Numerous polls show players do not trust computerized drawings
Did Arkansas Lottery Commission hire the right team?
Senator proposes bill scrapping the lottery
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Despite nearly universal player mistrust of computerized lottery drawings, the new Arkansas Lottery director made the inexplicable decision this week to forgo real mechanical lottery ball drawings, and use a computer program to select the winning numbers in the state's new lottery.
The commission met at Philander Smith College in Little Rock and approved an intent to award the contract for online draw games to Intralot, the Greek firm that was the only company to bid last week for the games. Intralot says it could have the games up and running by Sept. 28. Lottery director Ernie Passailaigue had set an Oct. 29 deadline to get games up and running.
Under the contract, Intralot would receive 2.45 percent of net lottery sales.
The commission considered live drawings for the games, but Lottery Director Ernie Passailaigue told commissioners that while most people prefer live draws, they are expensive. He said the commission could always switch to a live draw in the future, but if it started out with one, it would be hard to change from that format.
Passailaigue says the method saves more than $700,000, but like all states that try to justify computerized drawings, the negative impact of player mistrust was not factored in the explanation. With states using traditional lottery drawings doing generally better in the current recession, Arkansas residents will likely demand answers.
The animated drawings would be broadcast via webcasts over the Internet.
Local media reports have pointed to Lottery Post's Petition for True Lottery Drawings and associated educational materials that foretell the difficulties to come. (www.lotterypost.com/petition-true-drawings.aspx) Lottery Post has called on Arkansas residents to get involved and sign the petition.
In several polls conducted in the past two years, lottery players have indicated by an overwhelming 93%-7% margin that they prefer traditional ball drawings, in which the exact means of number selection can be witnessed by a layman observer.
Lottery players bemoan the fact that there is no possible means to view the means by which a computerized drawing selects the numbers. From problems as benign as a simple programmer error to a malicious attempt to steal a jackpot by secretly rigging the computer program and then erasing the offending program, corruption of the draw results can happen without the possibility of knowing.
And if the Arkansas Lottery Commission were to investigate the incident rate of computerized drawing errors in other states, they would conclude that the Arkansas Lottery will almost certainly suffer a similar problem at some point.
In fact, errors in the computer programs in other states have caused catastrophic problems that rendered many thousands of tickets unwinnable. In some cases, those problems silently remained in place for months, as unwitting players purchased lottery tickets with absolutely no chance of winning.
Is it possible to reverse course and convince or compel the lottery to use real lottery draw equipment?
Looking to other states such as Tennessee for examples, lottery directors — especially high-profile, highly-paid directors like Passailaigue — will practically never reverse a decision once it is made. Whether it is their reputation at stake to justify the high salary, or simply an unwillingness to admit mistakes, the lottery tends to forge ahead with the original decision as the only option.
The only method this reporter has seen that can effect changes of this magnitude is legislation that forces the lottery's hand and compels the lottery to listen to its customer base. Such legislative action is only effective when it is directed by lawmakers who have the determination to create legislation that forces the lottery to do the right thing, and the fortitude to push it all the way to a vote.
Senator proposes scrapping the whole thing
A state senator is proposing that that the law setting up Arkansas' lottery be repealed.
State Sen. Sue Madison of Fayetteville said Friday that she'll ask a legislative committee to study her proposal to repeal the legislation setting up the Arkansas Lottery Commission. Arkansas voters in November approved an amendment authorizing the state to set up a lottery to raise money for college scholarships.
Madison says she doesn't think lawmakers thoroughly considered the consequences of the state setting up a lottery and said she regrets signing on as a sponsor to the lottery law earlier this year. Madison says she voted against the lottery amendment in November.
Madison's proposal comes as the lottery faces criticism over the high pay its director and other top officials have received, as well as the latest decision to institute computerized drawings.
Ernie, please reconsider. Give the folks what they want. That's what will generate the most income.
Just another flagerant act of " Who cares what the people want ". I understand the fact of saving money, but when you sacrifice the public opinion for the sake of money, you only solidify the fact that you could care less about the very people that voted for a lottery.
Disrespect to the voters is not the way to start a lottery......!
It's not about saving money
It's about taking money from the little guy so these HIGH LEVEL PEOPLE in Office can sit on their *ss and justify their JOB. The news story Explains it perfectly.
Do everyone a favor.... and KEEP the Machanical drawings Mechanical.....From the start.
The day California utilizes computer generated lotto is the day I stop playing all together. I in no way trust that system. talk about easily manipulated! I know alot of Californians who feel the same way. There will be such a drop in sales that the lottery headquarters wont even be able to pay even the smallest salary
this is california below lottocalgal.if you just play the state lotto you should be fine although pretty much everything else is computerized.
True Drawings: Mega Millions, SuperLotto Plus
Computerized: Daily 3, Daily 4, Daily Derby, Fantasy 5, Midday 3
California is already computerized, with the exception of SuperLotto Plus.
California had one of the worst computerized drawing errors ever officially recorded, and sold tickets with no chance of winning for several months.
