Generating Play Slips

Reply #31

Stack47 — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 21:41:10 GMT

Lottery Director had a play slip printing program, but I needed a much better printer to get it to work. With all the hassles of filling out play slips, I can understand why so many player get QPs.

Reply #30

Novan60 — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 08:27:53 GMT

This is exactly why I spent a lot of time working on finding another way. Filling out $10.00 worth of Pick 10 slips each day was a pain in the butt and it always seemed liked I would make a mistake while filling out the fourth or fifth game on the play slip. While I did not lose any money due to mistakes that I made filling out the card, I definitely would mix up my numbers every once in a while and would have been angry beyond belief if that had cost me a jackpot.

Reply #29

Stack47 — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 07:17:32 GMT

There is no difference between using your printer to fill out a play slip and using a pen or pencil. Where is the cheating

Reply #28

Stack47 — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 07:15:27 GMT

It was difficult enough avoiding mistakes filling out 4 play slips when I was playing Ohio Rolling Cash 5 so a program to enter them by a printer would be very useful especially if using more play slips.

Reply #27

Novan60 — Sun, 12 Mar 2017 23:11:05 GMT

The vending machine was out of order today so I had to present these all white slips to a cashier. She gave me a funny look, but after I showed her which way they needed to go into the machine she processed my picks without any questions.

As of now, all of my stockpiles of slips are going into the garbage. This is also so much easier. Now when I travel I can just use the black and white printer in the hotel business center and a pair of scissors to generate my slips.

Reply #26

Novan60 — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 21:22:29 GMT

Just tested submitting a card like this to play my Pick 10 numbers and the NY lottery vending machines accepted it on the first pass with no issues and 100% accuracy! This is so much easier than stockpiling pre-printed slips, fussing with the alignment and I don't waste ink printing the non-essential data.

Reply #25

Mr-B 216 — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 00:33:13 GMT

Can you back that up with proof? What law(s) are you referring to.

Reply #24

Novan60 — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 00:25:05 GMT

Dude, what is your damage?

There are no laws dictating what writing implement or methodology I'm supposed to use to fill out my game slip. Printing my own does not give me some magical access to the gaming system that automatically makes my numbers winners. it is hardly cheating. All this does is ensure that the numbers I have decided that I want to play are accurately recorded on the game slip. And the gaming authorities are quite clear that it is my responsibility to make sure that the numb... [ More ]

Reply #23

SilverLion — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 23:32:54 GMT

Don,t you know there are laws in this country to prevent this type of cheating?

Are you trying to break any laws?

Is your name Hillary Clinton?

Even worse, is your name Donald Trump?

Is your name Donald Sterling? (I suppose that is superflous.)

If you ask me, use a felt tip pen and please do a relatively small wheel.

Pick a state and stick to it.

If you are so concerned about multiple states solicit a corporation to lotter your ideas.

Reply #22

Mr-B 216 — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 23:04:41 GMT

Nice work

Reply #21

Novan60 — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 22:25:46 GMT

On Saturday I finished the latest version (and hopefully final) of my play slip printer. Rather than focus on one method I incorporated a methodology that allowed me the option to:

Print the play slip on a blank sheet of paper

Print my picked numbers on a pre-printed play slip

Print my picked numbers and the game markings on a blank sheet of paper

It also has two utility options for validating alignment and verify that I did not make any coding errors while mapping t... [ More ]

Reply #20

Sunglasses — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 22:41:53 GMT

As I had to print 85 lines pick 6 twice a week, I did a sheet in Excel to print x's on local forms many years ago. It did the job with the laserjet HP that doesn't work anymore. Adjustment sometimes was needed. I don't program it now as I don't have any working printer.

Reply #19

MaximumMillions — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 22:37:08 GMT

You'd need some kind of optically controlled self-righting mechanism.

I would love to see that with a robot arm, personally.

Reply #18

Novan60 — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 22:00:11 GMT

It is a nice device, but in the end it could prove to be more of a hassle than what it is worth due to the inconsistency in the pre-printed play slips. I've had batches where some of them are off as much as 1/4 of an inch. It got to the point of where I'd started to stock them by the degree of their variances in order to reduce spoilage.

Reply #17

RL-RANDOMLOGIC — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 13:35:34 GMT

It might be possible to fabricate the marking device into a collet that would make the switch-over as easy as

changing the end mill.

Rl

Reply #16

RL-RANDOMLOGIC — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 13:15:50 GMT

If you get the thing finished please share. A few years back I decided to build a bet-slip printer

similar to a mini-cnc mill. The cost however proved to be more than expected and I abandoned

the idea. However the prices have dropped and a mini cnc mill can be purchased off ebay for less

than $300. I need the mill for other projects so as soon as I can get my hands on the extra cash

I plan to buy one similar to the picture below.

Many of these cnc's are accurate to around .0... [ More ]

Reply #15

Mr-B 216 — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 05:01:48 GMT

I coded a little app that works pretty well so far. After my first attempt, I see I'll need to make adjustments for a printer that pulls the slip in at a slight angle. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Reply #14

winoneday — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 04:59:42 GMT

You stated in an earlier post you work in the printing industry. But you never took the time to simply back up a computer's data files

Reply #13

jimjwright — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 04:21:16 GMT

I actually think it would be more interesting to write an app to generate a QR barcode or some other high-density 2D symbology and display it on your smart phone that could be scanned with your plays instead of filling out or printing play slips.

