Well, where should I start? I believe that, for the most part, state-run lotteries are honest games but, like any other industry that generates hundreds of millions of dollars, they're subject to an element of deception, fraud and corruption.
I live in Indiana (not on purpose; my wife is from here), and I've played almost every online game they offer at one time or another. I bought an expensive Pick-4 system last year and used it religiously every day for several months, without a single hit. When I added up my losing tickets, I discovered that I had spent over $10,000.00 on Pick-4 tickets with absolutely no return. (I'll pause here to let the laughter die down a bit.)
I emailed the company and threatened to sue, but the most I could recover would have been the $495.00 purchase price, and the attorney wanted a $500.00 retainer, so I let it go.
While I realize that no one can win every day, it stands to reason that no one can lose every day, either. So, I began to look into the Hoosier Lottery and their methods. Here's what I found out: The Hoosier Lottery did away with ping-pong balls and began using a computerized electronic random number generator for all their online games sometime in 2000, but they won't say when this change was made, and they didn't bother to inform the public about the switch. In addition, at about this same time, they stopped airing live drawings, as required by Indiana law (IC4-30-3-7 (4)), citing "broadcasting conflicts."
On the back of any Indiana Daily Game bet slip there is a disclaimer which states, "The Hoosier Lottery reserves the right to limit the selection of certain numbers." I asked a regional sales manager how they would know which numbers I've played and she told me, "Our central computer keeps track of all that. If a certain dollar amount is bet on a certain number, then that number is red-flagged." "So," I asked, "you know which numbers I've played and how much I've bet on each number, and you have this information before the drawing?" She replied, "Yes; we even know where you bought your tickets." Every state surrounding us has pre-published liability limits in place. For example, Michigan won't pay more than $1.5M for a single hit in their daily games. This protects them from losing money on an over-played number. Indiana, however, prefers to track player selections in the interest of "...fiscal responsibility. If too much money is bet on a certain number, and that number hits, we might end up paying out more than we took in, as happened in New York on 9/11/02." The way I see it, when I buy a Pick-4 ticket, the odds are 10,000 to 1 against me; that's the chance I take. Without liability limits in place, if they have to pay out more than they took in, that's the chance THEY take. They have no business with that information. No one has been able to convince me that an RNG can guarantee the same odds as three or four bins of ping-pong balls. Oddly, they do broadcast the drawing at least 42 minutes after it takes place, and the program is animated to look like ping-pong balls. Consequently, of the hundred or so people I spoke with, every one of them believes the drawing is still done using ping-pong balls. They're certain of this, because they've watched it on TV.
I chased a number for almost three weeks. On the first night I didn't play $10.00 on 3557, it hit. Three friends of mine from two different nearby cities had the same thing happen to them. "Beth" (names are changed) played $10.00 on the same Pick-4 number for a week, then reduced her bet to $5.00 for five days. On the sixth day, she went home with a migraine headache and neglected to buy her ticket. Her number hit that night. "Mary" was playing all the triples in Indiana's Midday Pick-3 game, for ten dollars each ($100.00). On July 1st, she went to buy her tickets, but couldn't get the machine to print a ticket for "333." When the attendant ran her bet slip through, she got a message saying, "Selection Refused." She paid her $90.00 and went home. That night when she checked her numbers, you guessed it, 333 had hit that afternoon.
We all stopped playing the Indiana games, and I decided I had nothing to lose by trying the system I was using in Ohio. I printed out their past results and entered them into the grids. I had about $100.00 invested over five days, and on the sixth day, I won $6,800.00. I had bet $30.00 and had only played two numbers. Due to handing an attendant the wrong bet slip, I had $17.00 on one number and $13.00 on the other.
We recently had a Lotto jackpot over $28M. This pool built up over several weeks, as our lotto rolls over in increments of only $500k. Ours is a 6/48 game, so the odds are 1:12,271,512. With ticket sales of $20M per draw (a conservative estimate since we have four border states), this means that 16 million more losing tickets were sold each week, for two or three months, than the twelve million possible combinations, without producing a jackpot winner! I'm not saying it's impossible but, mathematically, it's very unlikely that the jackpot in an honest 6/48 game would reach a level much above $10M.
The Hoosier Lottery is not a state-run game. IC4-30-1-2(2) states: "In construing this article it is the intent of the general assembly that the following policies be carried out: (1) "That the lottery games be operated by the state lottery commission, which is created by IC4-30-3 as a separate body politic and corporate from state government and should function as much as possible as an entrepreneurial business enterprise." Can you say WorldCom... or Tyco...or Enron???
Now, my final point: Since the law (IC4-30-3-7(4)) states that "...the drawing must be public," I called the Hoosier Lottery and told them that I would like to watch a live drawing. My request was summarily refused. When I asked why, I was told, "It's a closed set." I'm no genius, but I know that if something is computerized, it uses a PROM chip or an EPROM chip, which means that it can be programmed. Consider this: If the Hoosier Lottery has their little "computerized electronic random number generator" tied into their "central computer," which tracks players' selections and wager amounts, they can easily minimize payouts on their daily games and, at the same time, build their Lotto jackpot at will (bigger jackpots = more ticket sales), and who would know?
In the poll at the top of this page, there is one choice missing: "Some are; some aren't." Indiana will not get even one more of my "voluntary tax" dollars. It's just a shame that I had to recoup some of my losses from Ohio which, in my opinion, is an honest game. I will say this, and I challenge the state of Indiana, and/or the Indiana lottery commission, to sue me for it: The Hoosier Lottery is rigged against the players. If you live in or near Indiana and you've read this, and you continue to play their online games (I have nothing to say about their scratch-off tickets, because I don't play those, either), you might as well play the foreign lotteries; your chances of winning are just as good.
Before I get flamed by some Indiana player who has won $200 to $1,000 on a few box bets, keep in mind that my position is not that nobody ever wins, but that the Hoosier Lottery will minimize their payouts by programming their RNG to recognize the number which has the least amount of money wagered on it, and then to generate that number in the drawing. It's not in my interest to keep people from playing the lottery; I just want as many people as possible to be aware of what's going on in Indiana. I haven't posted anything here that can't be verified, and it would be naive to think that a state lottery is exempt from criminal activity. Even if I'm wrong about this, even if all of these dvents prove to be an unlikely coincidence, the mere fact that the possibility of corruption and fraud exists is unacceptable. Why change from the ping-pong ball method? It doesn't save any money, since they still pay the woman to read the numbers as they're drawn. They won't tell me why; they no longer answer my emails or take my phone calls (as soon as I identify myself, I'm mysteriously disconnected).
If anyone else out there has had a similar experience with the Hoosier Lottery games, please post a reply. I would love to hear it.
Continued good luck to all of you.