Boy I tell ya, there are some people who think everyone is stupid and will believe anything you say without question. Like these statements from Lottery Post News, Official wants fraud probe of Tennessee Lottery: "Hargrove said she did not believe fraud was involved. She said a player would have had to spend $720 to win $500 in the Cash 3 game and $5,040 to win $5,000 in Cash 4, making it unlikely anyone would purposely rig the games." The part of the statements "...a player would have had to spend $720 to win $500 in the Cash 3..." and "...making it unlikely anyone would purposely rig the games." are not true; the math is wrong.

I had to sit and think about how could someone rig, rip-off the lottery and not get caught. First, the rigging and not get caught part. Rigging is so easy now that computers are picking the numbers, just set up some code in the thing to restrict or eliminate some combinations so you know what you are working with. You don't want to eliminate all the combinations just enough to give the appearance of randomness for a period of time before the lottery officials and the public notice. Also, the game would have to be one where the top prize is lager enough to make money, but you would not have to fill out any  paper work to hide your tracks. Pick 4 is no good, it's top prizes is $5,000.00, most state lotteries require you to pick up your prizes through the lottery office for prizes above a certain amount, like $599.00 here in Wisconsin. Hmm, what online game has a top prize just under $599.00 and can have the money redeemed at most local online sellers??? Pick 3! It's top prize is $500.00.

Now the rip-off part. I began looking at the Pick 3 midday and evening numbers for the Tennessee Lottery during the computer mess period from 2007-07-28 to 2007-08-19. I noticed there is an unusually large number of picks for a certain type of Permutational Form, C A B. The C A B form is one of six different permutational forms that can occur when all the numbers are different. The six forms are A B C, A C B, B A C, B C A, C A B and C B A. The 5th permutational form C A B occurred twice as much as the reset of the numbers, 15 times during the computer draw mess. For a truly random setting, the draws for any permutational form should have been closer to 7. You can identify these numbers in the draws easily. The first number is the largest and the second number is the smallest. Below is a table with the highlighted numbers. Well, you might say, "What good is that?" Knowing this, you can now reduce the numbers you have to play from 720 all of the permutational forms, to just 120 for the permutational form of C A B. These would be, 2 0 1, 3 0 1, 3 0 2, 3 1 2, 4 0 1, 4 0 2, 4 0 3, 4 1 2, 4 1 3, 4 2 3, 5 0 1, 5 0 2, 5 0 3, 5 0 4, 5 1 2, 5 1 3, 5 1 4, 5 2 3, 5 2 4, 5 3 4, 6 0 1, 6 0 2, 6 0 3, 6 0 4, 6 0 5, 6 1 2, 6 1 3, 6 1 4, 6 1 5, 6 2 3, 6 2 4, 6 2 5, 6 3 4, 6 3 5, 6 4 5, 7 0 1, 7 0 2, 7 0 3, 7 0 4, 7 0 5, 7 0 6, 7 1 2, 7 1 3, 7 1 4, 7 1 5, 7 1 6, 7 2 3, 7 2 4, 7 2 5, 7 2 6, 7 3 4, 7 3 5, 7 3 6, 7 4 5, 7 4 6, 7 5 6, 8 0 1, 8 0 2, 8 0 3, 8 0 4, 8 0 5, 8 0 6, 8 0 7, 8 1 2, 8 1 3, 8 1 4, 8 1 5, 8 1 6, 8 1 7, 8 2 3, 8 2 4, 8 2 5, 8 2 6, 8 2 7, 8 3 4, 8 3 5, 8 3 6, 8 3 7, 8 4 5, 8 4 6, 8 4 7, 8 5 6, 8 5 7, 8 6 7, 9 0 1, 9 0 2, 9 0 3, 9 0 4, 9 0 5, 9 0 6, 9 0 7, 9 0 8, 9 1 2, 9 1 3, 9 1 4, 9 1 5, 9 1 6, 9 1 7, 9 1 8, 9 2 3, 9 2 4, 9 2 5, 9 2 6, 9 2 7, 9 2 8, 9 3 4, 9 3 5, 9 3 6, 9 3 7, 9 3 8, 9 4 5, 9 4 6, 9 4 7, 9 4 8, 9 5 6, 9 5 7, 9 5 8, 9 6 7, 9 6 8 and 9 7 8. That would be only 24 play slips to hand in at one time, assuming there are 5 plays per slip; simple and fairly quick.

Now the math behind it. Would there be a profit during this period? Also, your winnings would have to go into the plays once you got by the startup cost. To play all the 120 permutational forms during this period would be, $5,040.00, that's $120.00 x 42 draws. Playing only Straight to get $500.00 dollar return, the winnings would be, $7,500.00, that's $500.00 x 15 wins. Profit, $7,500.00 - $5,040.00 = $2,460.00, and that's just one person playing one run of their slips. Now imagine 10 runs of the same slips at 10 different locations, the profit would be $24,600.00. Get 10 a of your buddies in on this and the profit jumps to $246,000.00. Not very hard. Not very hard at all.

Look at this a little more closely. I think you'll find more interesting things.