I don't feel pity for states that decide to use computerized drawings when their revenues take a plunge. I wouldn't feel that I had a fair shot regardless of the odds if the game has computerized drawings.

Very glad you posted this story. For the Hoosier Lottery to blame the 17% drop on the economy is not a valid argument considering the average lottery drop is only 3%. That clearly should tell Indiana they need to quit scamming their players with a rigged lottery. Its not just the lottery either. When the scratcher odds are 1:4 and people are buying 10 and 20 tickets in a row and not winning, something is wrong.

Somebody needs to wake the Indiana lottery commission up

i agree.. NO MORE COMPUTER DRAWS....

ping pong balls only..

Hooiser lottery if you read this get into the act...

Isn't it ironic that states that go computerized always say it's more "cost effective."

yeah cost effective for not having to pay someone, but look at the downside.. players hate computerized and the revenue goes down down down... i hope ncel never goes to computerized drawings.... i would never win

They wont listen. They are saving $80,000 a year by doing RNG but will accept a $40 million loss in revenue and blame it on the economy to keep the fraudulent RNG because they get to keep more money for themselves.

And they have had so many powerball winners.  Many more than Wisconsin.

Don't then get anything????

I know that the states collect taxes...

MarkP

Stick to real ball drawings to gain back people's trust. Also give out more prizes, to gain sales. It takes money to make money, for lottery, litterally.

I wonder what TN's will be?  I know they have lost a lot of players.

Hoosier Lottery should take a clue from the Georgia Lottery which has televised live ball drop draws every draw.  When players see actual drawings they have greater confidence in game integrity therefore spend more.

Lotteries are one of those entities where you have to spend money on live ball draws to demonstrate complete transparency and honesty.

Clear argument for people believing what they see, distrusting what they can not.

They need to go down hill,because,i have been play 111 for six years and it has never hit,the last time it hit was march of 2003,thats pretty bad and the odds are nt right,they also have a lot of repeat number,396 fell three times in just one month,they need to go back to the live balls ,or they are going to lose more players vjohnson8

I AGREE THE SCHATCH OFF TICKETS ARE A JOKE,YOU SPEND A DOLLAR,THEY WONT GIVE YOU ANYTHING BACK ,GREED STATE,VERY SELFISH   VJOHNSON8

Imagine that,yes Tennessee will finally either drop off the map,or get another CEO to run it.Until then (AS SHE QUOTED I DONT MAKE YOU PLAY)  Until then....That's funny.

It's been a while since I've had anything to do with the Hoosier Lottery, but if I remember correctly, they switched to an electronic drawing format for all their games sometime in 2001. According to their CPA/ Internal Auditor, a man named Joe Pfister, their first RNG was downloaded from a now-defunct web site called Lottery.com. That simple code was then uploaded to two 486 desktops (is anyone here old enough to remember those?) which served as our "official draw machines" for the next two years. One of them was housed, stored and used at the offices of Scientific Games near the Indianapolis airport, and the other was installed at Hoosier Lottery Headquarters downtown.

"Mister Pfister" told LosingJeff and I that switching to an RNG was actually William Foreman's idea (yes - THAT William Foreman, of the scratch-off ticket scandal), and that the Hoosier Lottery saved $80,000 per year with the new technology. According to their 2001 annual report, however, they LOST $100 MILLION in sales AND revenue during the first year of its operation. In 2002, they began earnestly promoting their "But We Have Integrity" campaign, and ran television commercials and full-page ads in newspapers all over the state assuring players that the RNG was a more secure method of drawing their numbers. We were unable to ascertain exactly how much they had spent running these ads, but we were pretty sure the cost would have exceeded $80,000.

