Tennessee Lottery threatens to go computerized

Jul 16, 2007, 5:25 pm (30 comments)

Tennessee Lottery

Web site press release reveals plan — is it a trial balloon or just bad news?

By Todd Northrop

Tennessee Lottery issued a statement on their web site that threatens to bring unpopular computerized drawings to the state.

The upstart lottery, which in relative terms is still attempting to gain solid footing in the industry, made the announcement despite numerous player polls showing mistrust and discontent with the faux drawings.

The lottery claims computerized drawings are "exciting", although player polls suggest that any excitement from lottery drawings comes as the result of seeing real lottery balls being mixed in a spinning drum and drawn one at a time — both of which are missing from computerized drawings.

The Tennessee Lottery statement also mentions that other states are using computerized drawings, but fails to mention that it has been several years since any state has gone computerized.

(The last state to go computerized was Wisconsin in 2004.  It took place just before the computerized drawings controversy stated gaining widespread recognition.  Full story here: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/100094.htm)

Computerized drawings, unlike real drawings that use numbered balls selected from a tumbling drum, do not take place in the real world.  They are a computer program, which cannot be seen, heard, or televised. 

For this reason, lottery players have shunned the technique as untrustworthy and prone to unseen errors.

Such was the case with California's Daily Derby game, which uses a computerized drawing system.  For many months in 2005 certain combinations of numbers that were bought by players turned out to have no chance of winning.

The problem was with a computerized drawing program, which contained a bug that went undiscovered for months.  Only after a player noticed odd patterns in the draw results did the California Lottery investigate and subsequently discover the bug.

(Full story: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/112810.htm)

For lottery players who bought losing tickets during that time, the small bonus programs offered by the lottery to make up for the buggy drawings was not much compared to the jackpots they may have won if their tickets had a chance.

There are no telling how many glitches — big or small — that exist in the memory banks and storage systems of computerized drawing systems, because lottery players have no way to visually inspect the drawing as it takes place.

When states offer the chance to witness a computerized drawing, the person "witnessing" the drawing only sees a button being pressed.  The actual drawing logic is impossible to see, since it only exists as bit and bytes inside a computer.

Almost 4,000 lottery players have signed the Petition for True Lottery Drawings at Lottery Post, which calls for the elimination of computerized drawings across the United States.

The petition educates lottery players about the dangers and risks of computerized drawings.

The web site also offers a State Lottery Report Card (https://www.lotterypost.com/lottery-report-card.asp), that shows the computerized or traditional drawing status of every state and game played in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.

States receive a grade of "F" when they do not offer traditional lottery drawings for any game in their state.

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

BrakusJS

Sorry to sound skeptical but where are these player polls you speak of that show this distrust of computer random number generators?

DoubleDown

Thanks for this story, Todd.

Tennessee players should not stand for this- make your voices known ! Let the lottery commission know that you will not stand for this.

 

I am surprised at Rebecca Paul Hargrove - she ran the Ga lottery to perfection so she should know better than this !!!

nc6string

Talk about a system just begging for corruption.

Todd's avatarTodd

Quote: Originally posted by DoubleDown on Jul 16, 2007

Thanks for this story, Todd.

Tennessee players should not stand for this- make your voices known ! Let the lottery commission know that you will not stand for this.

 

I am surprised at Rebecca Paul Hargrove - she ran the Ga lottery to perfection so she should know better than this !!!

y/w.  I agree with you.  I am *SHOCKED* that she would do such a &$#&^% thing. 

These computerized drawing VENDORS (gthe ones who make the equipment) are tenacious, and will say anything to make these lottery folks feel good about computerized drawings.  My guess is they have convinced Rebecca and others. 

In fact, I've been contacted by a few myself -- they are trying to convince me how great they are, so that i will soften my tone.  I *will not* let that color my opinion, which is based on right vs. wrong, not on some marketing principles.

All you Tennessee folks need to VERY ACTIVELY contact the lottery non-stop.  Let them hear how upset you are!  And when you write, BE RESPECTFUL!

tnlotto1's avatartnlotto1

Quote: Originally posted by Todd on Jul 16, 2007

y/w.  I agree with you.  I am *SHOCKED* that she would do such a &$#&^% thing. 

