Japanese Lotto Prologue

When I posted the article on lotteries in Japan a couple of days ago. Well, I missed something important in that post, how they draw the numbers. The machines they use are not anything like you've ever seen. First, let me show you what they use to to draw the Loto 6 and Mini Loto.

First the balls are manually fed into a sphere. Then, the machine works by first mixing the balls in the sphere at the top of the machine. Then the balls are poured unto a plate below. The plate then spins profusely like a centrifuge, mixing the balls further until one gets captured. The drawn ball is then placed on a rack, and the plate begins to spin again. The process is repeated until all the numbers are drawn. If you want to see this in action, click here to see it in action via streaming video.

The machine used to draw the Numbers games is even stranger. First, wheels are spun, which seem normal enough. But to actually select the numbers, the machine then shoots arrows (that's right, arrows) at the wheels, and whatever the arrow lands on will be the winning digit. If you want to see this in action, click here to see it in action via streaming video.