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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Burton Strauss III, post: 3407224, member: 59677&quot;]The lottery is a tax on people who slept through math class. When you START from the &quot;returns 50% of the wagered amount in prizes&quot; you really need nothing else to understand your long-term result.</p><p><br /></p><p>Because there should be perfect information (everybody knows what is offered for sale, had the chance to examine it and determine value), Auctions are essentially wealth transfers from the ignorant. </p><p><br /></p><p>If you have 20 or 30 dealers sitting in the room, what are the odds that at least one of them will know PRECISELY what the item up for bids is worth, and will bid to that point less a reasonable profit for himself on the resale?</p><p><br /></p><p>Say you are bidding on $100 melt value of 90%. You need to make 5% so you can bid to $95. If somebody bids $97.50 you let it go because either they&#039;re ignorant or their cost of business is less than yours and they can make money at a lower margin.</p><p><br /></p><p>If it goes for $110, somebody was ignorant (or saw value you missed - maybe it wasn&#039;t purely 90%, there was a dateless 1916 SLQ in there).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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