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Quote: Originally posted by karinda on Jan 29, 2013
Thanks Todd. I just called the NJ Lottery.
They do test drawings in New Jersey in the presence of an auditor, but the numbers are not made available to the public.
Test draws are done for all numbers draw games prior to the live drawings.
Test draws are also done for Powerball and Mega-Millions, but I didn't ask if that information is available.
I was interested in where the drawings are done for those games because I didn't know.
Mega-Millions is drawn in Georgia and Powerball is drawn in Florida.
Good Luck to all.
Great information karinda! Thanks for posting it.
I would guess that if you really want to press the matter you could request the predraw numbers with an open records request. If the predraw numbers are recorded, then you should be able to get them one way or another.
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Quote: Originally posted by Todd on Jan 29, 2013
Great information karinda! Thanks for posting it.
I would guess that if you really want to press the matter you could request the predraw numbers with an open records request. If the predraw numbers are recorded, then you should be able to get them one way or another.
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Suppose they usually do three test drawings then the real draw for Pick 6 Lotto and for some reason or other the first three test drawings were not convincing and for that reason the auditor decided a forth test drawing was necessary. Now imagine if your numbers happened to match those of the forth test drawing which on a normal day would have won you the JP. I'm saying that it would be too messy to let the public know what the test draws are. People would be suing right left and center...questioning the auditors decision to run an extra test draw and what not. I personally wouldn't wish to know the test numbers because I might be too upset.
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Quote: Originally posted by karinda on Jan 29, 2013
Thanks Todd. I just called the NJ Lottery.
They do test drawings in New Jersey in the presence of an auditor, but the numbers are not made available to the public.
Test draws are done for all numbers draw games prior to the live drawings.
Test draws are also done for Powerball and Mega-Millions, but I didn't ask if that information is available.
I was interested in where the drawings are done for those games because I didn't know.
Mega-Millions is drawn in Georgia and Powerball is drawn in Florida.
Good Luck to all.
Karlinda,
I'm glad you approached this subject. I've often wondered about test draws, especially pre recorded computerized draws. The one lottery I questioned is a computerized draw and pre recorded to air on draw night. I've often wondered how many pre recorded test draws get approved by the auditor. I'd read where there are 4 draws done, but what I really want to know is how many of the recordings get approved. I'd written the lottery a couple of times asking this, and no one has ever responded. I've not called because I guess I'd like to see the answer in black and white. This is where not only computerized draws, but pre recorded draws open up a huge area for deception. I've even questioned if more than one recording is ok'd by the auditor, how easy it would be to change to another video if the lottery machines detect winners when they don't want to pay out...
"If you can DREAM it, you can DO it!"- Walt Disney
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Quote: Originally posted by maringoman on Jan 29, 2013
Suppose they usually do three test drawings then the real draw for Pick 6 Lotto and for some reason or other the first three test drawings were not convincing and for that reason the auditor decided a forth test drawing was necessary. Now imagine if your numbers happened to match those of the forth test drawing which on a normal day would have won you the JP. I'm saying that it would be too messy to let the public know what the test draws are. People would be suing right left and center...questioning the auditors decision to run an extra test draw and what not. I personally wouldn't wish to know the test numbers because I might be too upset.
Interesting thread
There was a past topic on predraws and at that time it was found states will have up to six pre and post draws for the pick 3/4. How many depends on the state. Someone, I forget who said that Texas is the only state that publishes the predraw results.
Here in Md. on Comcast, on one of the video on demand channels a couple years ago, they had a short video of how they get the machines ready for the drawings. There was a security guy /auditor and two others. They went to a room outside of the lottery machine room. The security guy had a blank key card which was encoded and then given to the two other guys. One of them then cut a wire (kind of like a zip tie) that had been passed through the handle on the door to the room where they kept the lottery machines. The other then inserted the card in the door and the two guys had to each turn a handle on the door simultaneously to open it. If they messed up a new card would then be encoded.
Inside the room were several (I think it was 3 or 4) lottery machines and several locked cases containing the ballsets. A case was randomly chosen and the balls were checked, weighed / measured. Then they chose a machine, put the balls in and ran the tests to make sure the machine was working properly. They said they typically run 2-5 tests, but could be more.
Interestingly, one of the things they said they look for is one particular number / ball coming up too many times during the pretests. They said if a particular number / ball from the same set, shows up 4 or 5 times in a row they would pull the ballset to have it rechecked and substitute another ballset.
After the live drawing the balls were put back in the case, locked up, the machines put back in the room, and the room was locked, with a new wire inserted through the door handle. They would leave the next room, lock it up and the key card would be destroyed.
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Quote: Originally posted by grwurston on Jan 29, 2013
There was a past topic on predraws and at that time it was found states will have up to six pre and post draws for the pick 3/4. How many depends on the state. Someone, I forget who said that Texas is the only state that publishes the predraw results.
