This question comes to mind every time a jackpot gets extraordinarily high.
What if, and I stress "IF", the PB/MM drawings were taped in advance?
For example:
The jackpot is at $250M. Lottery directors hope it rolls over for a bigger JP. Most players hope they hit it, but a few want it to roll, even though they got their numbers, too (they're playing for secondary prizes).
Drawing Time (i.e., MM, Tue., 11pm EST) occurs. This drawing is live. After it is finished & certified, the normal computer checks for JP winners go through, and doesn't find a winner. After everything is tallied, the JP rolls to "$325M".
Under the assumption that an extreme increase in sales will drive the JP higher by the next "drawing time," Lottery officials decide to "pre-tape" the drawing with the inflated JP amount (in this example, $360M). This draw takes place about 5 hours after the previous one, when not many other people would be around to see it. This tape is now stored in the same room (hidden, of course) as the draw equipment, or taken home by someone close to the draw.
Then, crafty programmers, under the direction of high-end lottery officials, get to work. Knowing what numbers will be "drawn," they tweak the QP generators in all the terminals game-wide to NOT produce any JP winners (though they let 5+0 winners go through), thus producing another roll to insane levels of about $500M.
As most players just want to get their tickets and go, they ask for QP's, knowing none the wiser that they have NO CHANCE of winning the JP, only the 5+0 or less. It's those people that play their own numbers the directors have to worry about. Not to worry, they say... Most JP's are won with QP's, so we don't need to worry.
Then, someone comes along with the numbers that "aren't supposed to be played." The programmers have thought about this, so they tell the terminal to reject the bet slip, or even the manual entry, as a means of "preserving financial integrity by limiting the bets that can be placed on a certain set of numbers." The player gets frustrated, but still wanting to play, they play their numbers again, this time without the mega number they wanted, or get QP's instead.
Sales reach the level that allows the directors to air the "drawing" with no flaws.
Then the next "Draw Time" happens.
As players across the country are checking their tickets, that one little person who would have won with their own numbers is wringing out their tears in the sink because, if the terminal would have let them play the numbers they WANTED to play, they would have won the JP. Instead, they end up with a measly $250,000 (nothing "measly" about that to me, though) or worse, nothing at all because they totally abandoned their numbers and went with the "fixed" QP's instead.
Lottery directors, of course, are jumping for joy because they finally got to an amount they THOUGHT they would get to when the game first started. "Bigger bonus for me!!!!!" they exclaim, knowing they are cheating people out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Then, they start the process all over again.
I know this would take a lot of work, and an extremely tight lip by lots of people, but do you think it could happen?
