Hey Floyd,
First let me say that as a rule I admire your posts. They are generally well thought out...well reasoned and well written. However, when it comes to the doings of the Hoosier Lottery reason (IMHO) does not apply.
Your point is well taken. I have been estimating the Hoosier Lottery's sales per draw as well and my figures are very close to yours. During this run I estimate that they are selling approximately 950,000 tickets per mid week drawing and about 1,200,000 for a weekend draw. So even if you add in the free tickets you are well below the 1 in 12,000,000 odds.
Having said that we are assuming the odds and prize information posted by the Hoosier Lottery are correct. That may or may not be an accurate assumption as the Hoosier Lottery has mistated odds and prizes before. But in a straight 6/48 game the correct odds can be calculated fairly easily. So given that the prize information is correct we can assume the sales figures are reasonably accurate.
But the main problem I have is that even if you apply this type of logic to other lotteries...including Powerball...you still don't see a roll over pattern like this. The odds with Powerball are over 145,000,000 to 1. Do we see 145,000,000 tickets sold before we have a winner? Hardly.
Now much of this paranoia might be able to be put to rest if the Hoosier Lottery published their sales figures. But they will not. I think part of the reason is they don't want anyone to know how much of a rip-off the Hoosier Lottery's Lotto game has become. The Hoosier Lottery's Lotto Jackpot only goes up $500,000 annuity value per draw on the 3rd draw. It has a cash value of exactly 40%. That equals $200,000. In other words they only need to put $200,000 in cash into the jackpot.
Calculating the approximate payout per draw you can see that they only payout somewhere around $160,000 in prizes on a Saturday daw. Wednesday's payout is corresponding less. Now if you're taking in $1,200,000 per draw...putting $200,000 aside to cover the jackpot and paying out $160,000 you are left with about $840,000 in pure profit per draw!
Once again Wednesday's numbers are less but if you use roughly the same formula and assume they sell about $2,150,000 tickets a week...then put $400,000 away for the jackpot and payout another $300,000 in prizes you can see that during this run the Hoosier Lottery is making approximately $1,350,000 a week in pure profit!
OK..states are in the Lottery business to make money. That's a given and we all accept that. But given this information it's very easy to see why it is not in the Hoosier Lottery's best interest to have a Lotto jackpot winner. Let's face it...bigger jackpots sell more tickets and when the jackpot goes back to $1,000,000 annuity value ($400,000 cash) and starts inching up on the 3rd draw by $500,000 annuity ($200,000) cash, sales will go down
But to be fair motive in and of itself does not mean anything. However, when you start factoring in all the other nonsense the Hoosier Lottery is famous for...a history of secracy...a history of scandal...rigged games in the past...and a non televised RNG drawing...you gotta start wondering about 84 consecutive draws without a winner.
Taken in total this information is IMHO damning but not conclusive. But I've been doing some other research and I can't find any instance anywhere of a straight 6/48 game that has gone 84 draws without a winner. Hell I can't even see where Powerball or Mega Millions..with much higher odds...and granted much higher sales figures have gone 84 draws without a winner.
Now back to your original point...after factoring in the number of tickets sold during this run...and adding back in another roughly 1,000,000 quicks picks given away during this run...I still think the odds of this jackpot rolling over 84 times is just a bit of a stretch.
But I could be wrong. Maybe it is an honest draw and given the number of tickets sold versus the odds of winning 84 consecutive roll overs is just a natural result. If that's the case...this thing could theoritically go on for years.
Jim