Every year since, they've reported a decline in revenue, but somehow managed to boast of record sales in the same breath. I never could figure out how that works, exactly, but they have their own way of doing math down there. $2 + $2, for example, = $2, because two of those dollars aren't really there, see? Well, they WERE there, but those two dollars go to the state, so you can't really count them as part of our revenue. Yes, we sold a LOT of tickets, but the tickets we sold carried a smaller-than-average profit margin, and that was eaten up in printing costs, which is probably what happened to the two dollars of revenue you're currently trying to find. Yes, it's true that our sales totaled $800 million this year, but you're losing sight of the big picture; by using the RNG and not airing live drawings as state laws require, we SAVED $80,000, and that's called "fiscal responsibility!"

LosingJeff and I heard this type of "logic" used over and over again during the course of our four-year investigation of the Hoosier Lottery. Three different law firms told us that the 1600 pages of verifiable evidence we had collected "was probably sufficient to convict on at least three federal RICO predicates (Wire Fraud, Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud and Misappropriation/ Conversion of Public Funds). None would have anything to do with filing suits or charges, though, because, they said, "The state house can make it very difficult for us to make a living." When we took our evidence to the FBI in Indianapolis, we were escorted from the building and warned not to come back under threat of arrest (I know - but it's true), and a state police car followed us out of town.

If you want to see for yourself what they're doing and how they're doing it, just check their Daily Game payouts on the Hoosier Lottery web site. You'll see a LOT of zeroes, especially in the Daily-3 and Daily-4 games. Then, compare those payouts with those of ANY other state with lesser populations than Indiana, such as Delaware or South Carolina, who often pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to winners of identical games. On a slow day, winners in those states claim mere tens of thousands in prize money, but their lotteries' payouts are NEVER "zero," as the Hoosier Lottery most often reports. The ONLY way they can pull this off with demonstrated consistency is to continually draw the number with the LEAST amount of play. The Hoosier Lottery is the ONLY lottery in the country without mandated liability limits, and they're also the ONLY lottery in the country which actively tracks player selections and bet amounts AS THE TICKETS ARE BEING SOLD. What's most disturbing is the fact that the Hoosier Lottery is exempt from state accounting or auditing procedures, so they've never been audited by the state in their entire history of operation.

Maybe their crooked practices are finally catching up to them.

Jim

Glad you posted to this thread. You should check the comments on the actual story on the indy channel website. Search lottery. They are pulling negative comments pretty fast though, including 5-7 of my comments.

There is a guy who used to work for the lottery who is giving lots of false info there. He did say he has a friend who just won $10,000 on a scratcher, which "proves" the indiana lottery isnt rigged. Imagine that, a lottery worker who's friend won 10K...

I would hope that this would be a wake up call for states who are computerized, but I know they see nothing wrong with RNG, so they will continue to use them.

Thanks for the heads-up, vistaguy - I'm reading some of them now.

The guy "who used to work for the lottery" is probably Andrew Reed, Hoosier Lottery Spokesman, official Spin Doctor and one of the biggest pathological liars the state of Indiana has ever produced.

The Hoosier Lottery administration has changed several times over the years but, somehow, Mr. Reed is the ONLY one who managed to keep his job; everyone else was replaced every time a new director was installed. Mr. Reed insists that that the Hoosier Lottery's liability limit for their Daily Games is $2 million, but he can't point to the statute which mandates it, because it's entirely imaginary. ALL other state lotteries have mandated statutory liability limits. The Hoosier Lottery instead prefers to actively track player selections as they're being sold. This enables them to select the numbers with the least amount of play, and to ensure that they don't have to pay any winners in those games.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that there were 288 Daily-3 numbers which haven't been drawn since July, 2000. LosingJeff and I painstakingly researched this in 2004 by going through every single drawing for the previous four years. I still have the list somewhere in our files, but it would appear there's really no reason to update it. That essentially removes almost 30% of the 1,000 possible combinations, and increases the likelihood of "zero" payouts in their Daily-3 game.

Indiana residents actually have a better chance of winning something in the PowerBall game than they do in the Hoosier Lottery's Daily-3 game. I won $860 in last Wednesday's PowerBall drawing, thanks to Steve Player and OpCom, Inc. (after two days, I finally gave up trying to post images of my tickets). In fact, Indiana has more PowerBall jackpot winners than any other state, which actually paints a pretty bleak picture of how things are done in Indianapolis. Most people would find it truly amazing that our legisature hasn't launched their own investigation, but the Hoosier Lottery is an open cookie jar full of cash for our senators, representatives and other state officials, because they're not required to account for how they spend any money they take out.

