Tennessee Lottery computerized drawings flawed since inception

Comment #32

GASMETERGUY — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:37:27 GMT

Seventy per cent of the players purchase QP's. While this trend continues, any lottory will do whatever they want and the public can kiss their glass.

In the years prior to Tennessee getting a lottory, I said often that Tennessee will get a lottory as soon as the politicians figure a way to skim money off the top. By going to RNG they have found the way. Tennessee has shown for all the world to see that RNG numbers can be rigged; there is no security; take it or leave it. As for me,... [ More ]

Comment #31

jeffrey — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 23:22:06 GMT

Just a point about programming; if no one is watching the watcher watching the programmer, anything can happen.

Comment #30

rdc137 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:21:04 GMT

3 Strikes, You're OUT!

I wonder if there are certain Hot Trax combinations that can't win as well...

Comment #29

Uncle Jim — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:07:19 GMT

What a joke!

We tested it and got doubles. Opps...it turns out the programmer made a mistake and programmed the computer so that it couldn't produce doubles. Oops again...the security person who checked our infalable program missed the programming error. OK..now we fixed the problem that we said could never happen in the first place by hiring another programmer from the same company that made the mistake in the first place.

Presumably they are hiring another security expert from the... [ More ]

Comment #28

jim695 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:56:02 GMT

Once the Tennessee Lottery realizes that nothing can be done to stop them from manipulating their games, they'll begin cheating players openly, with no apologies, like the Hoosier Lottery does now.

LosingJeff and I have PROVEN, beyond ANY doubt, that switching to an electronic drawing format DOES NOT save a lottery ANY money. Since details of our investigation appeared in two newspaper articles, state lotteries no longer use the money-saving ploy. Instead, they now espouse keeping up wi... [ More ]

Comment #27

Todd — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:22:57 GMT

One other thing I thought of:

I thought the draw computers were supposed to be locked up, with no access from anyone other than the person who presses the button to generate the results? That's what they lead people to believe.

But apparently that's not the case, because some person ran a test on the draw computer, according to their e-mail (before the programming error was finally caught).

So I guess people DO have access to the machines.

I really hope everyone is getting this.... [ More ]

Comment #26

rdc137 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:59:22 GMT

And they will quickly bury and deny this. And they will continue with the RNG and pretend nothing is wrong. Keyword: PRETEND

Sadly, this won't affect the diehards. They'll still dump their money in it.

Comment #25

SirMetro — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:40:08 GMT

This sort of reminds me of a comment made in the movie Armageddon by Steve Buscemi

You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it

Comment #24

Todd — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:17:17 GMT

This is a great point.

Either the Tennessee Lottery checked the wrong draw computer, or they are lying. Which do you think it is?

I personally think it's a strong possibility that the webmaster (or whoever put that e-mail together) made it up, becasue they couldn't conceive of an error in the system.

Comment #23

time*treat — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:56:39 GMT

...exactly why I don't get too worked up about RNGs. Yeah they're rigged, but so is everything else gov't sticks its dirty, no-bid mitts on. As I wrote in another thread on TN (before they went RNG) I just want to catch the flaw. *twirls moustache

Comment #22

RJOh — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:35:26 GMT

With no doubles or triples, it looks like they were picking 3 numbers from a single group of 10 for the pick3 game and 4 numbers from a single group of 10 for the pick4 game. Some one got confused when they put the parameters into the RNG

That means the odds of picking the winning pick3 straight number was 1:120 and a box hit was 1:20 and the odds of a straight in the pick4 was 1:210 and for a 24 way box hit was 1:9.

I hope the smarter people in Tennessee were making some money durin... [ More ]

Comment #21

LOTTOMIKE — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:16:15 GMT

the tennessee lottery is a joke now.

Comment #20

KyMystikal — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:57:17 GMT

I'm glad I live close to Kentucky. Tennessee really pissed me off with this changing over to computers to draw the numbers then when they had this flaw and I sent this email.

I would like to know if there is a problem with the computer that draws the lottery numbers? Every since you(Tennessee Lottery) have switched the way the numbers are chosen there hasn't been a double digit come out in ANY draw. I know that the drawings are supposed to be random but it is highly unlikely that no double wo... [ More ]

Comment #19

LANTERN — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:27:58 GMT

First of all, It was foolish to bring it to their attention, it could had gone on very much longer without the lottery people knowing about it, imagine having only singles to play, 120 boxed singles instead of 220 boxed numbers, they were already filtering 90 boxed combos free for you or 270 straight ones.

Who wanted this gold mine to stop and Why?

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So as you point out, they run several drawings untill the doubles came out and chose them as winning numbers for those 2 d... [ More ]

Comment #18

four4me — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:54:32 GMT

Lantern they were flooded with calls and emails about the fact that there were no doubles

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quote: We have had some other inquiries about the lack of double digit winning numbers, so we had our security staff run several random test draws, and double digits were drawn.

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In other threads about this i replied that this was

Comment #17

LANTERN — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 07:36:05 GMT

Me, I wish that the Tx lottery had either only singles or doubles, but not both, such as Tn did, only all doubles would be best.

Too bad that you all there didn't know this in advace, 270 straight combos already eliminated and 90 boxed.

