Lottery Post tapped for examples of computerized drawing problems in other states
Many rush to buy tickets when the lottery pool reaches the millions, but do you ever wonder how transparent Missouri's lottery system is? Turns out, Missouri ranks in the top ten for disclosure and fairness, compared to the other 43 states that offer lotteries.
In a study by San Antonio professor Gerald Busald released Dec. 14, Missouri ranked ninth overall. California and Pennsylvania scored first and second place in the study. Tennessee ranked lowest.
Good news, until you look at the score: 58.29 out of a possible 100 points. For comparison, California scored 71.35 and Tennessee scored 26.95.
To get a 100 percent, a lottery would have to meet an ideal determined by the San Antonio College students who conducted the study, he said. "All lotteries have room to improve. Some things the lotteries don't have control over, since some things are mandated by the legislature."
The study itself focused on states' accuracy in what they disclose and whether or not they withhold actual probabilities, said Busald.
"It's all about truth in government," he said.
Thirty-one students from San Antonio University conducted the study. Their ages ranged from 19 to mid-30s, Busald said. Eight groups of four students each looked over the 43 states that offered lotteries.
Missouri earned the most points in a general category, one of the standards students used to rate the states. Missouri doesn't offer subscriptions, Busald said, which adds a measure of prevention so people aren't trapped in a financial obligation.
Missouri also provided check-a-ticket machines, an independent way to verify winnings. Without independent verification, store clerks can scam a customer out of their winnings by paying out a lower prize and turning in the ticket themselves for the higher prize.
Missouri ranked second in the nation for the low percentage it spends on advertising, Busald said. Michigan ranked first.
Missouri primarily lost points for the lack of information on its Web site and for its online games. Missouri offers odds on winning overall on the back of normal tickets, but does not offer information for online tickets, Busald said.
Missouri also lost points for scratch-off tickets. Scratch-offs compose 64 percent of the state's lottery sales, Busald said.
The state also charges taxes on tickets, a "double taxation," he said.
Busald pointed out that Missouri's policy to generate winning numbers by computers prevented the state from being ranked higher.
"People don't trust computer generated numbers," he said. "People don't trust things they can't see."
And maybe understandably. In 1998, Arizona discovered that no winning number generated by computers for their Pick 3 game had the numeral 9 in it, according to lotterypost.com. In 2007, Tennessee posted incorrect or duplicate numbers three times.
Missouri Lottery History
Missouri's lottery has officially existed since Jan. 20, 1986. Over 22 years, the state has added 24 new games and numerous changes to existing games, according to its Web site.
The odds for winning a jackpot are slim, despite the overall odds proclaimed by the lottery. Only 226 Missouri residents have won multi-million jackpots since the state's lottery began.
You have a better chance in your lifetime of being struck by lighting, dying in a flood or dying in a plane crash than winning a jackpot lottery, according to research by the National Safety Council. Just because the overall odds tout a one in four chance to win, including "free ticket" prizes — a 67 cent value — and break-even prizes, doesn't mean that you're likely to win enough money to retire on.
You have better odds of developing an irresponsible gambling habit than winning the lottery. Five percent of gamblers have problems playing responsibly, said Missouri Lottery spokeswoman Shelly Perez.
The lottery tends to draw a different group of gambling addicts than casinos, Perez said. Action gamblers, people who are addicted to the instant gratification of knowing whether they won or lost, tend to play scratchers or the Pick 3, Pick 4 games, she said. Escape gamblers, people who play to escape the problems in their lives, find the lottery a difficult game to lose themselves in. They tend to play slot machines or Internet gambling, she said.
While Missouri doesn't offer a lottery self-exclusion policy that provides recovering addicts incentives to stop by preventing them from collecting on their winnings, each major gambling stakeholder is involved with the Missouri Alliance to Curb Problem Gambling, Perez said.
"Everyone who has an interest in problem gambling comes together," she said. "We are a model for other organizations."
Each member provides funding and material in their specific area of expertise, Perez said. For example, she said the Missouri Lottery provides multiple methods of raising public awareness, including public service announcements, billboards and pamphlets.
The Missouri lottery sold over $9.07 million in tickets for 2006, according to the most recent records available on its Web site.
