hehe, I heard about that one on a slightly different tune, send your letter to 'investors' and do it 10 times in a row (so 2047 letters in total).
Then go to the last investor with an investment proposal for a lot of $ and disappear into the sunset with the loot :)
Make sure to list that on your alternative ideas on the YC app!
Professor Pigskin, is that you?
Re:The ASCII Million Dollar Page
by paraschopra on Monday August 17, 2009 @02:40AM
(#767504)
Yep, that is an example Nasim Taleb uses in Fooled by Randomness
Purchase a mailing list of 4,096 football bettors.
Then start mailing postcards every week proclaiming that you have a system and a newsletter absolutely positively guaranteeing at least one "Lock of the Week".
Week 1 - Mail a postcard to 2,048 selecting the Tennessee Titans as the "Lock of the Week". Mail the other 2,048 a postcard selecting the Buffalo Bills as the "Lock of the Week". Keep only the 2,048 names whose team actually won.
Week 2 - Mail 1,024 postcards with one "Lock of the Week" and 1,024 with the other team as the "Lock of the Week".
Repeat for 3 more weeks.
By the time the season starts, you will have mailed 5 consecutive correct "Locks of the Week" to 128 bettors. The probability of this was (.5)^5 or .03125. Damn, you're good!
Now sell those 128 bettors your Absolutely Positively Guaranteed "Lock of the Week" Newsletter for $1,000 but only if they buy before Sunday.
If half the bettors buy your newsletter then your income will be $64,000 with a printing and mailing cost of less than $2,000. Not bad.