South Carolina Lottery Slammed By Auditors

In the past, under the Disqus platform, when I raised the following questions my comments were deleted from FitNews. I got the feeling Fits, or one if its staff, was protecting SCEL from the questions I raised. Let’s try again.

Back around 2006, 2007, 2008, and perhaps a year or two before or after, SCEL’s CASH5 online game regularly produced winners of respectable prizes of between $100,000 and $500,000. It was not unheard of to see winners getting I one or more prizes of $100,000 or $200,000 in a week. Depending on the multiplier (Power Up Option), you might see regular prizes each month or two of $400,000 or $500,000. There would be at least a few $400,000 or $500,000 prizes each year. People did win decent prizes regularly and SCEL made good money for whatever purpose the proceeds went to.

Around 2008 or later, the guy whose name I forget, over SCEL, left SCEL for a similar job in Alabama. A woman was hired as his replacement. Almost immediately, she started greed-based changes. There was a SC specific online game, the name of which I forget, with a growing jackpot following each drawing where there was no jackpot winner. The final jackpot for this game was rather high, I believe $500,000 or more. The game was being discontinued as SCEL was bringing in a new online game that had a similar name and they wished to avoid confusion, as their story went. Conveniently, the last drawing resulted in no jackpot winner and instead of a second chance drawing or similar, SCEL under the woman’s “greedership” simply pocketed the jackpot.

Back to CASH 5; SCEL pulled several dirty tricks to take customers’ money and pay as little as possible out in winnings. Please bear in mind that CASH 5 was bringing in good money on 2006 and 2007 or they wouldn’t have kept it running as long as they did. One was taking the game from three days a week to seven. Let’s say you have $21 a week in your budget to spend on tickets to play CASH 5. With three drawings a week, you could buy seven sets of numbers (seven plays) each day there was a drawing. With seven plays on each of the three days, your odds of hitting a winning set of numbers per drawing were more than double what your odds would be by playing three plays or sets of numbers on each of seven days. But it gets worse.

I cannot prove this, but I know in my heart that somehow SCEL now manipulates the drawn numbers and multipliers for CASH 5 drawings. Back in and around 2007, there were quite a few $100,000 prizes each year. For the last seven or more years, there might at most be two, if that, in most years. I seem to recall at least one recent year with NO $100,000 prizes being awarded. IF a $100,000 CASH 5 prize is won, it is usually for a set of numbers with no multiplier selected (Power Up Option). On the exceedingly rare occasions that a multiplier (Power Up Option) is involved with a winning number, the multiplier is only 2, making the big prize $200,000. While there have been even much, much, rarer $300,000 prizes, prizes of $400,000 or $500,000 are mostly unheard of. Remember, back around 2006-2008, these were fairly common, at least once every 2-3 months or more often. When the exceedingly rare 4, 5, or 10, multipliers appear, there is no $100,000 jackpot for those drawings, meaning the winner of a game with a 10 multiplier won a whopping $3,000. I imagine computer technology has advanced to the level where in the 15 minute dead time, when no tickets are sold from 6:45 until the drawing, they can select or otherwise manipulate which numbered balls pop up in the drawing and minimize their losses, er, payouts to players. In any game of chance, obviously, the house must win most of the time. Otherwise there would be no reason for the house to provide the game. That said, SCEL was making good money before the new female boss introduced her brand of greedership to SCEL. She left the head position over a decade ago but remained as a board member for some time. Not sure if she is still affiliated with SCEL, but the spirit of abject greed she introduced to SCEL lives on.

I wish SLED or more likely the FBI would examine practices at SCEL and report them to the public. They don’t appear to have been above board for quite a while