Of course I am biased since I do software consulting in image processing.

Currently writing software to OCR passports for mobile devices.

Only 2 more posts until I reach 1000 and then I will quit posting.

Jimmy

Reply #12

Novan60 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 21:08:34 GMT

It is actually more tedious than complicated and can be done with software that most people already have. For instance while Excel would not be one of my choices it would be fairly straightforward to set up a grid in Excel and then use a separate feeder spreadsheet to supply the picked values.

When I first started down this path my choice was to use an Access Database as it allowed me to store historical data, query it for trends, write custom code to calculate picking strategies and provided... [ More ]

Reply #11

Novan60 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 20:32:19 GMT

Original Post by MaximumMillions

Always interesting to here about people's game plans.

So your goal was winning lots of lower division prizes, right?

Because the odds for the main prize aren't that attractive.

10

$500,000*

1 in: 8,911,711

My goal was the 500K, but I haven't played in a while as I was not living in NY. I've hit 9 digits twice in the 4 dozen or so times that I have played so both statistically and financially I am way ahead of the curve.

T... [ More ]

Reply #10

RL-RANDOMLOGIC — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 20:21:31 GMT

My motive is to not worry about making mistakes, it's very hard for me to see the little boxes and have to

use my lighted magnifying glass when I can't get the wife to fill them out.

RL

Reply #9

MaximumMillions — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 19:00:33 GMT

Always interesting to here about people's game plans.

So your goal was winning lots of lower division prizes, right?

Because the odds for the main prize aren't that attractive.

10

$500,000*

1 in: 8,911,711

Reply #8

Novan60 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 18:54:07 GMT

My game of choice when I lived in NY was Pick 10. There were days where I played anywhere from 50 to 100 games at a time so filling out the individual cards a pain and provided me with some motivation to explore alternate methods.

Reply #7

destinycreation — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 18:10:23 GMT

Do you play a lot of different combinations [30 +] such that it's necessary to go through this computer printing process in the first place ?? If so, how many combinations do you usually play, and which lotteries do you normally play ??

I can understanding the desire to play this way if you're filling out Pick 5/6/JP playslips. The more numbers to mark, the more likely that you could make a mistake.

Reply #6

SOLO1 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 17:33:17 GMT

It would be nice if somebody can pull this off! But seems complicated.

Very usefull if trying to mark 270 cash 3 or 4 numbers!!

So far I just do it online, copy and paste 270 numbers, but would love to do it at the store, but I don't see my self marking 54 slips by hand, it has to be fulltime job lol.

Reply #5

JADELottery — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 17:10:44 GMT

Unfortunately, when we lived back in Wisconsin, our PC crashed and we lost everything; including that program and source code.

Needless to say, we were pissed.

We haven't tried to recreate the application because we were in the process of moving out to Minnesota.

It took quite a while to tweak that for the play slips in Wisconsin.

We'd have to try and setup for those in Minnesota; that takes a few beers and a nice long weekend.

The problem was making sure the marks were the right... [ More ]

Reply #4

RL-RANDOMLOGIC — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 16:44:59 GMT

Jade

Do you still have that program, I tried writing one that would just fill in the numbers but it sometimes took several minutes

to print one ticket. I loaded up a pick-4 ticket just now and it's out of alignment for some reason. This uses a scanned

ticket then printed a graphic over the top so that alignments could be tested before sending it to the printer. A graphic image

is sent to the printer which is then printed on betslips. It worked but like I said it was very slow. If you... [ More ]

Reply #3

JADELottery — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 16:07:21 GMT

We work in the printing industry.

Years ago we designed an application in Visual Basic to print on the play slip.

Keeping the preprinted form registered was an issue, but if you keep the picker roller absolutely clean, there are few problems with registration.

The picker roller is the one that first grabs the paper stock and feed in to the printing device.

If it's not clean, it can miscue the input sensor and cause the paper to feed in skewed.

Cleaning it can be done with 90% Isop... [ More ]

Reply #2

Novan60 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 06:17:37 GMT

I've already used both methods 1 and 2 without any problems beyond the ones I mentioned. Now that I have the opportunity to play without having to hand a cashier my play slip I'm just trying to figure out in I need to continue to bother to go through the effort of creating a realistic looking play slip.

Reply #1

bobby623 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 04:00:44 GMT

You might want to investigate to see if the state(s) you are interested in will accept machine generated play slips.

They won't run in Texas.

You have to fill them in by hand, regardless.

Generating Play Slips

Novan60 — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 02:49:39 GMT

To prevent from having to time consuming process of manually fill out play slips for several different state lotteries I have tried multiple methods:

Method 1:

Create a number matrix in reporting in an Access Database or SSRS (SQL Reporting Services) that prints the dots on the numbers I want to play and how many games. Fill the manual feed tray of the printer with play slips and print.

The advantages to this method are:

Accuracy No color printer requirements A laser jet printer can... [ More ]