I would like to see the rest of the criteria these students came up with. Woah and just looking up at this story the last line says the missouri lottery sold over $9 million in tickets for 2006, that's gotta be higher considering they gave over $250 million to the benificiary....Just found the actual number it's:
2006
$913,518,251
That's a bit of a difference. Anyway interesting story, just makes me wonder how factual it is...
When they say a Lottery is "fair" I guess that means every play has an equal chance of winning. That would imply that systems are totally ineffective vs. Quick Picks and that aside from a major jackpot win there is no way to make more than you spend. I'd not play (except Jackpot games) under those conditions or at least not regularly.
What needs to be disclosed on many Lotteries is the entire drawing process including ballset switching and for that matter I want to know what size the numbered balls are, weight, friction coefficient, paddle position and rotation speed, air nozzle size, all of it!!!
Quote: Originally posted by LckyLary on Jan 4, 2008
When they say a Lottery is "fair" I guess that means every play has an equal chance of winning. That would imply that systems are totally ineffective vs. Quick Picks and that aside from a major jackpot win there is no way to make more than you spend. I'd not play (except Jackpot games) under those conditions or at least not regularly.
What needs to be disclosed on many Lotteries is the entire drawing process including ballset switching and for that matter I want to know what size the numbered balls are, weight, friction coefficient, paddle position and rotation speed, air nozzle size, all of it!!!
Looking at the point assignments, I can only see 2 or 3 categories where fairness is involved and that's if you include bilingual. The study was made in Texas that does have a large Spanish speaking population but I don't see why it's unfair if any US state lottery printed tickets, ads, website, or billboards only in English when the US Constitution was written in English. To be totally fair, this study is suggesting that all lottery ticket sold should be printed in every language spoken or read in the US and one lottery ticket would probably be 11" x 8.5" printed on both sides or you would need a microscope to read it.
Five points were awarded to Maryland because it was the only lottery they could find that allows a player to change the payment from an annuity to cash value after they won the jackpot. But that was just poor research because it's a fact Ohio allows players up to 180 days after winning the prize to change the type of payment and I'm sure had they thoroughly looked, they would find many others states too.
There are some states where lottery winnings are exempt from state taxes but I can't understand how a group of college students could determine it's the state lotteries that exempt state taxes and deduct points for being unfair when they should know state legislators decide taxes. The time allowed to claim is printed on the back of the ticket so the time limit is irrelevant unless the students are claiming it's unfair because the limit is printed in English.
Lottery Post members seem to prefer live ball drawings to RNG, but I don't see why it's unfair when players should know how the numbers are drawn before they choose to buy their tickets. I've never seen a live Midday draw and the Kicker hasn't had a live draw since it was added to Mega Millions. To be fair, unseen drawings should get the same deductions.
Lary mentioned ball set and machine switching, JustX talked about giving the results of lotto test draws, and many people have discussed giving players the option to remain anonymous. There are many other real lottery fairness issues discussed on this site the college students overlooked or are lottery ignorant.
Gerald Busald’s class got some notoriety in 1997 when Texas advertised the average Cash 5 payout was $75,000 and his class found out the mean average was $57,575. The students sent their findings to the Texas Lottery Commission and it said “The students just came up with a different way of finding their figures than we did; we're not saying their way is right“. The students decided to complain to the Lt. Governor and he persuaded the commission to use the mean average in advertising.
I’m a jackpot hunter so I don’t usually play Mega Millions when the jackpot is under $150 million so it doesn’t matter what the average or mean average payout is. People want to know the current jackpot and the same is true in all pick-5 games where the jackpot rolls so knowing the average or mean average payout is useless information.
It's been a long time since I was in school but if I recall correctly, when I scored under 65 out of a possible 100, I failed the test and only two state lotteries passed this test with a "D" and "D-".
Good post, Stack! You are right about the low rankings. Looks as if practically every state flunked out.
One thing they said about FL that was negative is not complete. Under BAD they state "Only 60 days to claim a prize after a scratch game is closed, 180 days for online games"
This is true, but what they analyzed doesn't bother me at all. Before I play a game, I know the rules. But why didn't they mention that you only have 60 days from the date of the drawing to choose the form of payment? Any jackpot claims after 60 days in FL have to be collected in annual payments, not 60 days from validation.
