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Modern Lotteries Have Been Essentially Free of Scandals. Early lotteries were plagued by corruption and scandals. To protect the integrity of the games, lotteries have adopted many safeguards to protect against corruption and fraud. The lottery industry has experienced very few scandals in the more than 30 years of state_administered lotteries in North America. The integrity of the lottery is one of the appeals of lottery gaming.
There have been some instances of fraud in modern lotteries, although the incidents pale in comparison to the experiences of the 18th and 19th century American lotteries. In 1982, there was a scandal in the Pennsylvania lottery. In a drawing where balls were used to determine the winning number, some of the balls were injected with fluid to make them heavier. Because they were heavier they would be chosen in the mechanized selection procedure. The perpetrators included the TV announcer and were quickly discovered. Another significant lottery scandal also occurred in Pennsylvania when a computer vendor printed a ticket with the winning numbers. Again the perpetrator was quickly discovered. In a slightly different kind of case, New York closed down its lottery for a period after the agency announced winning tickets that the lottery officials knew had not been sold.