Sounds like we all need to boycott computerized states and buy in ball states if possible. It would also help if everyone would contact those states and let them know WHY they're boycotting. I will now travel 25 miles to VA. and stop buying in TN. except for Powerball. I will let TN. know about it too.

vOTE WITH YOUR DOLLARS.   only buy from real drawing states and not  fake ones

Idaho must be following in the footsteps of Indiana. from what you have explained, Idaho is following lockstep with Indiana. Many days of not only Pic3 but this new game of the Double Draw game as well as Wild card are all rigged.

 They also have no external auditing of these games.

     rdgrnr:

     I'm proud to be able to say that I haven't bought a single Hoosier Lottery ticket since 2003, except for PowerBall tickets. I still play that game because it's drawn mechanically in another state (Florida), well out of reach of the hopelessly corrupt Hoosier Lottery.

     We've talked about boycotts before, but most people have trouble overcoming the fear that their numbers will come up if they don't play. They'll root for the rest of us as they head to the store in their quest to give their money away, but generally they figure that if we're not playing, their chances of winning have just gone up significantly.

     I think it's ironic that Indiana has more PowerBall jackpot winners than any other state, and yet lottery players here are unable to crack the Hoosier Lottery's Daily-3 game. I find it even more ironic that investigative reporters from around the country aren't looking into this mathematical anomaly. Joe Pfister told us there are two reasons Delaware and South Carolina pay out so much money for their daily games: 1). "... because those states have a more affluent population than Indiana" (translation: "too many poor people live here") and, 2). "Delaware and South Carolina have more border states than Indiana has, and therefore they get more out-of-state lottery players." I'm guessing Joe didn't do well in geography class, because he seemed a little confused when we explained that the eastern borders of both states abut the Atlantic Ocean.

     Good for you, rdgrnr. Fifty miles is a long way to drive just to make a statement. That you're willing to do it speaks volumes about your commitment to our cause, though, and I hope you win Virginia's next jackpot.

     That'll show 'em!

how have you been jim?   hope losingjeff is doing good.i remember us all having these discussions years ago and at the time i never thought tennessee would end up doing the RNG but they did.we had one of the best lotteries in the nation the first couple years and then the bottom fell out.i haven't bought a lottery ticket here since february of 2007 almost three years ago.hey jim did you hear about the new arkansas lottery?    they are going to be RNG drawn.

if Indiana lotto continues to be  bad,   then if you live near border, play border state. if not, play online   like that betslips  thing.

No surprise here. I was very skeptical of this lottery before I knew the drawings were computerized. I originally began purchasing scratchers and like previously said, I would buy 10 or 20 and not win once; while the odds were 1:4. Sure enough, I emailed them and was told that 1 in 4 tickets printed were winners, but players were not guaranteed to win every 4 tickets. I realize the tickets are distributed to many vendors, but the tickets are printed in runs, so theoretically you should win every 4 tickets.

I also support the fact that the hoosier lottery drawings ARE rigged. Anytime financial downfall is reported for a town such as Elkhart, the jackpot mysteriously shows up there. This has happened MANY times. Elkhart and Connorsville are the most recent if I recall. I'll put my money on the powerball, not some rigged lottery system that doesn't pay out.

I think someone posted, long ago, that if you did a 'workout' on the numbers, they would fall in the drawing -- unless you actually played them.

No way to really test that across many states to confirm if it really happens in some places, or just feels that way after you've collected a pile of losing tickets.

even if you buy 10-20  scratchers and not win once,   doesn't mean there odd isn't 1 in 4.   If they say 1 in 4 are winners,  1 in 4 are winners, could be  in another  stretch,   10 winners in a row.

other than pb and scratch,  we should avoid computer draws and only play the ball drawings