Also, they state under BAD "Lotto game cash value option not shown on website" Do they realize that Florida's jackpots are pari-mutuel and often the lump sum paid out varies quite a bit? I guess they could give an approximate lump sum, but anyone who reads the press releases knows the percentage range of the payouts.
I agree with you about the Spanish language tickets. I can't read the small print anyway. LOL However, I bet soon things will change, although I don't see how. They just signed a big contract with Machado/Garcia-Serra. (Maybe the tickets won't be in English any more.) However, my city has a large Hispanic population and nobody seems to have a problem understanding that if the jackpot is $10 million and the numbers are 7-16-27-39-47-53 and you played 7-16-27-39-47-53 you just won $10 million bucks!
They could, however, make a little room in back of the Lotto ticket and remove "do not iron"
Quote: Originally posted by justxploring on Jan 5, 2008
Good post, Stack! You are right about the low rankings. Looks as if practically every state flunked out.
One thing they said about FL that was negative is not complete. Under BAD they state "Only 60 days to claim a prize after a scratch game is closed, 180 days for online games"
This is true, but what they analyzed doesn't bother me at all. Before I play a game, I know the rules. But why didn't they mention that you only have 60 days from the date of the drawing to choose the form of payment? Any jackpot claims after 60 days in FL have to be collected in annual payments, not 60 days from validation.
Also, they state under BAD "Lotto game cash value option not shown on website" Do they realize that Florida's jackpots are pari-mutuel and often the lump sum paid out varies quite a bit? I guess they could give an approximate lump sum, but anyone who reads the press releases knows the percentage range of the payouts.
I agree with you about the Spanish language tickets. I can't read the small print anyway. LOL However, I bet soon things will change, although I don't see how. They just signed a big contract with Machado/Garcia-Serra. (Maybe the tickets won't be in English any more.) However, my city has a large Hispanic population and nobody seems to have a problem understanding that if the jackpot is $10 million and the numbers are 7-16-27-39-47-53 and you played 7-16-27-39-47-53 you just won $10 million bucks!
They could, however, make a little room in back of the Lotto ticket and remove "do not iron"
It was an elective class in statistics where the Professor set the guidelines based on his agenda. The students may have added some of their ideas because some of the categories were contradictory. They want a scanner at every lottery terminal so a player can check their tickets but deducted points for lotteries expenses.
Every state where I've bought lottery tickets had 'how to play' pamphlets either next to the terminal or available and lotteries could print them bilingual. The class wants all that information on the front and/or back of the ticket but to me that's assuming somebody would buy a ticket with no idea why.
People probably do buy Mega Millions and Powerball tickets when the jackpot is high without knowing how many matches they need to win the secondary prizes, but is it really necessary to print the odds of matching 3 + 1 on the back of the ticket?
Stack47, I really like people such as yourself who say things like, "I’m a jackpot hunter so I don’t usually play Mega Millions when the jackpot is under $150 million or I only play when the jackpot goes over $100 million as I will relish the day when I win either PB or MM when the jackpot is $95 million and I am the sole winner whereas those who finally pitch in their dollars to buy tickets when the jackpot reaches $200 or $300 million have to be content with splitting the jackpot prize two, three, or even four ways like that recent $360 Milliion Mega millions hit. If my math serves me correctly, $360 million divided by 4 equals $90 million...so what difference does it make to play all the time vice just when it gets super huge? Plus people usually spend $20 plus when it gets that big, so I would just rather have $1 in for every drawing as it only takes one play to have the potential to win anyway.
Quote: Originally posted by OldSchoolPa on Jan 8, 2008
Stack47, I really like people such as yourself who say things like, "I’m a jackpot hunter so I don’t usually play Mega Millions when the jackpot is under $150 million or I only play when the jackpot goes over $100 million as I will relish the day when I win either PB or MM when the jackpot is $95 million and I am the sole winner whereas those who finally pitch in their dollars to buy tickets when the jackpot reaches $200 or $300 million have to be content with splitting the jackpot prize two, three, or even four ways like that recent $360 Milliion Mega millions hit. If my math serves me correctly, $360 million divided by 4 equals $90 million...so what difference does it make to play all the time vice just when it gets super huge? Plus people usually spend $20 plus when it gets that big, so I would just rather have $1 in for every drawing as it only takes one play to have the potential to win anyway.
