Lottery Post feature: See the actual letter from Senator Kyle
A meeting of the Tennessee Lottery Oversight Committee inched one step closer today, as Speaker of the House James Naifeh, D-Covington, indicated his support for the meeting, according to an advisor for Senator James Kyle, D-Memphis.
Sen. Kyle sent letters Last Friday to the Speakers of the House and Senate, requesting a meeting of the oversight committee "as soon as possible," after the Tennessee Lotteries glitches and mistakes began piling up.
Lottery Post spoke today with Mike Krause, Executive Assistant for Policy and Research for Senator Jim Kyle.
"[Speaker] Naifeh is supportive of the meeting, and is going to run with it now," Krause explained.
Naifeh will take the initiative to the House State and Local Government Committee, which together with their Senate counterparts will come to agreement on setting up the Lottery Oversight Committee meeting.
The Chairman of the House State and Local Government Committee is Ulysses Jones, Jr., D-Memphis.
"The Lottery Oversight Committee meets on an as-needed basis," Krause said.
Krause couldn't recall another time the committee met under circumstances like the current environment of errors and glitches.
Convening a meeting of the oversight committee is not an easy task.
The biggest obstacle may be that the Tennessee legislature is currently out of session, not due to return to Nashville until January, 2008.
"Because Tennessee has a part-time Legislature the committee members will need to come together from around the state," Krause said.
Plus, the size of the committee — 18 members — adds another twist. The oversight committee is comprised of nine Senate members and Nine House members.
Getting a committee of that size to convene during the legislative break could only happen if the issue is burning.
And burning this issue is.
Over the past two months, the Tennessee Lottery has experienced a cavalcade of glitches, errors, and mishaps, with the latest happening just yesterday.
In the latest gaffe, a lottery staffer published the wrong Pick 3 and Pick 4 results after the midday drawings. The erroneous results were test draw results, not the real numbers generated by the computerized drawing system.
Once the error was noticed, the real numbers were re-published, but the damage was already done.
The Tennessee Lottery posted a notice to its web site stating that it would pay out on both sets of results for the midday Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawings.
Lottery players who match the test drawing results — the first set of numbers published — can't redeem their winning tickets like they would for a regular drawing. They need to mail their tickets to lottery headquarters for the prize.
The string of mishaps began after Tennessee Lottery officials decided to give traditional lottery ball drawings the boot, and purchased a six-figure computer system that generates random numbers inside its memory banks.
Ironically, the problems began with the very first drawing using the new computers. The lottery drawing software was configured using the wrong settings, making it impossible for any duplicate numbers to be drawn for Pick 3 and Pick 4 games.
The glitch represents perhaps the biggest complaint players have about computerized drawings: that errors can remain hidden for long stretches of time.
Errors like the recent Tennessee buggy drawings have happened in other states several times in the past, and like the Tennessee errors, they are typically discovered by lottery players, not by lottery officials.
A computerized drawing glitch with the California Daily Derby game remained hidden for months, until a player calculated the seemingly impossible odds of the odd drawing patterns — just like what happened last month in Tennessee.
The biggest concern of Tennessee lawmakers is the loss of player confidence caused by the continuous stream of errors.
Perhaps the best way to exemplify the urgency felt in the Tennessee government is with Senator Kyle's blunt request for the lottery oversight meeting.
"Now that so many Tennesseans depend on lottery funds for higher education, it would be irresponsible for the legislature to allow any ambiguity or loss of confidence in the lottery process..... I believe recent issues dictate that the legislature be given a full appraisal of the situation and the steps being taken to remedy problems in our lottery system."
I am glad to hear Senator Kyle has taken steps toward an investigation. The Tennessee lottery director and the chairman of the board owes an explanation as to why they switched from mechanical drawings to the computer drawings without notifying the players first. For that matter why didn't state office get notified is the Tennessee lottery it's own entity apart from the state or do they work for the state. The lottery didn't ask the people if they wanted to change drawings. The single most important thing is player confidence and well we know what has happened over the last month and it continues to happen and a matter of time until something else happens.
I know the majority of dedicated lottery players do not want the lottery to draw numbers using computers. Rebecca has been a lottery director in 4 states she should be well aware of what the people want as far as drawings go. I cant believe she allowed and outside company talk her into switching drawing types.
Rebecca has denied wrong doing on her part however she should be the person ultimately responsible for the lottery's operation. And not pass of the mistakes made to her staff or the vendor. Why didn't they conduct long term test using the new equipment before they allowed it to be put in place. Why did they deny there was a problem when people contacted them and told them something was wrong.
I emailed them several times before i finally gave up and called them when i got a live person on the phone i got the same response from them that i got in their return emails: how they value the integrity of their games and have tested the product and found nothing wrong.
I sent them detailed info about the glitch that started the whole mess and still they refused to believe something was wrong. That's when i got fed up and contacted the comptrollers office. Within a few days after that the lottery reported they found the problem. But weeks went by without them doing anything and it took a call to a state office to get someone to look into the matter.
We can only hope that Senator Kyle can convince them to switch back to mechanical drawing so the Tennessee lottery can get back to business as usual.
Additionally if the people whom work for the lottery are actually complaining about the doldrum of conducting live drawing and going through all the necessary steps to see that everything is in accordance with standard lottery security practices for two drawings a day then they should hire people whom want to work or call other lottery directors and ask how they manage to conduct 2 live mechanical drawings without major problems.
What has happened at the Tennessee lottery and other state lottery's could have been avoided if they had never switched to computers to draw the numbers.
Lets get back to real live mechanical ball drawings.
