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Question: I read a while back that lottery officials were going to check on vendors who sell a lot of big winners. Did they? What did they find?

I’ve noticed in bringing in winning scratch-off tickets, the vendor puts it through a scanner and doesn’t even look at the scratch-off area. What’s to keep him from scanning all the tickets ahead of time to see what winners he has?— Frank, Climax

Answer: What you’re really asking is, “How secure are those scratch-off tickets?”

In general — pretty darned secure. Lotteries go to great lengths to make sure their games are perceived as fair. No one is going to spend money on a game if they think the outcome is rigged.

With regards to the question about vendors who sell “a lot of big winners,” lottery officials stress that distribution of scratch-off tickets is random.

“No one, including the vendors who print our instant 'scratch-off’ tickets or anyone working on the North Carolina Education Lottery team, has any idea where the winning tickets are located or which retailer will receive a winning ticket,” N.C. Education Lottery spokeswoman Pam Walker wrote in an e-mail. “So, players can be assured that they have an equal chance to win regardless of where they live.”

She said the lottery’s security division does conduct investigations when concerns are raised about a particular vendor in addition to regular monitoring of activity. Things like a lottery retailer’s employees winning a lot of games or questionable transactions in a retailer’s bank account are among the items that could prompt a special inquiry.

“The controls are constant and ongoing,” Walker wrote. “Investigations which reveal criminal wrongdoing are reviewed by the appropriate district attorney’s office to determine if criminal prosecution is warranted. Administrative sanctions up to and including termination of the lottery contract is also a viable solution if impropriety is substantiated.”

As to the second part of your question, there is a “coding mechanism” that isn’t revealed until someone scratches off the latex covering the ticket. And that area must be scanned before a ticket can be validated as a winner.

“This safeguard is in place so no one is able to determine the worth of the ticket until the proper validation process is completed,” Walker writes. “Simply scanning the ticket without scratching off the latex and incorporating the second coding mechanism will not validate whether a ticket is a winner.”