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Posted March 28, 2001 The first of a series of stories appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on March 28, 2001. It was picked up by the AP wire and published in many other newspapers nation wide. On behalf of the many lottery players across the nation, we thank the news organizations for helping us spread the word. The People have a right to the truth - especially when they are spending their hard earned dollars playing these games of chance. If everyone only knew how long it "really" took for Professor Busald and his class to convince the TLC to tell the truth about the scratch off odds, they'd cringe - he's fought the Commission for years - starting first with their deceptive advertising regarding the Cash 5. If you would like to see specific examples of the Commissions misleading sales tactics - they are listed as GET REAL's issue #4 - just click here after you read the newspaper stories and heard the radio interview. These fantastic stories appeared on the front page of the State section of the Houston Chronicle on Sunday, April 1, 2001, the Christian Science Monitor story appeared front page on March 28, 2001 and was followed by the San Antonio Express News story that appeared on March 29, 2001. My comments to players and the TLC about all this is at the bottom under The Radio Interview To hear the radio interview that was picked up by roughly 1500 stations - end - The Houston Chronicle Class cries foul despite winning lottery dispute
The student and her professor at San Antonio College said that as a result of their testimony, several lotteries now acknowledge that odds for instant-win games count break-even tickets as winners. Texas recently began doing so on the back of each scratch-off ticket. A "Cash Explosion" ticket, for example, states "overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 4.42 including break even prizes." Illinois and Nebraska will reword their tickets in coming months. Missouri and other states are mulling whether to make the same disclosure and many probably will do so, officials said. Yet, the affirmation of the student's findings and ensuing national notoriety haven't offset the disrespect the students said they were shown by skeptical lottery officials, who initially dismissed their findings as an insignificant matter of semantics. "We've never gotten the respect we deserve from them. We intimidate them. I don't know why they get so huffy -- we're only trying to help," said Nicole Cunningham, now a student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. SAC professor Gerald Busald said he and students felt the same way in 1997 after they challenged the odds listed for a new online game. "They (lottery staff) consciously decided to disrespect my students to protect their own bureaucratic butts," he said. Lottery officials last week expressed surprise at those sentiments, claiming they respect and seek out Busald's expert opinions. "We'd like to feel that he doesn't have a problem with the lottery and he knows we're trying to be perfectly upfront and honest with all our players," said Texas lottery director Linda Cloud. "We don't have a problem with him reviewing anything we're doing," Cloud said. "There is absolutely no room for deception in the lottery, and if it helps to fully explain the odds of the game, we don't have any problems doing that." Busald and his students were the first to raise the "break-even" issue, which had drawn no previous comments from avid lottery players, Cloud said. By the time the three-member Texas Lottery Commission agreed with the students four months ago, they were well acquainted with Busald. A frequent witness at commission meetings, he had challenged odds, alleged errors in advertising and unsuccessfully argued against changing the Lotto game from a 50-ball format to the current 54-ball game. Busald said he finally was turning his attention to scratch-off game odds last fall when a happy coincidence occurred: Cunningham, enrolled in Busald's introduction to statistics course, bought a losing scratch-off ticket. "I started to think about it and it didn't add up. It didn't make sense and it didn't seem right that they were getting away with it," Cunningham said. She surmised that the attractive "odds of winning any prize" had to include break-even prizes. With Busald's help, she mathematically proved her theory and they confronted lottery officials. Their letter drew a polite but unsatisfying response in October, Busald said. Lottery staff said no change was warranted and, besides, all states were figuring odds the same way. The students and Busald took the rebuff personally and took their beef to the full commission. In November, Busald led a dozen students to a hearing in Austin to voice their protest. This time, they prevailed after Cunningham described the agency's stance as an unfair inflation of winning odds. "If you play Monopoly, you read the rules before you go in. But people are playing the lottery not knowing everything there is to know about it. I just didn't think that's fair," Cunningham said last week. The decision to reword tickets in Texas caught the attention of other state lotteries and anti-gaming groups that serve as consumer watchdogs. The North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries is monitoring, but so far has dubbed it a nonissue among players. Though only a handful