The case files

Nine times the lottery was beaten, misread, or recorded wrong.

Not systems, not theories, not numerology. Documented cases in which somebody genuinely took money out of a lottery or caught somebody else doing it — with what really happened, and the arithmetic that made it work, playable. Plus two nights the machine behaved perfectly and everybody misread it, and one record this site got wrong for years.

Pennsylvania, United States · 24 April 1980convicted

The Night They Painted the Balls

A trusted announcer, white latex paint, and eight possible outcomes on live television.

Weighted balls Ontario, Canada · 2006investigated; reforms followed

The Statistician Who Smelled a Rat

Fewer than sixty insider wins were expected. There were more than two hundred.

Detection by arithmetic Virginia, United States · 15 February 1992no illegality found

The Man Who Bought the Lottery

Seven million combinations, printed in advance, and a jackpot worth four times the cost.

Buying the whole space Massachusetts, United States · 2005–2011no illegality found

The Couple, the Students, and the Broken Game

A capped jackpot spilled downward, and for a few days every ticket was worth more than it cost.

Reading the rulebook Multi-state, United States · 2005–2017convicted

The Man Inside the Machine

The security director wrote the code that drew the numbers, and taught it to forget.

Poisoned generator Ontario, Canada · 2011reported, not exploited

The Geologist Who Told

He could pick winning scratch cards without scratching them. He phoned the lottery.

Found a flaw, reported it South Africa · 1 December 2020no illegality found

The Night the Balls Counted to Ten

Five, six, seven, eight, nine — and the powerball was ten. Twenty people shared the jackpot, and the machine had done nothing unusual at all.

A crowd on one line United States · 30 March 2005no illegality found

One Hundred and Ten Second Prizes

Powerball’s security team went looking for a fraud and found a biscuit factory in Queens.

A crowd on one line This database · 2010 – 2026a record, corrected

The Game That Had No PowerBall

For sixteen years South Africa’s PowerBall arrived here without its powerball, and everything in the pipeline reported success.

Provenance

Nine ways the lottery was beaten, misread, or quietly recorded wrong. Zero involved patterns in past draws.

Every one of them changed the machine, read the rulebook, bought the whole field, or did arithmetic somebody else had neglected. Not one of them studied past draws for a pattern, because there is no pattern in past draws to study — which is what the rest of this site is for.