Patent ID: 7980937

Claim:
A method for periodically auditing a lottery system, that includes a host memory in a lottery administration host computer containing a set of lottery ticket information including redemption values, comprising the step of: providing a set of audit data having audit information related to a predetermined set of the lottery ticket information that should be in the host memory; for each audit process, operating an audit program to audit at least a portion of the lottery ticket information in the host computer by comparing said audit data to at least a portion of the lottery ticket information in said host memory, said audit program performing the following steps for each audit process: generating a first data string from the lottery ticket information in said host computer, and storing the first data string; generating a second data string from the audit data, and storing the second data string; the first and second data strings having a corresponding string identifier that is unique to each audit process wherein the string identifier is generated with additional information not contained in the first or second data strings and the information is unique to the particular audit process; comparing the first data string to the second data string; and generating a report containing an indication if there is at least one predetermined type of discrepancy in the lottery ticket information in the host memory from said set of predetermined lottery ticket information as indicated by differences between the first and second data strings thereby auditing the integrity of at least a portion of the information in the host memory.