what format are barcodes on lotto tickets in?

what format are barcodes on lotto tickets in?
how do i decode the barcode on a lotto ticket to give me the numbers picked?
i want to make a program to scan the barcodes and compare with illinoislottery.com/subsections/History/Win2009.txt to see if they won anything

Best answer:

I don’t believe it’s possible. The bar code just points to a single number in the lotteries database. In fact, I think the number that your ticket corresponds with is already printed on your ticket right near the barcode.

For example – your ticket’s barcode might represent the number 277302974421. Somewhere in the database of the lottery company they know that lottery ticket #277302974421 is the one that was bought on August 7th at the grocery store on Main Street in Springfield at 12:15 P.M., and that it was a quick pick for the lotto with the numbers 1, 4, 18, 21, 22, & 37.

That bar code just represents a single number. In the company’s database, that ticket’s single number is linked to all of the other important information regarding the ticket.

This is why you can’t scam the lottery. Even if you could perfectly change the numbers or bar codes on a ticket, you wouldn’t know what to change them to for it to be a winning ticket. You would actually have to KNOW what the barcode was for an actual winning ticket.

Tags: barcodes, format, lotto, Tickets

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