of states have made the clarification the San Antonio students suggested, Busald is convinced other states will follow. "I really think they're all going to be pressured to change. I've been contacted by a national group against gambling, and all they have to do is get a small group together in every state and force the issue," Busald said. All the attention is gratifying, Busald said, but it only begins to atone for the mistreatment he claims his students sustained in 1997 when they challenged calculations for a new online game. "What the lottery commission did initially really robbed that first class of the recognition they would have gotten if they had admitted the students were right," Busald said. - end Houston Chronicle story - Christian Science Monitor Winning formula: Statistics class takes on lottery Write a letter to the editor (oped@csps.com) NEW YORK For Nicole Cunningham it started out as a simple matter of ethics. But it's turned into a truth-in-advertising crusade that has picked up support from antigambling activists and prompted several state lotteries to change the way they calculate their odds. It's also stimulating a national debate on what exactly it means "to win." One day last fall, the Texas college student bought a scratch-off lottery ticket. On the back, she noticed the odds of winning were pretty good: 1 in 3.5. She scratched the ticket, lost, and then started thinking. Her statistics class had just done an analysis of the state's big lottery drawing. With the help of her professor, Ms. Cunningham began calculating the odds on her ticket. At first, the numbers didn't add up. Then she realized what the Texas Lottery Commission was doing. It counted getting one's money back - breaking even - as a "win." "It was extremely misleading, because it increased the odds," says Cunningham. "If you take out the break-even, the odds double. In some scratch-off games, they triple or more." Cunningham and her class asked other Texas lottery players if they believed that breaking even constituted a win. "Everyone I talked to said, 'No,' and some of them got really mad," she says. So she and several classmates, along with their professor, Gerald Busald, took their concerns to the Texas Lottery Commission. At first, Linda Cloud, the lottery's executive director, simply thanked the class in a letter and dismissed the concern "a matter of semantics." In the letter, Ms. Cloud said she believed that getting a dollar back after wagering a dollar constituted a win. She also noted they hadn't had any complaints on the matter, so "the Commission has no plans to change the way in which the odds are calculated." That did not sit well with the students or their professor. So in November, at a commission hearing under the glare of klieg lights, the students made their case. After a few, sometimes terse exchanges about what constitutes "ethics in government" and "truth in advertising" the class concluded that it would be more honest for the commission to state that the overall odds of winning included "break-even prizes." By the end, they'd convinced the commissioners and Cloud. "I don't see a problem with us doing that," she said. "If that will solve anybody's question about whether the lottery is deceiving the public or not, then I would absolutely suggest that we do something like that." So now, the back of Texas scratch-off tickets read: "The overall odds of winning any prizes are [1 in] 3.51, including break-even prizes." That was victory No. 1. Professor Busald then told his class's story at a meeting of national legislators from gambling states. It peaked enough interest to prompt the lawyer from the Nebraska lottery to change the wording there. Then an antigambling group in Illinois got wind of the story. "I got ahold of a retired math teacher to crunch the numbers here, and found out that the Illinois lottery was calculating the odds the same way," says Kathy Gilroy of the Northern Illinois Anti-gambling Task Force in Villa Park, Ill. She called the state lottery to complain. Its lawyer not only knew about the Texas dust-up, but was more than willing to make the change there as well. "We said, 'Sure, if it would make things clearer, absolutely,' " says Kurt Freedlund, general counsel of the Illinois Lottery in Springfield. "Practically speaking, it's a minor change, but if it's a clearer statement, then we're all for it." Similar changes are "under consideration" in Missouri. But most state lotteries contacted by the Monitor echoed the initial reaction of the Texas Commission, which was to dismiss it. "I think it's a nonissue, because I don't think the playing public cares," says Penelope Kyle, president of North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries and executive director of the Virginia Lottery. But Ms. Kyle is also not surprised that when people did complain, the other lotteries changed their wording. "Up until that moment in time, every lottery in the world thought they were being extra careful and extra clear," she says. "This had never, ever been raised but the moment it was, guess what happened? The lotteries changed." It could be the beginning of even more dramatic changes. Just last weekend in New Jersey, a gubernatorial candidate proposed doing away with scratch-off games all together, saying their odds are actually some of the worst in the entire gambling industry. For Busald and his students, the chain of events