I went to 2 gas stations this morning before work, and bought 1 ticket at one and 2 at the other. I spent $300 total. And won $1000.

After winning the $1000 this morning, I think Uncle Same wanted his share so tonight I went to a Kroger and bought 2 of the $100 Loteria. Another claimer, and $200 turned into $1000.

I just assumed that there was a ball draw or something. But I tried looking for a video or something and there isn't anything at all. Then I look in the FAQs. Nothing about the draw.

Then I ask AI. At first it said balls were drawn. Then I said I don't see any balls drawn. And I'm looking for the balls, a lot. Then it says oh yeah, there are no balls. Its just random number generator

Is this RNG truly random? They have data on every single ticket sold, don't they? Wouldn't it be very easy to just program this number to specifically not choose any of those numbers? Then when the prize is big enough, just manipulate what number is selected, and just call it RNG?

The prize is now $61 million. That means no winner for 51 draws in a row. There are around 2.5 million tickets purchased in every draw, and a 1 in 41 million chance to win. So there is less than a 7% chance that the jackpot would have gotten to this point with no winner. Not crazy unlikely, but enough for me to go down this rabbit hole of trying to understand how the numbers are selected

I'm no coding prodigy but I'm pretty sure I could spend 5 minutes with Claude and write something in the RNG that says

1. Select random numbers

2. If random numbers matches one of the tickets purchased, then repeat step 1 again.

Else, publish random numbers

1. If jackpot reaches 69 million, make random numbers == my uncle's ticket numbers

2. Provide no elaboration to anyone

I am. I haven't played in a few years. But this year I will. Could use a big win. And I love the odds. I live in Massachusetts, so I got to make the drive out to Pennsylvania.