Still smarting from the sting of a massive security scandal, Indiana Lottery officials are making a claim that computerized drawings actually improve security over traditional lottery drawings conducted with a mechanical ball machine.
Hoosier Lottery winning numbers are no longer determined by white balls plucked from a whirling mass inside a wire cage.
Now, winning numbers for Hoosier Lotto and daily games are picked in an office room, from a computer inside a black box secured with red, tamper-evident ties.
According to Indiana Lottery officials, the blowing balls, though entertaining to watch, aren't as secure as the computerized random number generator.
"More and more, the cost of providing the security and audit staff to oversee manual lottery draws is becoming excessive," reports New Jersey-based Gaming Laboratories International in a May letter to the Hoosier Lottery. The lottery had asked the company to certify its machine and make sure its random number computer was, indeed, random and fair.
The problem with the ping-pong-like balls: All the balls need to be uniform, so if anything like oil or sticky stuff gets on one of them, that changes the odds. Also, the ball blower needs to reach full speed to make sure all the balls get tossed around.
For the past three years for the Hoosier Lottery, drawing numbers has been high-tech — and secured through a multistep process that involves a security official conducting the draw under the watchful eye of an independent auditor.
The process for the midday draw starts about 12:45 p.m., when an auditor from Deloitte and Touche arrives and is escorted into the security room. On this day, it's Angela Cavanaugh, who, along with security official Amy Fishburn, inspects the red tamper-evident ties on the locked black computer box to make sure no one has opened the vault since the evening draw the night before.
A couple of minutes later, Fishburn cuts the red ties, opens the black box and pulls out a computer keyboard. She shakes a brown pea shake and rolls either the No. 1 red die or the No. 2 red die, which indicates which computer server will be used for the number pick.
Fishburn runs tests on the computer and makes sure the printer works as the auditor makes sure no unauthorized programs have been installed.
Then, they wait until the prize payment office downstairs calls to say the games are closed. That call comes about 1:20 p.m., and both Fishburn and the auditor separately talk to prize payment officials.
In about five minutes, with a click of the mouse button, Fishburn calls up winning numbers for the Daily 3 game, the Daily 4 game and Lucky 5.
The winning numbers are recorded by both watchers and faxed to media outlets and the prize payment center.
A video camera records the entire process.
Hoosier Lottery Executive Director Esther Q. Schneider said she'd be glad to televise these draws, except that the lottery can't afford to buy the time -- and television executives aren't interested in showing such boring programming for free.
But of course nothing can physically record the inner-workings of the computer, so with any televised broadcast of a Hoosier Lottery drawing, viewers would not be watching the actually drawing, only the computer operators as the click the mouse. Opponents of computerized drawings say this lack of transparency in the drawings are what cause player mistrust.
Many players do not like the new way of picking numbers. In fact, former state Rep. Robert Alderman, a Republican from Fort Wayne, wrote a letter to the lottery last year questioning the change. He said he doesn't believe the computers are truly random.
He sponsored legislation this year, which to many players' dismay didn't get very far, to make the lottery switch back to the balls.
Editor: Lottery Post encourages all lottery players to become familiar with the issue of computerized drawings. Even though several state lotteries have moved to computerized drawings, they may not be working in your best interest. The average lottery player has no idea how the numbers are selected, and we think if they did, they would be outraged.
You can learn more at the Petition for True Lottery Drawings on this web site.
I think security is important with computerized drawings.
Hoosier lottery officials are stupid. More players would play if they went back to balls. Just my opinion.
An opinion held by me as well.
Hoosier Lottery
PA Unlucky for Life should go to computer drawings.
Thank's CashOnly for that bit of useless information. this isn't about PA's lottery.
Hoosier Lottery officials if you are reading this can't you see that by continuing with computer drawing you are loosing money take a hint from states that use ball drawings and get back on track with states that know how to treat their players. One to a great time watching ball drawing and the other a chance for them to get back into the game. If you don't make more money using ball drawings then scrap the pick 3 and 4 games.
This just goes to show who holds the cards concerning lotteries.
