I'm curious to know how many pre-test draws in the pick 3 and 4 games are normal?  NC have 3 pre-test draws before the draw.  The 4th is the draw and they do another one after that and said that if things didn't look right they will do another one.  Is that normal?  How many pre-test draws are normal.

How do Pretest draws affect the actual drawing ???

Texas has 4 pre-tests  before each drawing.

     I don't know how you'd define what's "normal," but the number of pre-test and post-test drawings performed is entirely up to the lottery director in each state. As an engineer, I'd think one pre-test draw and one post-test draw would be sufficient to ensure the machines are working properly. PowerBall also performs three pre-test draws and another one after the actual prize drawing, so in that respect I suppose one could say the schedule you've outlined is normal.

     Personally, I think they do it just to throw off system players. Many times, especially in the Daily Games, the numbers predicted will come up in the test drawings. I've noticed this phenomenon in several states that publish their test draws, including North Carolina. Just two years ago, most state lotteries performed only two test draws, one before the prize drawing and another one after, so the practice is fairly recent.

I could not find the pretest information, do they post it?

What they do is rotten.

A game can be fixed in that way.

Keep on doing pretests until a number that few people bought comes out.

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4 Pretests before the draw is bad enough, there should not be any more pretests after the "actual" draw.

I guess there is no such thing as an actual draw anymore.

Texas

funny thing is that a few triples we are expecting show up on the pre-test

I don't think there should be any test draws prior to the official draw.

They can prove the balls or machine isn't fixed with additional draws after the official draw. I would have more faith in a system like that.

so you would want to get in on the fix!

you wouldn't mind having them black out the drawing when the machine fails to work for some reason. Then they draw the balls off the air and broadcast the numbers on their website. Yea i bet people would jump for joy for that.

If 333 showed up in three pre test draws, the official draw and the after draw then there could possibly be ball or machine tampering going on.

 There's nothing normal about any amount of pre-tests. What a scam this is. I've said this a thousand times. It's just a ploy to throw off the natural flow of numbers.

 The crap about making sure the machine is working properly is rediculous. If a machine is going to break down, it'll break down no matter how many times you pre-test it. In fact, they are aiding the breakdown by conducting multiple pretests every day, sometimes twice a day.

 There is no such thing as perpetual motion, meaning, no machine that has moving parts will run forever because of wear and tear. So effectively what they're doing is speeding up the wear and tear process.

 I'd be very intersted to see the stats showing how many times they've actually had a machine break down during a test, in order to show the effectiveness of pretesting. I'm willing to bet the machine breakdown frequency is equivalent to the number of times a bull goes sky diving on Fridays. 

There would be evidence of ball or machine tampering if 333 came up repeatedly before or after the drawing. Ideally, there should be a standard maintained by all states to instill confidence in the game. It's highly doubtful anyone would tamper either way (with test draws before or after). The dadgum machine ain't nothing but a blower and a bunch of ping pong balls. What is there to break down?   

I hope this is not becoming a common practice.   Too bad there is not a cap of how many pre-test/post draws can be performed.

On  numerous occasions the Maryland's ball machines lottery failed to turn on. Several times the ball didn't pop up possibly a vacuum problem once some idiot behind the pick 3 machine stepped on the electric cord and the plug pulled out of the socket.

I'm sure on many instances this happened in other states as well or something similar I've seen You-tube vids of a ball completely flying out of the machine..

It is pretty much an industry standard in all states that use balls to conduct pre tests.

The tests are recorded via a tape for the auditors of the states games. This record is archived.

All the security measures involved in processing the drawings are implemented to thwart tampering. That don't mean some idiot or idiots wouldn't try it.

I've always been opposed to pre-tests.  Anything can go wrong before or during the drawing.   I don't think having pre-tests is a ploy, but I do believe they throw off the randomness of the game.  Randomness is supposed to be objective & unpredictable.  So, by running tests to make sure the unpredictable doesn't happen, they take away the randomness.

Losers see their numbers come up in one of the pretest drawings and think they might have won if that drawing had been official and the winners are glad the pretest drawings weren't the official drawing.

Odds are if a pick3 player watched 4 or 5 drawings pretest or official and plays 10 lines, all of the numbers in one of his lines are likely to be in one of the drawings 20-30% of the time.

This is something I have wondered myself. It may sound paranoid, but is there any real way to prove that nothing is being rigged at all in these games? 

I mean, how could any of us truly be able to know whether or not our local state lotteries have computers setup that they turn to before each drawing, which comb through all the combinations purchased, and then display the combinations that were purchased the least, which ones weren't purchased at all, or better yet...determine the winning combination that would result in the most profit for the state and the least profit to the players?

For instance, my state lets you search through their database to see if "your combination" has ever won in the past. Would it really be that difficult to record all of the search queries that are entered each day and then make sure they do not hit?