Here in Md. on Comcast, on one of the video on demand channels a couple years ago, they had a short video of how they get the machines ready for the drawings. There was a security guy /auditor and two others. They went to a room outside of the lottery machine room. The security guy had a blank key card which was encoded and then given to the two other guys. One of them then cut a wire (kind of like a zip tie) that had been passed through the handle on the door to the room where they kept the lottery machines. The other then inserted the card in the door and the two guys had to each turn a handle on the door simultaneously to open it. If they messed up a new card would then be encoded.
Inside the room were several (I think it was 3 or 4) lottery machines and several locked cases containing the ballsets. A case was randomly chosen and the balls were checked, weighed / measured. Then they chose a machine, put the balls in and ran the tests to make sure the machine was working properly. They said they typically run 2-5 tests, but could be more.
Interestingly, one of the things they said they look for is one particular number / ball coming up too many times during the pretests. They said if a particular number / ball from the same set, shows up 4 or 5 times in a row they would pull the ballset to have it rechecked and substitute another ballset.
After the live drawing the balls were put back in the case, locked up, the machines put back in the room, and the room was locked, with a new wire inserted through the door handle. They would leave the next room, lock it up and the key card would be destroyed.
This entire process was also video taped.
Wow, I didn't know it took such a long time and effort to get the winning numbers. Is that why Iowa uses Illinois's pick 4 numbers instead of drawing their own numbers? I can see states in the future using numbers drawn by one organization for their local games. GTech must be strategizing on this move. Anyways I would be devastated if my Mass Cash numbers came during the pre draws.
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Quote: Originally posted by maringoman on Jan 29, 2013
Wow, I didn't know it took such a long time and effort to get the winning numbers. Is that why Iowa uses Illinois's pick 4 numbers instead of drawing their own numbers? I can see states in the future using numbers drawn by one organization for their local games. GTech must be strategizing on this move. Anyways I would be devastated if my Mass Cash numbers came during the pre draws.
I'm sure the numbers we've picked have come up in the pre-draws more times than we'll ever know.
My concern is where they said if a number comes up too many times in the pre-test it raises a flag for them to change the ballset. How do we /they know if a number comes up say 5 times, it's not just random playing itself out?
Maryland has just had 6 double 8's in the last 8 days in the live drawings. Five of them were 886,688,688,188,188. Is that just random playing itself out? That would raise an alarm in the pre-test, but not the live drawings?
What I would like to know is, how they decide how many pre-tests to do, and what determines if they should do another one. Do they say okay, we had 3 pre-tests the next draw will be the live one? What if the next one is a number they don't want.
Think about this, sometimes on the pick4 they will stop selling a number if too many people buy it. Usually a quad. Hypothetically, let's say 4444. So, they know ahead of time how many tickets were sold for 4444 and how much they will have to pay out if that number hits in the live draw. If 4444 hits on the 4th (live?) draw, do they make that the live draw or do they say,"uh, let's do one more?" Remember, every pre-draw is video taped, they could use any one of them. How do we really know?
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I'm not sure how exactly they do pre-tests, but I think I have answers to some of your questions, or at least it might make things slightly clearer.
There's no way they can know whether it really was random or not 100% of the time. In fact, it could be that the balls that they end up using were
actually rigged, but somehow "randomly" came up "random" during the pre-tests.
But, if you have any knowledge of calculus, I suggest you search up something call "confidence intervals", the "central limit theorem" and standard deviation.
They will help you to answer some of your concerns.
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Quote: Originally posted by yoho on Jan 29, 2013
I'm not sure how exactly they do pre-tests, but I think I have answers to some of your questions, or at least it might make things slightly clearer.
There's no way they can know whether it really was random or not 100% of the time. In fact, it could be that the balls that they end up using were
actually rigged, but somehow "randomly" came up "random" during the pre-tests.
But, if you have any knowledge of calculus, I suggest you search up something call "confidence intervals", the "central limit theorem" and standard deviation.
They will help you to answer some of your concerns.
I don't know anything about calculus. I was just saying, sometimes it makes you wonder...
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Quote: Originally posted by grwurston on Jan 29, 2013
I'm sure the numbers we've picked have come up in the pre-draws more times than we'll ever know.
My concern is where they said if a number comes up too many times in the pre-test it raises a flag for them to change the ballset. How do we /they know if a number comes up say 5 times, it's not just random playing itself out?
Maryland has just had 6 double 8's in the last 8 days in the live drawings. Five of them were 886,688,688,188,188. Is that just random playing itself out? That would raise an alarm in the pre-test, but not the live drawings?
What I would like to know is, how they decide how many pre-tests to do, and what determines if they should do another one. Do they say okay, we had 3 pre-tests the next draw will be the live one? What if the next one is a number they don't want.