The game was Daily Derby, and if you had certain Race Times, you could not win because the computer programming error excluded certain times from ever being "drawn". (I use that term lightly, because in a computer there is no "drawing" -- simply a grouping of numbers that is "appointed" by a "random" number generator.)
A lottery player figured it out eventually by noticing the odd fact that certain numbers never won, and he notified the lottery -- then finally the lottery recognized and fixed the error. Meanwhile, thousands, maybe even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, of lottery tickets had been sold with no chance of winning.
This is the type of drawing system Arkansas lottery players can look forward to.
Great job Arkansas Lottery. Major FAIL.
My state. The only game that we have here that isn't computerized is Powerball.
It's sad that Arkansas decided to go this route. I thought they would start their lottery off in a good way. I guess I was wrong.
tennessee had three really great years before the nonsense started.they were right up there with the best of the state lotteries.arkansas hasn't even started up yet and they have already had struggles with how things are going to be run,financial matters and now this computer draws situation.something tells me if they don't get it together the arkansas lottery is going to be a lot worse than tennessee ever was.don't forget arkansas is smaller plus they have other forms of gambling like horse,dog racing and casino style gambling.people there won't put up with nonsense they'll just go on and play the dogs and horses or visit the casinos.powerball and scratch offs will be the bread and butter there for arkansas.i don't expect the numbers games to make much of a dent especially computerized.
That is so scary! I had no idea that computerized drawings existed. I'm just novice to the lottery game, so thank you Todd for this website!!! We haven't had the lottery that long here in SC so I'm glad we're able to see the balls as they come out. I just assumed every state was the same way.
How could anyone EVER trust a computerized drawing? Considering how hackers can get into highly secured government offices...manipulating the lottery would probably be a no-brainer.
Geez!
That is the nearly universal reaction I have seen from lottery players, whether they are casual players or die-hard daily players. In an industry that relies so heavily upon trust and accountability, inserting computers into the mix at the most critical point -- thereby HIDING the most critical aspect -- is wrong and inexcusable.
I am very happy to hear that you've come across Lottery Post and found the information helpful and informative. When I originally started the site (and USA Mega) about a decade ago (has it been that long?!) it was because I could not locate any usable and easy-to-access information about the lottery on the Web. So that has been my goal ever since!
Like duh. Your tax dollars at work. Next thing you know they'll figure out will be: "that people don't like paying taxes." or maybe most people don't trust politicians.
Passailaigue, is that a Greek name?, should observe how real drawings are conducted in Texas.
Well, I guess I am just going to be playing powerball than.
Michigan Raffles are obviously RNG. Michigan used to print raffle numbers on the tickets and told everyone to ignore them. I beleive they were like pool numbers. I wonder if tickets from some pools could never win because of some programming error like the California error.
I don't know if they still account for the tickets that way but the raffle number is no longer printed on the ticket so we will never know.
This is exactly why people think people from Arkansas are unintelligent, ingnorant, hillibillies. Forget what the people want & deserve, it's what the fatcats, who probably get a kickback, want & they shove it down your throat. I don't trust computerized drawings & you shouldn't either. One wrong entry in a program & your ticket could have no chance of winning. It's already happened in multiple states. You think Arkansas is intelligent enough to not make any mistakes? Also, I believe, & so do others, that it can be secretly programmed to "pull" numbers that no one has! Why not? Bigger jackpots bring more sales. Do you trust the people in power? I don't! They need to be removed from power. Listen to the customer, we're the ones that pay your salary!!!
You're saying that Michigan raffle tickets do not have the number printed on them? I think you may be mistaken. People could not even check their tickets if that was the case.
Raffles are an example of a game in which the use of computers actually makes sense. Another example is "Quick Draw" type games, where a new result is available ever 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Trying to conduct all of those drawings without fail at such a high rate of frequency would not be viable with a ball-drawn method.
I don't think the answer is to eliminate those games either (raffles and Quick Draw games), because many people enjoy them, and there is not some over-arching uber-truth that "all computers are bad".
The drawings of once- or twice-per-day lotto games are the most important things the lottery does, so they must adhere to the very highest standards, with complete transparency and accountability. If players don't trust the foundational games, they won't trust anything.
If the lottery is doing so poorly that it feels it needs to eliminate real drawings, then it's time to close down the lottery itself. Getting rid of the live drawings should not even be an option to consider. If they get rid of the live drawings they might as well print lottery tickets with no numbers on them, because everything is a closed-loop system inside a computer then, so we are all at the mercy of some programmers and lottery executives at vendors like Intralot.
Passalaigue... he's a southern gentleman of distinction. I assume from South Carolina, but that's a Nawlins name if I ever saw one...
thanks for the info Lottomike and Todd. I only Play Superlotto and Fantasy Five. I always knew that the SLP was a true drawing. But I thought so was Fantasy 5.
The oddity here? Yes it was the Fantasy Five drawing where I won the 4 /5 for $372, last week. (my regular picks not QP)
Talk about irony!