has been satisfying. "One of the big defenses of the lottery commission was that this was the industry standard," Busald says. "Now I think my students are going to change the industry standard. What do you think the odds are of that happening?" - End Christian Science Monitor Story - San Antonio Express-News The San Antonio College math students who prompted state lottery officials to change the way winning odds are reported on the back of scratch-off cards have gone national. Or, at least, their campaign has. Just months after Texas Lottery Commission officials agreed to revise the language on scratch-off games, officials in other states said their lotteries have approved or are considering similar changes. "I think we're going to see changes across the country," said Gerald Busald, the SAC statistics professor whose students testified in November before the state lottery commission and brought about the change. Lottery officials in Illinois and Nebraska said the language on their cards would be changed beginning as early as next month. The Missouri Lottery is considering new phrasing as well. At issue was the way the Texas commission reported its odds of winning prizes. Students, led by Nicole Cunningham, argued that players who won their money back weren't actually winners. Although agency Executive Director Linda Cloud initially resisted, saying that many scratch-off players felt they won even if it was the amount they paid for the ticket, she and commission members agreed to change the language to reflect odds of winning or breaking even. New tickets now read: "Overall odds of winning any prize are ... including break-even prizes." News of the change filtered to other states after a national meeting of legislators from gaming states earlier this year in San Antonio. Busald was a panelist in one of the sessions. "It's really a matter of semantics — the crux is whether that $2 prize is considered a win. And I'm sure it's a different feeling for different players," said Kurt Freedlund, general counsel for the Illinois Lottery. "But we've added the new phrasing to make the whole thing moot." The first batch of new tickets will hit Illinois streets by mid-April, Freedlund said. Wayne Dolezal, legal counsel for the Nebraska Lottery, said officials in his state agreed to clarify the language on the cards after news of the change in Texas scratch-off cards reached them. "Lotteries must have two things: security and integrity," Dolezal said. "We didn't want to wait for there to be confusion on this, so we decided to take care of it ourselves." Dolezal said the Nebraska Lottery likely will begin printing updated scratch-off tickets July 1. For her part, Cunningham said she was more than pleased to learn other states were following changes she helped establish in Texas. She also said she felt a measure of vindication, particularly since lottery officials initially were reluctant to make changes. "I was ecstatic," Cunningham said. "I'm grateful that I had a chance to do this and that it is making a difference." mflores@express-news.net - End San Antonio Express-News Story - We ARE Being Heard... I can't help but wonder if other state lotteries are going to attempt to not disclose vital scratch off ticket information on their promotional pieces now as a result of having to print the true odds of winning. I hope you realize, Texas is attempting to do exactly this. For some reason, I tend to believe that Texas will be the only lottery foolish enough to try to hide this information from their players. I also feel compelled to comment on Linda Cloud's recent statement to the press. She's quoted as saying, "We'd like to feel that he doesn't have a problem with the lottery and he knows we're trying to be perfectly upfront and honest with all our players. We don't have a problem with him reviewing anything we're doing. There is absolutely no room for deception in the lottery, and if it helps to fully explain the odds of the game, we don't have any problems doing that." "Honest" - let's see, the first TLC denial goes back to 1997 - a quote in the Express News - "The students just came up with a different way of finding their figures than we did; we're not saying their way is right." Further, the TLC is on the record as stating that you will NOT change the way the odds were stated not to mention the letter you wrote to that effect too. You only "back tracked" the day those kids faced you with four (4) TV stations filming you - which incidentially, was brought in by them too. Or did you forget that small tidbit? If the truth were known, I'll bet you wished that the TLC had admitted the students calculations were right 4 years ago and done the "honest" thing then - huh? "Upfront" - Is this defined as "deleting how many tickets were ordered and how many prizes were ordered for each prize from the promotional piece that's available in the stores for players to see?" Or maybe it's defined as asking the Attorney General for permission to not release "how many tickets were ordered and how many winning tickets were ordered" to players. Or maybe it's defined as not even having the new tickets and this information listed at the Texas Registry as required? Yeah - that's real "upfront" - real honest and full of integrity. Gee - what more could players ask from you? Click here to read the Christian Science Monitor story online and
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