At 900 to 1 online, you could had made at least $180 per each and every draw, without having to use any filtering of your own.

$180 X 15 draws = $ 2,700. Not too bad, you would of course had to play all the straight singles.

Risk free, that is untill... [ More ]

Comment #16

johnph77 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:48:25 GMT

Being as other jurisdictions already use computerized drawings for Pick 3 and Pick 4 games, how in the world can a contractor who is being paid good money screw programming up so badly? Absolutely incredible. It's not as if they were creating or even had to create a new program, and it isn't rocket science.

I've heard it before and I'll say it here, never underestimate the human capacity for utter stupidity.

Comment #15

gideon02 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:39:59 GMT

Lottery throws all blame on a contractor; players bare the brunt

bare the brunt?? .

BEAR

Comment #14

AuntiePat — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:50:31 GMT

One of the stories,that I had read on this site about another state changing earlier this year, claimed cost effectiveness of the computer system over the ping pong ball method. I guess if they can eliminate another job and replace it with computers that don't need food, clothing or medical insurance, then the computer IS cost effective--until using a computer draw becomes a liability (i.e.--till TN citizens stop playing the P3 and P4 games)

PS Jeffrey--Steal one for me while you're at... [ More ]

Comment #13

Bradly_60 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:14:18 GMT

Wow....that is all I can say....wow

Brad

Comment #12

rdc137 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:14:18 GMT

To the Tennessee Lottery:

Prove to me beyond the shadow of the doubt that you didn't do this on purpose and only regret getting caught. Any references to education will discredit your argument in full.

I'd wait to hear your response but I have better things to do with my time than listen to your silence.

Comment #11

MADDOG10 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:25:55 GMT

I've said it before, stop buying lottery tickets and see how quick they have a change of heart about computerized drawings. Thats the government spirit, spend more money to an outside consultant...>>>>>>?? I really feel sorry for the people of Tenn...

Comment #10

L J1 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:17:10 GMT

I Don't Like It Either! I like to witness the drawing in real time; mechanical, not computerized. Computerized drawings..... anything can happen. When you got a huge Jackpot up for grabs, people are going to be P/O! They're NOT going to be happy campers!

To say the least

Here in Michigan, the 3 digit game, and 4 digit game are still mechanical. But the Keno, Fantasy 5, and Classic Lotto 47.... I'm not so sure.

Everytime I looked at the drawings on tv @ 7:29pm here in MI, and after the... [ More ]

Comment #9

tnlotto1 — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:08:23 GMT

hopefully this will cause more people to join the boycott of the RNG games here until they lose enough money to go back to balls.

Comment #8

Todd — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:36:01 GMT

I agree, but I don't think it was even their RNG. It was just an incredibly BAD programming error, which should have EASILY been caught. Obviously, the Tennessee Lottery did NOT do any semblance of due diligence on the new draw system, or it would have been caught, as the article states.

I'll bet that the RNG did not spit out any doubles or triples because it was setup exactly like the Pick 5 game, in which it is not allowed to draw duplicates. So all they did is change the possible number... [ More ]

Comment #7

jeffrey — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:35:50 GMT

OOO, oooo; stupid is as stupid does.Ping pong balls are much nicer.

Comment #6

DoubleDown — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:32:23 GMT

The lottery announced they would try to fix any problems caused by the outside consultant by hiring another consultant .

Why are we not surprised by this ?

This is exactly what we all feared when Tenn went to this system and lo and behold it happened.

The best way to fix this is to stop playing. See if that get's Rebeccas attention.

Comment #5

Todd — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:28:38 GMT

Sadly, I agree. There is a Forest Gump saying that comes to mind.

Comment #4

Littleoldlady — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:06:32 GMT

I am so glad I still have my tickets. a 2 fer isn't bad. I am going to enjoy this..(I think). The draws should be mostly doubles coming up.

Comment #3

jeffrey — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:00:21 GMT

When I was a kid, my calculator could do better random numbers. Seed cosine based on time to nanosecond of drawing individual balls. I still like the balls. Keep them honest. Must be a money thing for the lottery officials. If I was a programmer, I would put in a backdoor or a bomb. Win me a lottery the old fashioned way, steal it.

Comment #2

JimmySand9 — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:52:42 GMT

Mark my words, the Tennessee Lottery will not learn anything from this. Remember when the same number came up three times in a row in the Kansas Pick 3, a billion to one occurance, or when Daily Derby in CA had it's own flaw. They didn't learn anything because they are still drawn with the same flawed technology. I can't see any reason the situation here in Tennessee will be any different.

I hope I'm wrong about this, but I probably will be right.

Comment #1

stavros — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:11:14 GMT

I hear the sound of the first shoe dropping

Tennessee Lottery computerized drawings flawed since inception

Lottery Post — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:04:31 GMT

Lottery throws all blame on a contractor; players bear the brunt

By Todd Northrop

A month ago, Tennessee Lottery officials claimed the state's new computerized drawings would be exciting .

What Tennessee lottery players got instead were buggy, unfair drawings, in which almost half the numbers people picked had no chance whatsoever of winning.

The severely flawed drawings have been happening every day since computerized drawings replaced the lottery's real mechanical ball drawings mo... [ More ]