Thanks again for the info. As much as I check the CA lotto website, I actually missed that tidbit.
So do you computer and math LP experts think that the officials (any state) actually sees what numbers are picked-- then in the hour between the cutoff and the actual drawing they manipulate the machines to draw a non picked ticket.
I'm sorry I cant get passed that feeling. (but yes I still play)
I actually think they do not do that. I think any state that has someone purposely go in and change the drawing in order to be sure it hits (or not) would have been caught by now.
HOWEVER, I DO think that someone could have -- or could in the future -- have done that "on the sly". I am telling you will the certainty of my 25 years of experience with computers that it can be done. AND it can be done such that nobody would find out.
Again, just to be clear, I do not think that any state lottery is purposely fixing a drawing. But I believe they are negligent to institute a drawing method in which it could be done -- one that makes it impossible for a layman to observe the means with which the numbers are selected.
There is no reason for it -- financial or otherwise.
"You're saying that Michigan raffle tickets do not have the number printed on them? I think you may be mistaken. People could not even check their tickets if that was the case."
NO, NO, NO!!!!!
You are confusing the Ticket number with the raffle number which isn't to be confused with the draw number.
The current tickets have "Draw 13" printed on them and the "Raffle #" which IS the six digit number.
The early tickets had the six digit Ticket number and something called a
"raffle number" actually printed on them. You could get two tickets in a row and one may say
"raffle number 47" and the very next one could say "raffle number 296" it looked like a pool number and they never explained what they were for. I believe each ticket still has a number like that but they have stopped actually printing it on the ticket. They never did say what they are for. I can mail you a photo copy of a ticket or email you a scan of one if you want to see it. However I have to find a place that has a scanner.
A lot of people don't stop and consider that the lottery has all the drawing and test statistics and they have people that know how to analyze them.
That information could be fed into computer filters and they could block individual terminals or geographic areas of terminals or block any terminals however they wanted from printing tickets with statisticaly winning patterns.
That could work in the other way too and they could pass only statisticaly winning patterns on one or any set of terminals.
Do they do this? Who knows. But it looks really suspicious when a town that has less than 10,000 in population keeps getting big winners both online and scratch-off.
They are able to do it but whether they actually do it is another thing.
"statisticaly winning patterns" ? What patterns are those? Are you suggesting that the lottery knows that their games can be predicted, predicts them accurately, then deliberately prevents the 3rd party RNG's in ticket terminals from generating those numbers? All while nobody playing the lottery has been able to figure out these "statisticaly winning patterns" and predict the winning numbers?
Assuming that the lottery didn't care about the possibility of killing their giant cash cow by getting caught deliberately cheating the players, don't you think they're smart enough to conspire to sell most of those fraudulent winning tickets in bigger towns?
The lotteries have all the information on how their machines operate. They know how the program works and they have all the data from the Test draws and the real draws. The Players DO NOT have all the information.
The operators certainly can put statistical filters on any or all terminals.
While "the lottery" itself has no reason to do this some of the people who work there may.
Do you pay close attention to where the winners in Michigan are sold?
I have noticed several strange things over the years because I pay attention.
I can't speak for Michigan, but I know Missouri has numerous procedures to prevent tampering. Even though employees undergo background checks, they employ security divisions to identify and eliminate new ways to cheat. The Lottery's very existence depends on maintaining integrity, which is the main reason most are state agencies in the first place. Even though you find a few bad apples, I'd say most are pretty vigilant about preventing fraud.
I agree, and I don't actually think such a breach is intentional on the part of the people responsible for maintaining a secure drawing.
But, just like we all saw yesterday with Twitter -- a service with a multi-million-dollar IT budget -- any computer system can be hacked, and it is rarely done by someone responsible for maintaining the system.
ANY computer system can be hacked. There are fabulous techniques for maintaining security, but there has never been a security technique invented that has not been breached. Every company suffers failures and breaches, and even systems like the Pentagon's get hacked. Even the ones that are supposedly not connected to other systems.
All these breaches and failures occur despite the best intentions of the people responsible for maintaining security.
With this in mind, there is no reason for getting rid of ball drawings. They are not able to be hacked like a computer can be, and any layman observer can see the means by which the numbers are selected.
Every lottery that is currently computerized can generate enormous excitement and generate extra profits by bringing back real ball drawings. In this period of financial hardship, people are looking for excitement, and it can never come from a computer.
Don't play any Doubles or Triples at first!
Are people afraid the computerized drawings can't be systemized or that they will have programming errors that make some ticket unwinnable or that they can be more easily fixed? Would we accept computerized drawings if they could be proven to run flawlessly and fairly?
Many of the same people who are against computerized Lotteries have no problem with online casinos that are not only computerized but less regulated.
I don't like computerized anything in the Lottery...I have yet to win anything in a computerized game higher than $1.
Arkansas should consult Maryland's lottery commission and operartors on how to operate an all ball drawing system and still bring in at the least a Billion dollars each fiscal year.