Do you think the lottery is right?

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A lottery is a popular form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize. Some governments forbid it, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments. Lottery, like any form of gambling, is susceptible to fraud, despite the high degree of scrutiny offered by the organizers. One method involved is to tamper with the machine used for the number selection. By rigging a machine, it is theoretically easy to win a lottery. This act is often done in connivance with an employee of the lottery firm. Methods used vary; loaded balls where select balls are made to pop-up making it either lighter or heavier than the rest. Many other ingenious methods too have been employed. In Pennsylvania in 1980, a scam was uncovered involving those within the lottery. The winning numbers were determined by an air blower which would make three numbers pop up into tubes. By injected fluid into every ball except those numbered 4 and 6, and then buying tickets with every possible combination of 4 and 6, lottery personnel guaranteed themselves some big winnings. Some lotteries (as well as other contests and gambling systems) have attempted to counter internal corruption by making rules that employees of the lottery (and their immediate families) are not allowed to buy tickets themselves and ineligible to win prizes. Some advance fee fraud scams on the Internet are based on lotteries. The modus operandi of this fraud is that the trickster sends spam to all email users in their database congratulating them on their recent lottery win. Then they proceed to announce that in order to release funds they must part with a certain amount (as tax/fees) as per the rules or risk forfeiture. Another form of lottery scam involves the selling of "systems" which purport to improve a player's chances of selecting the winning numbers in a Lotto game. These scams are generally based on the buyer's (and perhaps the seller's) misunderstanding of probability and random numbers. Sale of these systems or software is legal, however, since they mention that the product cannot guarantee a win, let alone a jackpot. Corruption has also occurred in the lottery system itself. When the United Kingdom privatized the national lottery, the two main bidders on it were GTech Corporation and the Virgin Group. Virgin CEO Richard Branson had appeared to many to have the winning bid, and also won much support by arguing the profits of a lottery should be used for community and charitiable purposes. GTech executive Guy Snowden attempted to bribe Branson in order to get Virgin to stop bidding. The scandal was exposed, and Snowden was sent to jail.