so that's Todd's last name- Northrop.  sounds rich.  good last name too.

Do you find yourself asking, "Did I miss something?"  If you're closer to forty then twenty, the world you live in is no longer the place you learned about in school. 

These days just about everything is a cheat.  Nothing you see advertised, on the news, etc. is exactly what it seems to be.  If you've ever been a witness or an expert on something being reported, so much is wrong you're rolling on the floor or screaming.  At least in the U.S.S.R. people had the luxury of knowing what the government wanted them to think the truth was.

Computer lottery draws are just one more example of government doing exactly the oposite of what its customers want.  Like the polls they cite claimming we want higher odds and prices, they cheat.  You can be very sure they had professional advice on exactly what switching to a computerized draw would mean to the ratio of players to winners.  You can also be sure any poll data on customer satisfaction with such a change was fudged.

The whole concept of a fair and honest lottery relies on an unquestioned open process where people can believe winning is possible.  I would never attempt to win a computerized draw, a few Quick Picks maybe on a big rollover, but tracking and charting wouldn't be an option, because I wouldn't believe even the normal balances of random processes would be observed by a computer generation of numbers.

On the other hand, in Florida the Quick Pick random number generator seems to be reading off a list rather than generating unique numbers for each line.  Lines are often surprisingly similar with multiple repeated numbers.   

Pick your own numbers, don't buy Quick Picks, don't play computerized lottery games !!!  Or at least don't play them the same way, realize any strategy based on charting draws is doomed and develop a strategy based on playing all the numbers in lines filtered to the gross profiles of the computer draws. 

BobP

I used to win quite frequently in illinois playing the little lotto. I actually had hit the jackpot twice. Then one day ,illinois had a lottery software upgrade? (???) What the heck was that i said. And ever since i rarely get more then two numbers and rarely get three. I always suspected that the game was somehow rigged and now after reading this latest post ..I am truly convinced that lotto games are rigged.

BobP,

I think you're right-on.  I would only add a couple of things:

1. 
   
2. If you're going to play a computerized lottery draw, then my advice would be to go with Quick Picks.  Because both the lottery terminal and the lottery draw machine are probably using very similar random number generators, you may happen to hit the perfect time when they spit out the same numbers.
   
3. Your perception about Florida lottery machines generating numbers from a list is not too far from the truth.  The same is true for all lottery machines that generate Quick Picks.  Random number generators are not truly random: if you tracked the numbers they generate over a large stretch of time, you would absolutely find a distinct pattern.  That's because computers are inherently non-random.  They rely on a complex mathematical formula to simulate a random sequence.

Todd,

"Because both the lottery terminal and the lottery draw machine are probably using very similar random number generators, you may happen to hit the perfect time when they spit out the same numbers. "

I find that very hard to believe. Not only because the terminal selects numbers for many different systems using the the same generator, even for lottery games that are not computerized versus teh drawing machine dealing with only the computerized games.

But then, reading your previous post, maybe you are right and "you may happen to hit the perfect time when they spit out the same numbers" and then the numbers it picks for me are sold out at the perfect time and it checks and gives me other numbers instead. Wouldn't that be something?

Good Luck!

Random is what ever the lottery commission says it is.  Years ago Ohio had a so-called random drawings for losers in which players  mailed in their losing tickets for a random drawing.  The lottery people pick a few envelopes from each mail bag to receive a prize and it turns out most of the winners worked in the local Cleveland post office. The lottery people thought picking a few envelopes from each mail bag was random, but the postal employees made sure their envelopes was the last in every bag. I believe that called  LIFO(last in first out) in computer language.  Since the lottery pick all the winners the same way from what they thought was a random source, the winners weren't truly random.  If the computer uses a formula to simulate randomness then it will have a pattern too and just because it may be too complexed for most to understand doesn't mean someone won't control it.  I trend to think that any time anything can be controlled and is out of the public eye, someone will control it.

RJOh

(Florida still uses Ping-Pong Ball Draw Machines,) I don't understand why people thought Jim695 was paranoid or worrying about nothing the government can not be trusted whether it's your Local State Officials or Federal Government.The State's are out to make money and "Lots of It" so if some State Lotteries can do it while screwing the Public over they will.Maybe not all State Lotteries but some the only 2 States I know that still use Ping-Pong Ball Machines are Georgia and Florida so many are moving towards the Computer Number Generators I don't know which ones still use the Draw Machines besides GA and FL.

Quote: Originally posted by MikeK on June 22, 2004

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Todd,

"Because both the lottery terminal and the lottery draw machine are probably using very similar random number generators, you may happen to hit the perfect time when they spit out the same numbers. "

I find that very hard to believe. Not only because the terminal selects numbers for many different systems using the the same generator, even for lottery games that are not computerized versus teh drawing machine dealing with only the computerized games.

But then, reading your previous post, maybe you are right and "you may happen to hit the perfect time when they spit out the same numbers" and then the numbers it picks for me are sold out at the perfect time and it checks and gives me other numbers instead. Wouldn't that be something?

Good Luck!

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I think maybe if you knew more about how Random Number Generators work you wouldn't disagree so strongly.

Virginia uses "da balls" for all drawings...all drawings are shown live on television (with the exception of Northern VA, where they still can't find a television station to carry them)...and players are allowed to witness the drawing procedures, by appointment with lottery security (they have to issue badges and get an escort for them).

I would think that for a JACKPOT game, the lottery might "want" to ensure that there is no winner.

the simplest random number generator is the one used by Microsoft in Visual basic... it is a big list of "random" numbers all between 0 and 1 cast as type unsigned long...

you need to do 2 things...

1 Seed the RNG (RANDOMIZE)

2 call the random function (RND)

The most popular method is RANDOMIZE(TIMER) which grabs the exact time stamp from your machine and uses it to pick it's position in the big list... at no two times will the system generate the same number because it includes year/month/day/hour/minute/second/microsecond.... YOU can't see the list so to you it's random!

you can easily prove that it is anything but random by inserting a numberic value in place of TIMER... for example RANDOMIZE(10)... do a loop, call RND 10 times, you get 10 "random" numbers... make a call at the end to RND(-1) to reset the list to the beginning.... run the program again.... you get the SAME "random" numbers. I think they refer to this type as a PseudoRandom Number Generator and the method used is called Linear Congruential.

Google has all the details, there are some threads here at LP that got into it pretty deep... particularly when LottoSynchronizer was first pitched...