back to article Lottery chief resigns as winning combo numbers appear on screen BEFORE being drawn

Aleksandar Vulovic, czar of the Serbian state lottery, has resigned from his position after winning numbers were mysteriously broadcast on television before they had been drawn. Allegations of fraud abound on every hand following the incident, reports the Associated Press. In what was presented to the public as a live …

  1. Rono666

    Stupids play now

    Anyone who plays the lottery after this needs a stupid test as well all know it's rigged..

    1. JonW

      Re: Stupids play now

      I guess it improves your odds a bit if you're properly connected...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stupids play now

      the 'novel' SPYCATCHER alleged that UK government often manipulated ERNiE's premium bond payout system in order to pay someone off-the-books

      plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Spycatcher

        Yeah well, Spycatcher's lost a lot of credibility now Snowden has revealed much of the truth about what the intelligence services say they do vs what the intelligence services actually do.

        s/lost/gained. Better now?

      2. Jim 59

        Re: Stupids play now

        Anyone wishing to hide payment "off the books" could hardly pick a worse choice than rigging premium bonds, which provide a clear and very public audit trail leading straight to the "winner". The plan would also require a large number of people to be in the conspiracy, with the accompanying large risk of one of them talking or blackmailing.

  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

    He drove off in a DeLorean.

    Generally these affairs are under permanent inspection by "independent auditors". Not so here?

    Come back, Tito!

    1. xperroni
      Thumb Up

      Re: He drove off in a DeLorean.

      When you were alive I walked on two legs. Now I walk on one.

      Come back, father Tito, and end this nightmare.

    2. Mark 85

      Re: He drove off in a DeLorean.

      Re-read the last line of the article.. the quote from AP. I have some friends living there and they say that is quite true. Very little coming out of any government officials mouth can be trusted much of what is supposedly be done is smoke and mirrors.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        How very different from the home life of our own dear...

        I'm glad I don't live someplace where you can't implicitly trust what government officials say.

  3. I am David Jones

    From the video it looked like the 27 was drawn and the number 21 flashed up on the screen. That could be down to a simple misreading of the 7 as a 1. That the 21 was drawn next could then have been down to unfortunate coincidence.

    1. Oliver Mayes

      Or perhaps like a lot of 'live' TV there was a delay of a minute or two between filming and broadcast, and the person adding the graphics got out of sync by a few seconds.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No, 21 appeared on screen around 32 seconds before the ball was drawn. More likely is it was a co-incidence and mistake as 27 and 21 may have looked similar to the graphics.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        out of sync

        No, if you watch the video you can clearly see there's some confusion during the procedure with the draw and the graphics on screen. This wasn't a simple case of the graphics being added out of sync to the broadcast.

        I think the "27 initially misread as 21, then the unfortunate coincidence of the 21 actually arriving" theory above seems about right. It looks too hard to fake it with that machine so you could only fake it with tv editing therefore non-live and they wouldn't have messed up the captioning.

        I feel sorry for the guy who had to quit, definitely NOT a conspiracy this one...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: out of sync

          "I feel sorry for the guy who had to quit, definitely NOT a conspiracy this one..."

          Perhaps he quit because of the investigation that this has sparked off -- there may be a whole lot of skeletons just behind the door.

    2. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      "...down to unfortunate coincidence."

      Not to mention that the air blown balls machine is transparent and I can't see how that could be reliably faked. Not without crossing the line into bizarre conspiracy theories. Given that the police seized everything, they'll find any CGI files.

      The 27 misread as 21 and the 21 being a bad coincidence is the most likely explanation. It's unusual, but this doesn't happen every day. It's a cognitive bias to reject the unlikely, replacing it with the even more unlikely.

      1. Tom 13

        Re: how that could be reliably faked

        Actually it is fairly easy if you have access to the machine, just not immediately obvious. You use latex paint to weight most of the balls so they won't be drawn. In 1980 scammers managed to "win" the Pennsylvania Daily Lottery drawing with the number 666 by using this technique.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Pennsylvania_Lottery_scandal

        1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

          Re: how that could be reliably faked

          While such a trick may affect the weight and therefore probability of certain balls being "picked", it's unlikely to also affect the order in which they were picked unless you managed quite a distinction in the weights and therefore quite a high weight at one end of the scale - which ought to be obvious.

        2. auburnman

          Re: how that could be reliably faked

          Wouldn't that be fairly obvious to spot during the actual draw? If you manipulate the majority of the balls so that they won't be selected, surely the draw would be noticeably longer while everyone waits for the 'correct' balls to be 'randomly' selected.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lie Detectors

    Do they really work? You can be trained to beat it. So only reality TV shows and the USA believe in them. Might as well roll some dice to work out if someone is telling the truth.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Alert

      Re: Lie Detectors

      Yes, they absolutely work.

