California Lottery fixes major problem with Derby game

the powers that be will keep doing it as long as the players keep letting them get away with it by still playing......

Normally I would say that's the case, but to me, it appears that the computer programmer who programmed the RNG for the Derby game was not very good.  They probably did not test very well either.  I think the combination of those two things (bad programming + poor testing which did not ferrit out the problem) led to the glitch.

I can't get over what a classic case this is, in showing how terrible computers are for drawing lottery numbers.

I can't believe there is not more outrage over this. 

First, how many people that play the lottery even follow it enough to know this happened?  Remember, those of us here on LP are not "casual" players for the most part.  We pay more attention to all things lotto.  I feel 90% or more of the ticket buyers do not. Heck, if you see how many of them come into the stores looking for the clerks to check their tickets, it shows you they don't have a clue as to what was drawn...they don't really care...let alone do they follow up on the lotto news. Therefore, what outrage?

Secondly, as you state poor programming and lack of testing of software caused the problem. Sounds to me like Microsoft was involved. (Sorry but I had to spit that out -- I have been piqued at MS for years for doing the exact same things with their monopoly software)

NOOOO!!!!! It has absolutely 100% NOTHING to do with Microsoft!  Microsoft has nothing to do with someone programming the Derby game whatsoever.  It is very important not to introduce an unrelated element in the argument, because people will use it to try to get rid of their fault.

Todd, that was my personal shot at MS. I was not saying that MS was involved. My point is that even MS does the same things...i.e. poor programming and lack of pre-testing (which used to be called Beta Testing in the early PC days. Poor programming is rampant these days because programmers have so much RAM and ROM to play with that they aren't forced to be disciplined.

I've been "into" personal computers since the early 1980's when the C-64 came out. Those days, you not only had to program your own software (as there wasn't much on the market) but you also had to be efficient; there simply wasn't much RAM or ROM available.

Now all these technological "advancements" are making it easy for sloppy programming. And in the name of money and greed software designers use the endusers to discover all the glitches. I personally find it very sad.

I programmed the C-64 as well, but it sounds like I started a little earlier than you: I also programmed Commodore PETs and VIC-20s.  I learned machine code in order to squeeze code in a small space (plus make it run faster), so I understand your point about sloppy coding.

We all tend to look down on the bloated coding of today, but an honest appraisal of programming back then would acknowledge that programs were just as buggy as today.  People love to program, but they hate to test, and that's been true all along.

That "human" side of computers is one of the reasons I am so against computerized drawings.  Why bring all the problems of computing into lottery drawings?

What if the California Lottery discovered that problem on their own?  Do you think they would have told anyone?  Or would they have quietly fixed the program, and people would have never have known that they had no chance of winning the game?

As computers become more prevalent in drawings, the problems will increase greatly.  There are just too many points of failure.  So sad that lottery directors are in such a rush towards that big, bad idea.

Wow ! The PET and the VIC-20 -- brings back old memories. You know, for their time, those were darn good machines !

Agree the programs back then were buggy. But one back then didn't release the program chock full of bugs. The programmers used to ask selected users to Beta Test it to discover the bugs. Actually, I had a lot of fun beta-testing. Back then programmers used to often say something like Don't be afraid to hit any combination of keys you want to see if the program crashes. The programmers then realized that the program code wasn't completely smooth on first try. But they also had enough self-respect and also respect for the potential users not to rush it out for use.

And these were utility prgrams, WP programs, etc; not vital programs like an OS ! Seems like every week I'm being informed I have a new security patch to install for WIN XP here. That's really shoddy ! If you have an OS, and basically a monopoly on it, and a browser that is basically a monopoly (since I've run into sites where the pages won't fully recognize any other browser but IE whether I want to use it or not) then gol darn it, don't release it so full of holes ! MS has more than enough financial resources to do it right ; not as if their employees or Bill is/are going to not be able to buy groceries this week if they don't rush it right out there.  Perhaps Bill has the wrong people programming.....it seems from the overt evidence that the hackers are better at using his code than his programmers are ! It is just a real sore spot with me.

As to the same shoddy workmanship in the CA lottery...No, if they had discovered this on their own, I certainly don't think they would have mentioned it to the public. Computers for lottery drawings are a terrible idea !  You can already see from thestates using them that there is often nothing "random" about RNG. Right now in fact, I think it is ruining the games...there are some really lousy and weird things happening in the games now ; and they fly against statistics. The proof is in the recent draw histories of the individual games. If I had a Magic Wand I'd make the RNGs disappear.

i agree i'd make COMPUTERIZED DRAWINGS poof gone...

I would agree that this is a classic example of why computer rng's are not always the best. I always thought it was fine for keno (which I don't play) but for large jackpot games it's a disaster waiting to happen. While people will probably ignore small news like this on a minor game eventually the same news will happen on a major state game like the California superlotto and that will be the real test when people find out the game was rigged to make losing tickets.

dvdiva: great points!  Furthermore, who is to say it hasn't already happened?

Maybe it has.