On the other hand, lately the pick 5 game down here has had several drawings in November that produced 5 or more jackpot winners. And this pick 5 game runs every day. That somewhat calms my fears of being a sucker for playing, but that does not necessarily mean that they made any more or less money "by allowing" 5 - 8 players to all hit the jackpot.

This just made me realize that if you want to work hard on a system to win the Pick5, Pick6 or Powerball you got to look at the pre-test drawings...Something that was right infront of me and i never paid it any attention...

You know something else the state lottery can do which is SO SIMPLE and they dont have to track every combination that each player makes?Want to know what is it?

They can simple change slightly the information that's on their website, slightly change the drawings that's on their website with that i dont care who you are in the world you will "NEVER WIN"....

Again they treat us like hackers...

This is something else i believe they can do...I believe they can have a "CLONED" DRAWINGS that they can automatically feed to their website with the press of a button...And i believe they can track a particular person whereabouts, like the links they check everywhere you go and if they know you are going to their particular website they can sort of hold your link for a couple of seconds and then introduce their "CLONED AND FAKE DRAWINGS" into their website it will only take a few seconds or microseconds and then when you go your computer goes slower they feed what they wanted YOU SPECIFICALLY to see and this way you alone have faked drawings...YOU WILL NEVER WIN....Remember they got phones that can automatically put you on hold....

Again the lottery is a cartel...And yet you are paying your taxes and you are VOLUNTEERING TO DONATE YOUR DOLLAR...

I've seen some discrepancies on their websites but i dont say a thing...

You make good points. However, If they have nothing to hide, why not publish the the rotation of the tubes and pre-test results? Sounds reasonably fair to me.

It'll never happen because I know their intentions. I don't care what anyone says. On just about every state's lottery website, you can find a ton of info about the draw numbers, and a lot of other info. How hard can it possibly be for them to add the pre-test and rotation info to the existing information? I'll answer the question for you. Not very hard at all !

I don't buy it for a second.

Speaking about pre-test in Texas. Winning number can be pulled from the pretest in Texas if they would only post  in time before draw break. Right now in Texas, it is 12:13 and draw break is 12:15 and no pre test posted.

A good argument could be made by the lottery is their procedures are their intellectual property and not to be disclosed. Since they admit to changing tubes and holding pre draws and after draws their admitting to the public that they conduct these things be in accordance with whatever by laws they have in their proprietary contract.

Well maybe they shouldn't hide behind fancy "law' jargon and supposed contract obligations and just cut the crap. The people aren't stupid, well, atleast the astute ones.

As far as the lottery data for pre-test draws and tube rotation being too big to contain, well.....write them down on paper with a pencil. That should take about....mmmmmmm.....45 seconds? I have a strange feeling an experienced site manager can easily insert that data somewhere on some page on the lottery site despite the difficult picture that you paint.

You speak about how the pre-tests info wouldn't be useful to me because I wouldn't have enough time to go to the store. I know they won't do this, but they should do the pre-tests and the tube rotations about an hour prior to the actual draw. Wishful thinking I know. I actually win more often with tracking. But I have to have even more info. In fact, my motto has always been that if I knew all that info, my winning percentage would greatly increase.

I agree with you totally.  That is my thoughts exactly.  And I am steaming about this that I can't even express it.  I do workouts, spreadsheets, everything I can think of and this explains why its always a number off.  You don't have a true statistic because you don't know what the actual follow up number was.  Now it seems like VA is not the same.

Exactly, my spreadsheet is heavily relying on stats and with the true results not being published all my stat work in no good.  The due number or most frequent number have probably hit in the fake draw.

Then i suggest you get tight with someone that works for the lottery everybody knows somebody that knows somebody that works somewhere. Like where i get my numbers a representative comes to the place once or twice a month sometimes in the mornings sometimes in the afternoon and sometimes in the evening this lottery representative also visits every lottery retailer in our district. I make it a point to pump this person for all the inside info i can get when i am there when they are.

Who says they don't keep track of the pre test draws i said they are recorded they are cataloged for the auditor and they are filmed. They are on file and you can request the info you seek either by calling them or emailing them for that info.

Our local office is about 15 miles from my house if i was so inclined to be acquainted with a lottery personal i would hang out where they get breakfast lunch or dinner since most of them put in 12 hour shifts or more better than that i would go straight to the lottery claim center where the drawings are held and do the tour pump everybody that works there for every bit of info i could.

If you want your state lottery to do something to please you do something about it countering all my input won't solve anything.

They aren't going to change there procedures to please you by doing pre test draws far enough in advance to please you.

The person who updates the numbers on Md lottery website is the lowest paid job there. The person whom is the webmaster isn't in charge of inputing the numbers data he/she is in charge of the website in general for its graphics and features.

TX post the pretests at least 1 hour before the drawing. The last time I checked the site before a drawing the pretests were posted in advance. Anything less than 30 minutes is no good for me.