Technical issues aside, it doesn't (or shouldn't) make any difference how the numbers are drawn, though I can understand the psychological reasons people prefer a mechanized draw. People feel they aren't being cheated if they can actually see their numbers come out.
Coming from Texas anything I could point to would sound kind of laughable, but I will put in my two bits anyway.
I suspect that all states are trying to squeeze as much as possible out of players. The more the lottery commissions get, the more they want. Things can only go so far before the players wake up and smell the fraud.
We can blame the politicians for this squeeze between dreamland and reality. They want to buy more votes, but they don't want to raise taxes and possibly lose their jobs.
The lottery is really a lousy way to raise money. It is a dead end street.
Orangeman
Technical issues aside, it doesn't (or shouldn't) make any difference how the numbers are drawn, though I can understand the psychological reasons people prefer a mechanized draw. People feel they aren't being cheated if they can actually see their numbers come out.
No, my issues have nothing to do with some psycho-babble like that. There are real, down-to-earth reasons why computerized drawings are no good. Many of those reasons are listed on the petition page. Have you taken the time to read it?
Read it, and several of the comments there bear out my observation.
indiana officials are in denial about computer drawings.......
its like an alcoholic that drinks too much and does everything they can to hide the fact that its killing them and hurting others but they refuse to see it.....
just an observation......
Read it, and several of the comments there bear out my observation.
I wrote it, I think I know what it says.
It is the same reason as to why I dont like to play slots at casinos, who knows what these computers are programmed to do. I would rather play craps or roulette where I can actually see the action and the result. That is what they fail to understand. No one cares about security, the only thing they are trying to secure is the bottom line.
Sorry Todd, perhaps I should have started my sentence "I have read it, and...". I wasn't telling you to read it. No hard feelings.
Indiana needs to WAKE UP and REVERT!!!!!
here's the thing. as the director stated in the article, they can't afford to buy air time for the actual drawing.
here's the solution (and i've been saying thids for quite some time). upload the security camera footage (video and audio) to the website, so players can see what exactly goes on during the drawing. if necessary, dub it into a digital tape format.
That's nice, but only when combined with real drawings. Watching footage of someone clicking a mouse button is useless, and would actually be a negative for the Indiana Lottery, because people would realize how their numbers are being selected.
And another thing. People like balls because it's fun to watch, and they can't just pick their numbers and turn on their own ball machine. They like getting their numbers drawn by something out of the ordinary. And dipsy-do can write down 6 numbers and go to random.org.
the indiana lottery makes me.......
Ewwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!
A huge pile of vomit? Tsk, tsk, tsk, not tasteful, not that Indiana's procedures are any more tasteful.
i agree on that....imagine if they actually went back to balls....
They have brass on their side, the lottery racket admins. They also have a lot of gullibility on th part of lottery ticket buyers.
It's a strange phenomenon. I've never seen a casino keno game, other than slot-machine keno, drawn by computer. My suspicion is that casinos have no illusions that players trust them any more than they deserve. But the lotteries haven't endured enough human weakness and public scandals (yet) to bring the general public into the same mindset.
The fact that when the public does begin to indulge in that level of mistrust of lotteries it will do an enormous amount of damage to sales permanently, (a circumstance you'd think they'd wish to avoid) ought to have them doing everything possible to keep everything clean and well-lighted.....But management by crisis is the tool of choice all over corporate America, including lotteries.
It's all a matter of pushing the envelope until it breaks. Kills pilots, bankrupts companies, destroys politicians. If you're a lottery lover you probably won't enjoy seeing what will almost inevitably be the wave of the future if they continue moving to computerized draws.
Jack
Mark Twain once wrote "figures don't lie, but liers figure."
Orangeman
IT'S BETTER FOR WHO? THE LOTTERY OR THE PLAYERS? If thats really the case senerio get the results out in the open and show the public the figures between the two...! Oops that wouldn't be ethical right?
Since balls are harder to tamper with and predict the outcome of any such tampering I doubt Indiana will move in that direction. State lotteries just don't want things like integrity or trust anymore. After all if Indiana can't tamper with the results why would they want it?
We want balls! We want BALLS!!