.

Well, at least the food promises to be good.