Think about this, sometimes on the pick4 they will stop selling a number if too many people buy it. Usually a quad. Hypothetically, let's say 4444. So, they know ahead of time how many tickets were sold for 4444 and how much they will have to pay out if that number hits in the live draw. If 4444 hits on the 4th (live?) draw, do they make that the live draw or do they say,"uh, let's do one more?" Remember, every pre-draw is video taped, they could use any one of them. How do we really know?
"Maryland has just had 6 double 8's in the last 8 days in the live drawings. Five of them were 886,688,688,188,188. Is that just random playing itself out? That would raise an alarm in the pre-test, but not the live drawings?"
Consider that each live drawing is preceded by these multiple pre-tests. So no, it wouldn't raise a red flag because it's still spaced out enough that it's considered random.
"What I would like to know is, how they decide how many pre-tests to do, and what determines if they should do another one. Do they say okay, we had 3 pre-tests the next draw will be the live one?"
They probably have a long ago pre-determined number of tests that they stick to unless they have reason to believe that something is wrong. And I'm not sure any of us knows how often that happens; my guess is rarely. It's possible that in the case of a suspicious machine and/or ball set, they simply choose another machine and/or ball set and perform the full number of pre-tests again. Meanwhile, the original machine and/or ball set is inspected and either discarded or returned to circulation.
"What if the next one is a number they don't want."
You mean the live draw ends up being a "number they don't want"? (I assume you mean a number where they end up paying out a lot of money.) I guess it's tough noogies for the lottery, then. Sometimes the house wins, sometimes the house loses.
I really don't think modern lotteries are rigged. The consequences would be far too severe for the individuals involved (and possibly the lottery commission as a whole) -- should they get caught, of course -- to make it worth the trouble.
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Quote: Originally posted by mediabrat on Jan 30, 2013
"Maryland has just had 6 double 8's in the last 8 days in the live drawings. Five of them were 886,688,688,188,188. Is that just random playing itself out? That would raise an alarm in the pre-test, but not the live drawings?"
Consider that each live drawing is preceded by these multiple pre-tests. So no, it wouldn't raise a red flag because it's still spaced out enough that it's considered random.
"What I would like to know is, how they decide how many pre-tests to do, and what determines if they should do another one. Do they say okay, we had 3 pre-tests the next draw will be the live one?"
They probably have a long ago pre-determined number of tests that they stick to unless they have reason to believe that something is wrong. And I'm not sure any of us knows how often that happens; my guess is rarely. It's possible that in the case of a suspicious machine and/or ball set, they simply choose another machine and/or ball set and perform the full number of pre-tests again. Meanwhile, the original machine and/or ball set is inspected and either discarded or returned to circulation.
"What if the next one is a number they don't want."
You mean the live draw ends up being a "number they don't want"? (I assume you mean a number where they end up paying out a lot of money.) I guess it's tough noogies for the lottery, then. Sometimes the house wins, sometimes the house loses.
I really don't think modern lotteries are rigged. The consequences would be far too severe for the individuals involved (and possibly the lottery commission as a whole) -- should they get caught, of course -- to make it worth the trouble.
Question. With all the security that's involved in the process, why do they need so many pre-draws? I could understand one or two just to make sure the machine is operable, the air comes on, they come up the chute etc. But why five or six?
Also, why do so many states not want anyone to know the pre-draw results? My guess is they don't want system / pattern players to figure anything out. But then they could just use unmarked balls, right?
The one point they kept making in the video was maintaining the integrity of the game, so when they see a number come up several times in the pre-draws they have to decide is there something wrong with the ball or is it just random. As they said they pull the ballset to avoid suspission. But isn't that suspicious? It seems as if they're trying to change the randomness of the pre-draw results.
I would think the best way would be to do one or two pre-tests with unmarked balls to check the machine, then just go live from there. After that what happens, happens.
BTW, as hot as the 88's were on the evening, the 0 and 7 were cold on the midday. Jan. 26, 0 and 7 both hit. The 0 had 18 misses, the 7 had 20 misses. Neither has hit since.
Do I really think the lotteries are rigged, no. But when you see a few highly unusual things happening all at once, well... it makes you wonder.
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Quote: Originally posted by maringoman on Jan 29, 2013
Suppose they usually do three test drawings then the real draw for Pick 6 Lotto and for some reason or other the first three test drawings were not convincing and for that reason the auditor decided a forth test drawing was necessary. Now imagine if your numbers happened to match those of the forth test drawing which on a normal day would have won you the JP. I'm saying that it would be too messy to let the public know what the test draws are. People would be suing right left and center...questioning the auditors decision to run an extra test draw and what not. I personally wouldn't wish to know the test numbers because I might be too upset.
Interesting thread
Very good point. I'm not sure I understand why they conduct test drawings. Why not just draw the numbers and if there is a system failure, draw them over again?