Doesn't the RNG constantly refresh?  So, if the clerk punched in a quick pick a split second earlier or later, you would have a different combination?  He would not have won anyway, right?

Whoever got that ticket would have been the winner.  So if the guy had not let her go first, he would have gotten the winning ticket.

One of his pals said, "It's typical for Larry to have let a woman go in front of him."

Live and learn.  Last time I let a woman with a couple of items ahead of me in a grocery line her husband and kids joined her before she got to the register.  16 cases of beer and sundry items necessary for an evening of relaxation.  Then she tried to write a check, which took a while, followed by a study of the receipt and a long argument over the price of an item she'd bought..... a call for a gopher to go back to the shelf and check the price, a manager to explain things to her....

Nope.  I cling to my place in line with hair teeth and toenails.  If she's behind me and gets a winning ticket I'd have gotten by being courteous, so be it.  I'll cheer for her.

I was with my granddad at a rural electric coop meeting once when I was a kid.  A man and woman let him in line ahead of them because he was an old man and (probably) because they wanted me in front of them where they could keep an eye on me.

Granddad won a television at the drawing and they pointed out to him that they'd have won it if they hadn't let him in line.  He gave it to them.

Fact is, the closest television broadcasts were from Roswell, 90 miles away, and a television antenna had to be about 100 feet tall to pick up better snow than you could pick up with just the set.  I doubt he figured he was giving up much.

Jack

Larry Moriarty in just one of hundreds that have either bought their losing tickets directly ahead or behind a person that bought the winning lottery ticket.  By allowing her to go first he can claim he sacrificed his chance to win so she could win.  Had he gone first and she still bought the winning ticket, he could have claimed he sacrificed his chance to win by buying the losing tickets ahead of her which allowed her to win.  Maybe by being one the few to ever reveal such a fact, he's thinking she might want to share her winnings with the persons that made such sacrifices so she could win. 

Cheese with that whine?

Lottery RNG's do refresh constantly.  There is a very very very slim chance that by letting her go in front of him she got the ticket.  The clerk would have to have had hit the create ticket button at the exact millisecond to get the same numbers.

Brad

Seems a likely motive.  Who knows?  She might be the sort to pass over a few thou to him if she remembers.  But more likely it won't take her long to be exposed to enough other rationalizations along those lines to harden her.

J

And who said "chivalry" has died,  Cheers...!

No good deed goes unpunished!

You are 100% correct. Even if she had gotten her ticket a split second sooner or later, the numbers would have been different. All this talk about letting or not letting someone in ahead of you is meaningless.

Len 

Another common misconception people have.  Anyone of us of can probably win the lottery within a minute of walking into a store, you just need the right millisecond.

That might be true for the QP players, but for the players who pick their own numbers any time is a good time if they pick the right numbers.

Everyone who says that the numbers constantly refresh are not necessarily correct.  You are all assuming that the RNG in the lottery machine is programmed a certain way.  The fact is that all lottery machines are NOT programmed the same, so the way you're making a blanket statement is not necessarily true.

You're also making the assumption (like an episode of Star Trek) that if the other person went first then somehow the time continuum would be disturbed, and the clerk would not have generated the numbers at the precise millisecond that he did for the lady.

You know what?  I think the guy was right, and he would have won if he went first.

JAG I think I agree with you on that one