Quote: Originally posted by four4me on Sep 19, 2007
I am glad to hear Senator Kyle has taken steps toward an investigation. The Tennessee lottery director and the chairman of the board owes an explanation as to why they switched from mechanical drawings to the computer drawings without notifying the players first. For that matter why didn't state office get notified is the Tennessee lottery it's own entity apart from the state or do they work for the state. The lottery didn't ask the people if they wanted to change drawings. The single most important thing is player confidence and well we know what has happened over the last month and it continues to happen and a matter of time until something else happens.
I know the majority of dedicated lottery players do not want the lottery to draw numbers using computers. Rebecca has been a lottery director in 4 states she should be well aware of what the people want as far as drawings go. I cant believe she allowed and outside company talk her into switching drawing types.
Rebecca has denied wrong doing on her part however she should be the person ultimately responsible for the lottery's operation. And not pass of the mistakes made to her staff or the vendor. Why didn't they conduct long term test using the new equipment before they allowed it to be put in place. Why did they deny there was a problem when people contacted them and told them something was wrong.
I emailed them several times before i finally gave up and called them when i got a live person on the phone i got the same response from them that i got in their return emails: how they value the integrity of their games and have tested the product and found nothing wrong.
I sent them detailed info about the glitch that started the whole mess and still they refused to believe something was wrong. That's when i got fed up and contacted the comptrollers office. Within a few days after that the lottery reported they found the problem. But weeks went by without them doing anything and it took a call to a state office to get someone to look into the matter.
We can only hope that Senator Kyle can convince them to switch back to mechanical drawing so the Tennessee lottery can get back to business as usual.
Additionally if the people whom work for the lottery are actually complaining about the doldrum of conducting live drawing and going through all the necessary steps to see that everything is in accordance with standard lottery security practices for two drawings a day then they should hire people whom want to work or call other lottery directors and ask how they manage to conduct 2 live mechanical drawings without major problems.
What has happened at the Tennessee lottery and other state lottery's could have been avoided if they had never switched to computers to draw the numbers.
Lets get back to real live mechanical ball drawings.
THANK YOU>>>>>
"YES">>>THANK>>>YOU four4me
PSYKOMO can assure YOU ......"NO TRANSLATION NEEDED"
IF...........Senator Kyle, Mike Krause, Lottomike, Speaker Naifeh,
Todd of Lottery Post, Ulysses Jones, Jr. or anyone from the or
within the great state of Tennessee READ YOUR comment's on
this matter, it would be as CLEAR as DAY and NIGHT and as
provide "special"(800 #)
800#for people of Tennessee
now>"Senator"
HELP all UR people!
thank's>>>>>>>>>
Not too many people can read hieroglyphics.
hey psykomo i'd love to see you post something we can read.i can't make out anything you post......
I am glad to hear Senator Kyle has taken steps toward an investigation. The Tennessee lottery director and the chairman of the board owes an explanation as to why they switched from mechanical drawings to the computer drawings without notifying the players first. For that matter why didn't state office get notified is the Tennessee lottery it's own entity apart from the state or do they work for the state. The lottery didn't ask the people if they wanted to change drawings. The single most important thing is player confidence and well we know what has happened over the last month and it continues to happen and a matter of time until something else happens.
I know the majority of dedicated lottery players do not want the lottery to draw numbers using computers. Rebecca has been a lottery director in 4 states she should be well aware of what the people want as far as drawings go. I cant believe she allowed and outside company talk her into switching drawing types.
Rebecca has denied wrong doing on her part however she should be the person ultimately responsible for the lottery's operation. And not pass of the mistakes made to her staff or the vendor. Why didn't they conduct long term test using the new equipment before they allowed it to be put in place. Why did they deny there was a problem when people contacted them and told them something was wrong.
I emailed them several times before i finally gave up and called them when i got a live person on the phone i got the same response from them that i got in their return emails: how they value the integrity of their games and have tested the product and found nothing wrong.
I sent them detailed info about the glitch that started the whole mess and still they refused to believe something was wrong. That's when i got fed up and contacted the comptrollers office. Within a few days after that the lottery reported they found the problem. But weeks went by without them doing anything and it took a call to a state office to get someone to look into the matter.
We can only hope that Senator Kyle can convince them to switch back to mechanical drawing so the Tennessee lottery can get back to business as usual.
Additionally if the people whom work for the lottery are actually complaining about the doldrum of conducting live drawing and going through all the necessary steps to see that everything is in accordance with standard lottery security practices for two drawings a day then they should hire people whom want to work or call other lottery directors and ask how they manage to conduct 2 live mechanical drawings without major problems.
What has happened at the Tennessee lottery and other state lottery's could have been avoided if they had never switched to computers to draw the numbers.
Lets get back to real live mechanical ball drawings.
THANK YOU>>>>>
"YES">>>THANK>>>YOU four4me
PSYKOMO can assure YOU ......"NO TRANSLATION NEEDED"
IF...........Senator Kyle, Mike Krause, Lottomike, Speaker Naifeh,
Todd of Lottery Post, Ulysses Jones, Jr. or anyone from the or
within the great state of Tennessee READ YOUR comment's on
this matter, it would be as CLEAR as DAY and NIGHT and as
"CLEAR" as TENNESSEE WHITE LIGHT'N>>>>>>>>>>>TOO!
"YOU" were very CLEAR!!
(let's hope great Tennessee will...HEAR)
NO TRANSLATION.......NEEDED!!!
Four4me,
That was a fantastic, heartfelt message that I hope will be heard loud & clear at the Tennessee Lottery.