"If my math serves me correctly, $360 million divided by 4 equals $90 million...so what difference does it make to play all the time vice just when it gets super huge?"
The Texas students believe it's necessary to put the game odds on back the ticket like at a race track where the odds of the horses and dogs are put on the tote board. I don't know why because the odds of winning are exactly the same whether the jackpot is $12 or $360 million. And what you're playing for is always an estimate so putting that on a ticket is just more useless information.Jackpot hunters are the people that only play when jackpot reaches a certain amount. It's not that $12 million isn't enough; it's that they can buy a $150 million dollar dream for $10 or $20.
"Plus people usually spend $20 plus when it gets that big, so I would just rather have $1 in for every drawing as it only takes one play to have the potential to win anyway."
People that spend over $20 probably wouldn't stop at $1 a draw. If the huge jackpots games were the only games offered, it would be different. The odds of winning any prize is 1 in 40 and that most likely means winning $10 or under which is about the same you expect to win in a pick-5 game where odds of winning any prize are 1 in 9.
Whether it's a $1 a draw or $100 when the jackpot his huge, it's still buying a dream and I see nothing wrong with either strategy.
I would like to see the rest of the criteria these students came up with. Woah and just looking up at this story the last line says the missouri lottery sold over $9 million in tickets for 2006, that's gotta be higher considering they gave over $250 million to the benificiary....Just found the actual number it's:
That's a bit of a difference. Anyway interesting story, just makes me wonder how factual it is...
I Would like to know where My sate ranks. What are the hideing or not telling?
It seems like all of the big winners are out of my area
When I learn about lottery in some state, the first thing I look at is how many numebrs are in Pick 5.
MO has 44, not an easy game.
/Derek
You all mustn't have seen the original article posted at Lottery Post a week or two ago.
https://www.lotterypost.com/news/167779
That's the story which first talked about the study, and there is a link to the complete study in the comments that follow the story.
When they say a Lottery is "fair" I guess that means every play has an equal chance of winning. That would imply that systems are totally ineffective vs. Quick Picks and that aside from a major jackpot win there is no way to make more than you spend. I'd not play (except Jackpot games) under those conditions or at least not regularly.
What needs to be disclosed on many Lotteries is the entire drawing process including ballset switching and for that matter I want to know what size the numbered balls are, weight, friction coefficient, paddle position and rotation speed, air nozzle size, all of it!!!
Looking at the point assignments, I can only see 2 or 3 categories where fairness is involved and that's if you include bilingual. The study was made in Texas that does have a large Spanish speaking population but I don't see why it's unfair if any US state lottery printed tickets, ads, website, or billboards only in English when the US Constitution was written in English. To be totally fair, this study is suggesting that all lottery ticket sold should be printed in every language spoken or read in the US and one lottery ticket would probably be 11" x 8.5" printed on both sides or you would need a microscope to read it.
Five points were awarded to Maryland because it was the only lottery they could find that allows a player to change the payment from an annuity to cash value after they won the jackpot. But that was just poor research because it's a fact Ohio allows players up to 180 days after winning the prize to change the type of payment and I'm sure had they thoroughly looked, they would find many others states too.
There are some states where lottery winnings are exempt from state taxes but I can't understand how a group of college students could determine it's the state lotteries that exempt state taxes and deduct points for being unfair when they should know state legislators decide taxes. The time allowed to claim is printed on the back of the ticket so the time limit is irrelevant unless the students are claiming it's unfair because the limit is printed in English.
Lottery Post members seem to prefer live ball drawings to RNG, but I don't see why it's unfair when players should know how the numbers are drawn before they choose to buy their tickets. I've never seen a live Midday draw and the Kicker hasn't had a live draw since it was added to Mega Millions. To be fair, unseen drawings should get the same deductions.
Lary mentioned ball set and machine switching, JustX talked about giving the results of lotto test draws, and many people have discussed giving players the option to remain anonymous. There are many other real lottery fairness issues discussed on this site the college students overlooked or are lottery ignorant.
Gerald Busald’s class got some notoriety in 1997 when Texas advertised the average Cash 5 payout was $75,000 and his class found out the mean average was $57,575. The students sent their findings to the Texas Lottery Commission and it said “The students just came up with a different way of finding their figures than we did; we're not saying their way is right“. The students decided to complain to the Lt. Governor and he persuaded the commission to use the mean average in advertising.
