Do you know this woman personally out of curiosity? Is it one of those kinds of people where you'd always kinda suspected might do something like that? Obviously some people trusted her to take the tickets down -- but perhaps they all assumed that the likelihood of having a winning ticket was low. Messed up.
I remember reading about this following story when I was living in Vegas as it unfolded on a daily basis for weeks. This was front page news in the Las Vegas Review Journal almost every day after the first 5 or 6 weeks until it ended. Knowing odds (like CBOE guys) and still praying for miracles are not mutually exclusive. The Football Streak - One of the best stories to come out of the baccarat rooms in the past decade had little to do with baccarat. In late 1991, a group of eight baccarat dealers from the Las Vegas Hilton turned an initial $80 stake ($10 per person) into $103,000 by betting one NFL football game per week, parlaying their winnings, and winning eleven consecutive bets. The dealers' goal was to continue their parlay until they either lost or reached 15 straight wins. Had they been successful, the group would have cashed a $1.3 million profit. The odds against winning 15 straight are about 33,000-1. The odds against winning the remaining four games were only 15-1. Alas, they lost in week 12. The two dealers who made all the winning picks were women.
Sometimes half the game is finding out when you have a sure way to beat the system -- or just let the system "break." http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/107783-9566-092.html