      And I'm willing to take a Lie Detector Test to prove that I really do have a bridge for sale...

    2. Bob Vistakin
      Facepalm

      Re: Lie Detectors

      These prove their worth.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lie Detectors

      Nah, they don't work at all - I lump them together with such things as dowsing / acupuncture / organic food.

      A US gov employee I'm acquainted with tells me that they still use them when they renew employees' access levels (in the more sensitive departments).*

      I suspect it's more of a psychological game than anything: a good interrogator will get the truth out of people with clever questioning. The detector, the wires, and the protocol around it are probably just there to intimidate.

      *take that as you will: remember this is only a semi-anonymous internet comment!

      1. Roq D. Kasba

        Re: Lie Detectors

        Placebos - if you believe they work, if you appreciate the theatre of wires, tubes, rolling graphs, five questions at a time, you'll be more likely to tell the truth. But it's theatre, much like airport security.

      2. Pookietoo

        Re: dowsing / acupuncture / organic food

        Except acupuncture works ... did you perhaps mean homeopathy?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lie Detectors

      Not only do they not work but there is evidence that innocent peopel ar emor elikely to show up as lieing through nerves than experienced liars.

      What is measured is physiological stress. The hope is that this is correlated to lying but in all but one special case there is no evidence it works and lots that it does not. If you ask anyone a loaded question such as did you murder/rape/steal/defraud etc people show stress.

      The only time it can work is if you ask a question that only the guilty prty knows is significant and if the operator of the polygraph also does not know it is significant. If teh polygraph then records a significant physiological change for taht question it is reasonabel to infer the person being tested at least knew the question was significant. This is basically never how it is used, because is is hard to do so, and it is generally a modern form of trial by ordeal, complete nonsense.

    5. Tom 13

      Re: Lie Detectors

      Depends on what you mean by "really work".

      For the most part they do reliably detect whether or not you are nervous about answering the question. Of course discerning exactly why you were nervous is a whole other question.

      Also, the notable exception to their reliability are sociopaths. They'll pretty much pass any lie detector test you give them, or fail if they think that's the optimal path.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This:

    "will have to undergo a lie detector test"

    thereby futher obfuscationg the truth...

    Anyone with an ounce of life can see this is a fraud...

  6. Crisp

    Lottery employees who worked during the draw will have to undergo a lie detector test

    Really?

    Why not just throw them into a pond to see if they float?

    1. Tromos
      Joke

      Re: Lottery employees who worked during the draw will have to undergo a lie detector test

      How about throwing 50 into a pond, then pulling 7 out?

    2. TitterYeNot
      Coat

      Re: Lottery employees who worked during the draw will have to undergo a lie detector test

      "Why not just throw them into a pond to see if they float?"

      Ahem, how quaintly medieval. As anyone who understands the scientific method knows, they must be placed on a pair of scales to see if they weigh the same as a duck.

      Dona eis requiem. <Thunk>

  7. xperroni
    Facepalm

    Killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

    I've always thought there was no point in running a rigged lottery, since the prize is already a tiny fraction of the money paid by punters, and the loss of trust (and hence bets) should any such scheme ever be uncovered would far outstrip any possible gains.

    I guess there I was again expecting humans to be sensible?

    1. Joey M0usepad Silver badge

      Re: Killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

      Indeed , ive always meant to get into the gambling business. As Mr. Burns put it (re casinos) " The perfect business, people come in , empty their pockets and leave"

      Lottery is the most efficient way of relieving idiots of cash.

      Casino a close second..

      but bookie - where the odds change constantly - that looks like hard work!

    2. fandom

      Re: Killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

      The government running the lottery certainly doesn't want it rigged, but other people may very well want to do it

      1. Roq D. Kasba

        Re: Killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

        Actually, fixed-odds machines (video fruities, roulette, etc) are far more efficient than the lottery. The lottery is encumbered by the play period (weekly) as opposed to being able to take £20 bets every 20 seconds. It's the churn rate that fucks you up, not the return rate. Casinos also have a much slower churn, so slower lose rate than fixed-odds. It's hard to lose £1000/week at the lottery, trivial on fixed-odds.

    3. Tom 13

      Re: Killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

      Depends on who is rigging the lottery. Certainly there's no logic to it from the State's perspective. But if you're not the state, I can see someone thinking they might be able to rig it to win more than they would ever be paid for doing their job.

      In some places the solution to this is that if you work for the agency running the lottery, you can't play the game(s).

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Killing the goose that lays the golden egg?

      Most lotteries are rigged - the UK one certainly is.

      For example: Almost every grandparent uses the DOB of the grandchildren for "their" lottery numbers. When there's a "Rollover", the drawn numbers are weighted to below 31, so that there will be a larger number of winners - they don't want one winner taking the £20m.

