I created this project as a fun way to see if I could beat the Illinois scratch-off lotto odds.
By law, the Illinois lotto has to publish how many scratch-off prizes have been claimed at each prize level. This allows you to see the current expected value of playing any given game.
For instance, if many tickets have been sold, but not many of the larger prizes have been claimed, it's theoretically possible that the odds could shift in your favor as the remaining scratch-off ticket pool would be disproportionately populated by high-value tickets.
So I created a program to email me the odds every day so I could buy tickets with an expected positive value.
(I shut it down before ever seeing the odds tip in my favor)