Hi Mike,
I think the point here is what many people perceive as the Hoosier Lottery's total lack of professionialism and their complete lack of responsiveness to player concerns. I complained to the Executive Director about the delay in posting the resilts of the Christmas Eve drawings. She of course offered me no explanation and here we are on New's Year's Eve and the same thing happens again. I know some people might not see this as such a big deal. I read Todd's remarks about the delayed Christmas Eve results being totally understandable and under normal circumstances I might agree with him. But the bottom line is the Hoosier Lottery simply doesn't care about the players. They feel absolutely no obligation to the players at all. Remember it wasn't only the payouts that weren't posted but also the winning numbers.
And what shouldn't be forgotten here is that the Hoosier Lottery (Lotto) prize has rolled over again and now stands at $24 million. It has now been more than 5 months since someone has won it and if I did my math correctly it has rolled over 46 times. Five months and 47 draws in a straight pick 6 of 48 game and nobody has won it.
Now again this may not strike some people as being that odd. And in fact while I've heard all kinds of estimates about the odds of this happeneing approaching 1 in 3 billion the truth is without accurate sales figures from the Hoosier Lottery it is very difficult to get a handle on the real odds.
But the point is you have a lottery with a history of corruption...using a computerized RNG...holding secretive (non-televised) drawings...not posting the results in a timely fashion...with a jackpot that keeps rolloing over and over...an annuity payout that has been extended...and a cash value amount that they refuse to disclose.
EVEN if this is all on the up and up (which I sincerely doubt) it gives the impresion that something is amiss. The Hoosier Lottery's attitude is:
You don't need to see the drawings, you don't need the know the winning numbers, you don't need to know the payout results, you don't need to know the sales figures, you don't need to know why the annuity was extended, you don't even need to know the cash value. You don't need to know anything other than what we tell you. And you'll know that if and when we decide to to tell you.
Jim