I’ve posted warning after warning through the years here on the blog about scammers who want nothing more than to separate you from your hard-earned money. The scammers have used the names of lottery games, lottery officials and even lottery winners to try to get you to believe them.
Now there’s a new warning about scams, and this time, the reminder comes from the Federal Trade Commission. If you get a letter saying that you won a sweepstakes and the FTC has investigated the situation to help you claim the prize, guess what? It’s fake. Don’t fall for it!
When you have a moment, visit the Player Security section on our website where we keep all sorts of reminders about how to protect yourself against fraud.
Hi, Patrick. Just to clarify some of the points raised in your email, there are multiple layers of security involved in lotteries and lottery drawings, with the various safeguards designed to ensure that no one person has all of the keys to the kingdom. There isn't a central system that assigns the numbers that are printed on lottery tickets -- when you choose the easy-pick option, the numbers that ultimately are printed on your ticket are randomly generated by the terminal in that location. And, each lottery has its own computer system. So, for example, we don't have data relating to the tickets printed in Nebraska or Minnesota, and vice versa. In addition, the equipment that is used to issue tickets is separate from the equipment used in lottery drawings. And as you have pointed out, ball-drawing machines are used in the Powerball and Mega Millions games. I've blogged before about the extensive security involved in lottery drawings themselves. To review that information, click here:http://www.ialotteryblog.com/2008/11/the-security-be.html
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | May 06, 2015 at 03:32 PM
With Powerball & Mega Millions coming from generated computer software that keeps track of all commination's and location's of sequences printed out for each pick date. You have a software program that can tabulate commination's that have not been picked for a pick date. This gives the lottery the ability to alter fair odds or even a choice of who wins through the weight, size, and magnetics of the balls at any pick conducted. Knowing corruption has become the foundation of our country, like our electronic vote, corruption exist where corruption is possible. So who that cannot be corrupted, keeps this from happening?
Posted by: Patrick | May 04, 2015 at 12:30 PM