I’m a jackpot hunter so I don’t usually play Mega Millions when the jackpot is under $150 million so it doesn’t matter what the average or mean average payout is. People want to know the current jackpot and the same is true in all pick-5 games where the jackpot rolls so knowing the average or mean average payout is useless information.
It's been a long time since I was in school but if I recall correctly, when I scored under 65 out of a possible 100, I failed the test and only two state lotteries passed this test with a "D" and "D-".
Good post, Stack! You are right about the low rankings. Looks as if practically every state flunked out.
One thing they said about FL that was negative is not complete. Under BAD they state "Only 60 days to claim a prize after a scratch game is closed, 180 days for online games"
This is true, but what they analyzed doesn't bother me at all. Before I play a game, I know the rules. But why didn't they mention that you only have 60 days from the date of the drawing to choose the form of payment? Any jackpot claims after 60 days in FL have to be collected in annual payments, not 60 days from validation.
Also, they state under BAD "Lotto game cash value option not shown on website" Do they realize that Florida's jackpots are pari-mutuel and often the lump sum paid out varies quite a bit? I guess they could give an approximate lump sum, but anyone who reads the press releases knows the percentage range of the payouts.
I agree with you about the Spanish language tickets. I can't read the small print anyway. LOL However, I bet soon things will change, although I don't see how. They just signed a big contract with Machado/Garcia-Serra. (Maybe the tickets won't be in English any more.) However, my city has a large Hispanic population and nobody seems to have a problem understanding that if the jackpot is $10 million and the numbers are 7-16-27-39-47-53 and you played 7-16-27-39-47-53 you just won $10 million bucks!
They could, however, make a little room in back of the Lotto ticket and remove "do not iron"
It was an elective class in statistics where the Professor set the guidelines based on his agenda. The students may have added some of their ideas because some of the categories were contradictory. They want a scanner at every lottery terminal so a player can check their tickets but deducted points for lotteries expenses.
Every state where I've bought lottery tickets had 'how to play' pamphlets either next to the terminal or available and lotteries could print them bilingual. The class wants all that information on the front and/or back of the ticket but to me that's assuming somebody would buy a ticket with no idea why.
People probably do buy Mega Millions and Powerball tickets when the jackpot is high without knowing how many matches they need to win the secondary prizes, but is it really necessary to print the odds of matching 3 + 1 on the back of the ticket?
Stack47, I really like people such as yourself who say things like, "I’m a jackpot hunter so I don’t usually play Mega Millions when the jackpot is under $150 million or I only play when the jackpot goes over $100 million as I will relish the day when I win either PB or MM when the jackpot is $95 million and I am the sole winner whereas those who finally pitch in their dollars to buy tickets when the jackpot reaches $200 or $300 million have to be content with splitting the jackpot prize two, three, or even four ways like that recent $360 Milliion Mega millions hit. If my math serves me correctly, $360 million divided by 4 equals $90 million...so what difference does it make to play all the time vice just when it gets super huge? Plus people usually spend $20 plus when it gets that big, so I would just rather have $1 in for every drawing as it only takes one play to have the potential to win anyway.
"If my math serves me correctly, $360 million divided by 4 equals $90 million...so what difference does it make to play all the time vice just when it gets super huge?"
The Texas students believe it's necessary to put the game odds on back the ticket like at a race track where the odds of the horses and dogs are put on the tote board. I don't know why because the odds of winning are exactly the same whether the jackpot is $12 or $360 million. And what you're playing for is always an estimate so putting that on a ticket is just more useless information.Jackpot hunters are the people that only play when jackpot reaches a certain amount. It's not that $12 million isn't enough; it's that they can buy a $150 million dollar dream for $10 or $20.
"Plus people usually spend $20 plus when it gets that big, so I would just rather have $1 in for every drawing as it only takes one play to have the potential to win anyway."
People that spend over $20 probably wouldn't stop at $1 a draw. If the huge jackpots games were the only games offered, it would be different. The odds of winning any prize is 1 in 40 and that most likely means winning $10 or under which is about the same you expect to win in a pick-5 game where odds of winning any prize are 1 in 9.
Whether it's a $1 a draw or $100 when the jackpot his huge, it's still buying a dream and I see nothing wrong with either strategy.