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CT Lottery to Offer PC Game
nstrom writes "The Connecticut State Lottery is giving out a PC game (for Windows, presumably) with their new scratch-off lottery tickets which offer a chance of winning $25,000 by playing. This news article from the Hartford Courant mentions that the game might be targeted at children, but there's no mention of any problems involving software cracking, which is what I immediately thought of. I'm sure there are some bored crackers out there who'd tackle this for a chance at some cash. What do you think?"
We have these in Louisville. Basically you buy a scratch-off ticket with a serial number on it. You enter that into the computer game and click the shiny buttons. Then, after wasting 10 minutes, find out what your prize is. Then you take the ticket to your local gas station and tell them it's a winner. They scan it and give you $3 or so.
I suppose you could put in serial numbers until you find the $25,000 winner. You wouldn't get anything out of it.
"It's the little touches that make a future solid enough to be destroyed" --William S. Bourroughs
In Western Canada anyway... Western Canada Lotto Corp. It's bloody expensive for a scratch-ticket type game though. $8 to get in, and $4 for each additional ticket. Eisbar
From the article..."There is a one-in-260,000 chance of winning $25,000 in the game"
That means each chance is "worth" about 9.6 cents. That's some pretty long odds for not-so-great money, and I'll bet it ends up costing alot more than 10 cents a try.
I would refer anyone with questions about this game's alleged (pre)pubescent target audience to the fine, upstanding American cities of Las Vegas, Reno, or Atlantic City for comparison.
Anyone who has been in a casino in the last 5 years has noticed the proliferation of colorful, fully-animated, cartoon slot machines. Almost nothing (except stuff from IGT) has mechanical reels anymore. The new machines _scream_ out "I'm like a video game! Note my humorous caricatures of rednecks, TV stars, and clowns!"
Sure, the lottery game probably appeals to a certain juvenile instinct in the players (which is what I'd personally have a bigger problem with), but I doubt that this rises to the level of a conspiracy to bilk money from players who are too young to collect the potential purse from playing. It's just a bit of Vegas seeping into the respectable, honest, dependable investm^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlottery industry.
And besides, *$4* for one in 260 kiloChances??? Thanks, but I'll stick to baiting reckless drivers to chase me down and assault me so I can sue them.
Justin
Come play at the only online poker room with a Mac-native client
I think you've misunderstood the theory. From what I gather in the article this isn't skill-based at all. Rather it seems that the game is linked to the lottery tickets you buy -- the game is just another (slower) way to discover if the ticket you hold is a winner or not.
apple nipple hungry
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Unfortunately, you need to have a winning ticket to claim any prize. Each ticket you buy will get you a different "code" to play the game (the code determines if you're going to win and what the prize will be).
They were talking about the Lottery. Winston looked back when he had gone thirty metres. They were still arguing, with vivid, passionate faces. The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made a living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets. Winston had nothing to do with the running of the Lottery, which was managed by the Ministry of Plenty, but he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Actually, the original poster was correct in the use of "it's". He said "It's the way..." meaning "It is the way...". He was not using the possessive pronoun "its".
Forget the whales - save the babies.
Actually, he used it's twice. The first usage was correct, but the second was not.
See http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000227.htm