[clevalley (Premo)]

Originally Posted by tirdun

There's probably a mile of paper as to why there's a difference in Annapolis, but the short of it is: There isn't any.

As I understand it:

The preprinted ones guarantee the charity exactly X dollars, since the machine HAS to give out the winning tickets from the stack sooner or later. The store makes some cut for hosting them and the charity gets their part.

The randomly printed ones STILL pay out X dollars, at least in the long term. Mathematically they will eventually pay out roughly the same amount, but there'll always be some chance of two jackpots instead of one in the same amount of tickets. That, plus no skill to operate or play = slot machine.


For you, walking up to the machine with $10 in quarters, either one is a slot machine. In the same way Bingo is just a slot machine, Keno is a slot machine, scratch tix are slot machines, etc.

Print 3000 tickets. Write "YOU WON $5" on 100 and "YOU WON $1000" on one. Fold them and stick in a hat. Charge $1 to reach in and take a ticket. You've just built a pre-printed machine. In the end you'll make $1500, but you have to give part of it to charity.

Probably a good idea, it's not a game designed to let you win.

Now that makes sense - thanx!