These computerized drawing VENDORS (gthe ones who make the equipment) are tenacious, and will say anything to make these lottery folks feel good about computerized drawings.  My guess is they have convinced Rebecca and others. 

In fact, I've been contacted by a few myself -- they are trying to convince me how great they are, so that i will soften my tone.  I *will not* let that color my opinion, which is based on right vs. wrong, not on some marketing principles.

All you Tennessee folks need to VERY ACTIVELY contact the lottery non-stop.  Let them hear how upset you are!  And when you write, BE RESPECTFUL!

im glad you will continue to speak your mind Todd no matter what companies contact you. i havent heard anything positive about RNG except from the actual lottery websites.  i havent read anything from players from those states has said anything positive about winning.

BobP's avatarBobP

Please take a moment as I just did to use the contact form on the Tenn Lottery page to let them know lottery players demand honest draws to fake draws made in a computer program.  BobP

http://www.tnlottery.com/contactus/contact.aspx

DoubleDown

Where are ya Lottomike ?

He must be so pi$$ed he drove to Nashville to confront them directly !!!

Tnplayer805's avatarTnplayer805

I hope he didn't fall over dead with a heart attack!!!  I'm getting scared.

tnlotto1's avatartnlotto1

Quote: Originally posted by DoubleDown on Jul 17, 2007

Where are ya Lottomike ?

He must be so pi$$ed he drove to Nashville to confront them directly !!!

i agree doubledown because i keep logging on to see what lottomike will have to say about it

KyMystikal's avatarKyMystikal

There are no telling how many glitches — big or small — that exist in the memory banks and storage systems of computerized drawing systems, because lottery players have no way to visually inspect the drawing as it takes place.

Wasn't there a problem a year or so ago with Kansas where they drew the same number for a couple of days because of a computer glitch???

Badger's avatarBadger

Quote: Originally posted by DoubleDown on Jul 16, 2007

Thanks for this story, Todd.

Tennessee players should not stand for this- make your voices known ! Let the lottery commission know that you will not stand for this.

 

I am surprised at Rebecca Paul Hargrove - she ran the Ga lottery to perfection so she should know better than this !!!

Kind of just curious.  When I hear people say "let them know  you will not stand for this..." in regards to what govt entities plan to do...well I guess I'm jaded.  Probably been in the realworld too many years.  Found out the realworld is nothing like the teachers in school say it is....

Other than sending a protest in writing/email etc...what exactly do you think can be done?  They have the power to do what they want. Just like Wisconsin did ; went to RNG.  They look around and see that it saves them a bunch of money, the diehard players mostly dislike it, but it's still "the only game in town".  So they do what they want and placate the public with pretty words.  In the end its the same.  Them with the power decides.

DoubleDown

So if I'm hearing you right, we should just roll over ?

I'm glad our founding fathers didn't just let them with power decide.

Todd's avatarTodd

Quote: Originally posted by Badger on Jul 17, 2007

Kind of just curious.  When I hear people say "let them know  you will not stand for this..." in regards to what govt entities plan to do...well I guess I'm jaded.  Probably been in the realworld too many years.  Found out the realworld is nothing like the teachers in school say it is....

Other than sending a protest in writing/email etc...what exactly do you think can be done?  They have the power to do what they want. Just like Wisconsin did ; went to RNG.  They look around and see that it saves them a bunch of money, the diehard players mostly dislike it, but it's still "the only game in town".  So they do what they want and placate the public with pretty words.  In the end its the same.  Them with the power decides.

Respectfully, I disagree.

I believe Lottery Post and all its members has had a big impact on preventing more states from going computerized over the past 4 years.  Even with the aggressive sales tactics of the computerized drawing system makers, they have not been making much headway -- up until now.

Yes, it makes sense to do raffle drawing by computer, because it does not make sense to buy a drum filled wil 500,000 lottery balls.  So the systems makers have been selling those.  But not traditional games.

Don't resign yourself so easily.  There will always be challenges, and you have to decide how you will react to the challenges.

LckyLary

the reason they want to do this I guess is, they don't need to have a paid sexpot pointing to the ball machine or even the studio setup and all that and because this way if any of you find some way to systemize the TN lottery they can have the computer keep one step ahead and keep changing their algorithms. I stay away from games like that so it will either backfire or it will mean virtually nobody getting anywhere ahead by playing the TN lottery. Glad it isn't here in nj.    Yet.

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