      There are many other manipulations used to get the required results. A quick and crude analysis of the distribution of drawn numbers makes the "adjustments" quite clear.

      There was a paper written in the late 80s about "promoting lotteries in risk-averse cultures" - look it up. It's very enlightening.

      AC because I used to work for a Lottery company!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Scratchcards ?

    Of course in the UK, it's possible to buy a scratchcard with no chance of winning, if all the prizes have been claimed (surprised no one has used "big data" to aggregate all scratchcard wins to advise on which range of scratchcards have the best odds of winning ....)

    1. auburnman

      Re: Scratchcards ?

      It's probably already been done, just not freely publicised. Someone will want to profit by either selling the info to gamblers or 'gaming' the scratch-card system themselves.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Scratchcards ?

      The National Lottery have a page on their website showing all available sratchcards and the number of top prizes remaining.

    3. DropBear
      Trollface

      Re: Scratchcards ?

      Oh, you better believe _some_ people donned their math hats before playing the lottery - and this is the (highly entertaining) story of what happens when even the lottery knows they've been "played" on an industrial scale for years on end, but goes along with it nevertheless...

    4. AlbertH

      Re: Scratchcards ? "Diagnosing" winning cards!

      There was a brilliant scratchcard scam that involved x-raying cards to find winning ones! A newsagent in London and his radiographer brother were convicted of this particular one.

      This led to the scratchcards being "metallised" to prevent them being x-rayed. It didn't work - you just need a slightly more precise x-ray unit!

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. frank ly

      Re: Lotteries and cheating them.

      "He decided he could only make $600 a day from this method, so he told the gaming commission."

      I'd be happy to do that for $300 a day.

  10. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Facepalm

    And in the UK...

    Didn't Derren Brown do this as a stunt?

    But the other way round.

    1. JimmyPage Silver badge

      Re: Derren Brown

      he did. And much as someone who has paid to see the hugely talented and entertaining Mr. Brown twice, I have to say the teardowns of how he (probably) did it were very insightful.

      There was one where a guy basically copied DB and posted a pic-in-pic video of him doing that.

      I think my biggest disappointment with DB was having to use some pathetic excuse about the numbers being "copyright" to explain why he couldn't reveal them to us plebs *before* the draw.

      The bottom line is it *was* camera fakery.

      1. Joey M0usepad Silver badge

        Re: Derren Brown

        yeah , the problem with that trick / illusion /whatever is that it inherently proves itself to be a trick because :

        a) as you say the "copyright bullshit excuse"

        b) he didnt buy and claim ticket

        Its akin to a magician saying 'what card have you got? 3 of clubs? yes, thast the one i was thinking of.'

  11. Valeyard

    but...

    there were actually no winning tickets, so the misread number seems the right explanation

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: but...

      They might have been building up a large rollover as the lottery boss is running out of distant relatives that haven't won yet.

      1. Valeyard

        Re: but...

        but why would you tell the graphics monkey?

        if the ball is going to be chosen according to what you want let the normal means of how it is read and appear on screen happen as normal

        "hey we can really use this cheating to cut out latency on the numbers being shown on screen by 0.3 seconds" doesn't seem like a risk someone would take..

  12. GitMeMyShootinIrons

    TV production note...

    Memo - Don't put Mystic Meg on the On Screen Graphics console again.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just wondering why you chose an image of a German lottery ticket as your large picture header for a story about the Serbian lottery?

  14. Zippy's Sausage Factory

    My guess is someone typed ahead, hit the wrong button... then needed new trousers as they realised their typo just got drawn...

  15. John Styles

    Scorchio!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hc8tm57vQs

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    undergo a lie detector test

    so, complete bunkum then.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sounds familiar....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hc8tm57vQs

  18. tony2heads

    Minority report

    one of the precogs messing around

  19. lukewarmdog

    graphics guy

    Why is there a graphics guy and not a tiny camera taking pictures of the numbers or even better yet just reading data off the balls via nfc or magnets or whatever technology these people have. They must have more technology than relying on a guy to type in the numbers onto the TV..

  20. Tezfair
    Stop

    Health lottery appears to use the same machine

    Or one very much like it.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In other news...

    Aleksandar Vulovic will be going on trial next week for corruption charges connected to this instance. According to a graphic on state TV, he has been found innocent.

  22. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    I'm sure it was fumble fingers plus coincidence.

    If you had the degree of control over the lottery needed to fake the machine ball pick (which, if it's to look like the real machine, is Mission Impossible level gadgetry) surely it's easier to enter a winning ticket in the database of entries retrospectively?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so it was working as designed

    the only problem was people *finding out* the numbers are known ahead of time. that's the "flaw" that will be solved by those in charge.

    as to the whole "how would they get the live video of the balls picked to line up with the graphic text?" question, the answer is simple:

    the video for that is prepared in advance as well.

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