don't discard those losing lottery tickets

Are lottery games based on ping pong balls more reliably random than computer RNGs? Of course not. But only if the computer is programmed properly. And the contrarian could argue that the ping pong ball machines are only reliably random if the balls are of identical weight/size (as depicted in that John Travolta/Lisa Kudrow movie), and have had enough time in the air chamber to mix thoroughly. Either way, savvy gamblers should avoid the game because the odds suck. But if you're going to play the game, save your losing tickets.

From the August 2011 issue of Harper's magazine: "In 1998, the Arizona lottery began using a computerized system for the Pick 3 game. A Chandler woman named Ruth Wennerlund always picked the same three digits, 9-0-7 (her son was born on September 7). After a month under the new system, she noticed something peculiar: the number 9 had never been drawn. She called the Arizona Lottery to complain. They told her that she was merely unlucky. A few days later the Lottery announced that a glitch in their random-number generator had prevented any 9s from being chosen. The thousands of people who had played the tickets with the number 9 were offered refunds-- but only if they had kept their losing ticket stubs."

A glitch ? as in they programmed the code correctly and some other 'event' got in the way ?

yeah right!

I got a better statement. "Our programmer sucked, and only allowed the code to pick digits 0 through 8. "

Some innocent looking code like



gets you numbers 0..8.

Quote: reno

A Chandler woman named Ruth Wennerlund always picked the same three digits, 9-0-7 (her son was born on September 7). After a month under the new system, she noticed something peculiar: the number 9 had never been drawn. She called the Arizona Lottery to complain. They told her that she was merely unlucky.

Since they only draw Pick 3 in AZ once a day, she also could have been unlucky. Going 30 consecutive draws without a 9 in a random game is (0.9)^90 = 1 in 13,127. The Wiz would have brushed her off too. A 9 showed up on the 33rd draw. Then they went on a 6 week hiatus of drawing soon after that according to: http://www.us-lotteries.com/Arizona/Pick_3/

Sounds like 3 digits / day?

Quote: reno

as depicted in that John Travolta/Lisa Kudrow movie

Reading up on the Pennsylvania scandal that the Travolta movie is based on, it becomes clear that it took 6 people (including a crooked lottery official and multiple TV station employees) to carry out the ping pong ball conspiracy. Compare that to the Arizona lottery fiasco which was probably just a case of poorly written software and not a deliberate attempt at fraud.

With enough checks and balances, (and video surveillance) ping pong ball fraud can be prevented. I think it's more likely that a future computer programmer will accidentally write lousy code. In other words, I think ping pong ball lotteries are the safer bet.

An ethical lottery system should never keep unclaimed or money from tickets like these which had no possibility of winning. Give it back to the players through a random drawing or sweepstakes.