Lotto Machines: Gravity Pick and Air Mix
Lotto machines come in two different flavors; gravity pick and air mix. Both have been extensively proven and configured to draw random number combinations. This was done through the use of statistical analysis.
To prevent tampering, every ball inside the machine (gravity pick or air mix) remains constantly visible throughout the entire process of mixing and drawing. To give the viewers added certainty that nothing is being fixed, the lotto drawings also have live telecasts.
Due to an incident that involved tampering with an air mix lotto machine in the state of Pennsylvania back in 1980, the general consensus among lotto aficionados so far has been that the gravity pick machines are considered to be more secure than the air mix type.
For most gravity pick machines, solid rubber balls are used. All the balls to be used for a particular lotto draw are inserted and dropped into a container which has two paddles mounted inside. The two paddles are the ones which mix the balls together by spinning in opposite directions. A sliding door located underneath the mixing container is then activated by the operator.
Six balls would then move one a time through a transparent tube where each would eventually land in a visible display area. The numbers would then be read and announced to the viewers. To prevent more than the required amount of balls to move through the sliding door, the passage of each ball is accurately detected by an optical sensor.
Another frequently used lotto machine is the air mix machine. Instead of the solid rubber balls used in most gravity pick machines, carefully calibrated and tested ping pong balls are used in the air mix machines.
These ping pong balls have the numbers painted on them, and both the size and weight of each ball are roughly the same. The balls are dropped into the container of the air mix machine, where they are mixed through the use of jets of air that flow up to the container.
The selection process is also done in plain sight of the viewers. The operator would first open a lid that releases compressed air out of the machine. The balls would then be blown up into a transparent tube or set of tubes. After passing through the tubes, the balls would then be passed on another clear tube which would finally lead to the display area where the selected balls will be read and announced.
