What are the chances of winning the lottery 20 times in a single month?

That’s what Senator Raffy Tulfo, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Games and Amusement, wants to find out. According to the senator, several irregularities were spotted in PCSO’s official list of winners last year, including one lucky person who won 20 times in one month, another who won 10 times within the same timeframe, and another who hit the winning combination 37 times in one year.

The odds of this happening are “not only improbable but also impossible,” said Senator Koko Pimentel, a sentiment echoed by Filipinos nationwide.

The news comes just weeks after a rare system glitch during the three-digit lotto draw last February 27 caused the lotto ball in the first of the three machines to drop. After a short break, a standby machine was used to redraw the first number while the second and third remained unchanged. Many criticized the decision to redraw only one of the balls instead of starting over, but PCSO insisted that they followed ISO protocols and that this was definitely not an attempt to manipulate the results.

The incident was just one of several times PCSO drew flak for mishandling the lottery games. In 2022, a 236-million-peso jackpot was won by 433 people, sparking widespread allegations of cheating and corruption. PCSO officials explained that the winning six-number combination consisted of multiples of nine; therefore, it was not a case of corruption, but in fact, simple math that caused over four hundred individual bettors to split the grand prize. 

Many remain unconvinced.

Image Source: gmanetwork.com

Even public officials have pointed out apparent anomalies in the games. On January 16 this year, a lone bettor won the P640-M jackpot of the Super Lotto 6/49 after suspiciously betting Php 30 million in each of three lotto outlets. The very next day, someone else won the P698-M jackpot of the Grand Lotto 6/55. PCSO general manager Mel Robles quickly denied speculations that the agency used dirty tactics to predetermine the winners. However, Senator Tulfo raised concerns that the machines may have been set up for automatic sequence betting by going through all possible combinations within the span of a few hours.

Another issue brought up by Senator Koko Pimentel was how the PCSO ended up with so many winners ever since it increased its jackpot prize. All five games were won within a month — a total of 2.4 billion pesos — whereas in the past it would take three to four months before someone could hit the winning combination.

And of course, who can forget the viral edited photo of the Lotto 6/42 jackpot winner being handed a check? If the person’s face and clothing were (poorly) edited to protect her identity, then can this photo really be used as evidence that the cash prize was disbursed properly? 

Image Source: gmanetwork.com

Eventually, all the unanswered questions led to a Senate probe. The committee led by Senator Tulfo subpoenaed PCSO for the list of lotto winners from July 2023 to January 30, 2024, as well as records of taxes paid by these winners. The now-controversial list has yet to be made public, but Senator Tulfo disclosed that one person on the list won 20x in a single month.

Perhaps it was not a case of one person winning 20 times, but of multiple individuals sharing the same name, he conceded. But then, how likely would it be for twenty people sharing the same name to win the same game within the same month?

“[The questions just keep piling up],” he said.

Image Source: ikot.ph

So, was it extreme luck, system errors, or behind-the-scenes manipulation that led to such unbelievable results?

PCSO general manager Mel Robles had this explanation to give: The 20 claims did not necessarily belong to a single winner.

According to him, the person in question was in fact a lotto owner acting as a middleman for the actual winners. After all, for non-jackpot games, anyone can be asked to stand in for claimants with problems with mobility, identification requirements, or other reasons preventing them from showing up in person at the nearest lotto outlet. Given this scenario, it wouldn’t be unusual for a single person to claim winnings twenty, thirty, or even more times within a month.

Yet without hard evidence to rule out any manipulation happening behind the scenes, it’s difficult to tell what’s really going on. It appears that not only are the odds of winning these games of chance very slim to begin with, but also no one can guarantee where the money ends up and whether or not the final results are predetermined. Or, as we Filipinos say, “niluto na” from the start.

More Than Just a Lottery Issue

The problem of lack of transparency leading to public mistrust goes beyond the world of sweepstakes and lottery draws. In fact, allegations of cheating, bureaucracy, and corruption behind the scenes reach fever pitch every three to six years — during the Philippine National Elections.

One of the most common phrases you’ll ever hear during election season is “Dinaya ako.” That’s what Bongbong Marcos’ camp claimed had transpired during the 2016 Vice Presidential elections. After losing his bid to Leni Robredo, he filed an electoral protest before the Supreme Court, requesting a recount of votes in 27 provinces and cities.

Image Source: philstar.com

According to the Marcos camp, a new script had been introduced to the Transparency Server at 7:30 pm on Election Day. Executing this script allegedly altered the hash code of the system, causing the votes for Marcos to decline compared to Robredo’s in a “distinctive pattern.” But according to the COMELEC, the only change made was to correct the names of candidates with the letter “ñ.” In other words, it had absolutely no bearing on the final results.

Adding fuel to the fire was an alleged discrepancy in the numbers posted by a mirror server.  Between 9:45 pm and 11:45 pm on May 12, the votes for vice presidential candidates Leni Robredo and Bongbong Marcos went down by several hundred as the tally continued. 

The COMELEC again explained that no manipulation of results took place. The missing votes were actually test votes from the provinces of Rizal and Davao del Sur that had been transmitted to the system but not taken down in time. This caused the total number of tallied votes to exceed the registered number of voters in those regions until they were removed from the system.

In all these incidents, one thing is painfully clear:  Without timestamped, tamper-proof, and fully traceable documentation, rumors of grand-scale meddling behind the scenes will continue to persist. But don’t give up hope — building a more secure system of record-keeping is now possible through the help of blockchain technology.

How the Blockchain Prevents Fraud and Ensures Trustworthy Results

Any form of wide-scale vote-casting, counting, or recording process can benefit from the use of blockchain technology. First of all, once a vote is recorded on the blockchain, it cannot be changed or deleted. This makes it very difficult to tamper with the results. Another advantage is decentralization. Since the data is recorded across a whole network, it is difficult for any single hacker to rewrite the results.

The blockchain also offers transparency through a ledger that can be accessed and audited by the public. If everyone had the chance to personally check if votes are being recorded and transmitted correctly, then we as a nation would have more trust in the electoral process.

In an ideal situation, voters could cast their ballots electronically using a secure and verified method. Each vote would then be encrypted and added to the permanent blockchain record. This would help eliminate cases of double-voting, skipping votes, tallying the wrong set of votes, and other typical instances of human error.

Image Source: sciencedirect.com

The blockchain is already being tapped in beauty pageants such as Miss Charm 2023, which utilized the technology to improve the monitoring of results and prevent data fraud. Although many remain skeptical of all things blockchain-related, it may just be the solution to the persistent lack of transparency and integrity pervading so many aspects of society today.

But will it be used to prevent people from winning the lotto twenty times in a row?

Stay tuned.

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