Which lottery procedure do you believe is more honest? Computer generated numbers or ping pong balls?

Ping pong balls for the win! They’re so happy bouncing around in the air currents in the machine, and then one pops up and another and another. It’s simple more fun.

Computers can’t generate truly random numbers on their own. They can generate pseudorandom numbers, but people can game the system if they figure out the algorithm. So for genuine randomness, I vote ping-pong balls, plus as @Hawaii_Jake mentioned, there’s something very fun about the balls flying around.

Ping Pong balls are way better. Computers are boring, and they can be set us up the cheat, and all your money belong to us. That last sentence was intentionally spelled like crap, please don’t flag my nerdy ass.
But yeah. Cute bouncy balls are way more honest than grouchy computers.

Any lottery can be fixed. If the state is running it, then I automatically distrust it.

I was going to say that the ping pong balls are random, but then I remembered a show (Monk, I think) where the guy who worked at the drawing place powdered six of the balls with metallic paint or something and then arranged a magnet to be over the hole where they pop up. One could also weight the balls or shave a select few, I suppose.
Still, that’s a lot of trouble and traceable besides. I vote; BALLS!
(I love that I was able to say that in a legitimate sentence!)

I go with ping pong balls for the reasons @gorillapaws mentions; computers cannot generate truly random numbers. Additionally, tampering with balls leaves evidence while bad code can be obfuscated or altered on a whim.

Balls, I wish they’d do away with the machines though. Far more entertaining if they were “produced” from the loins of a naked lady.

Ping pong balls are less susceptible to fraud. While it’s true that computer-generated numbers are pseudo-random rather than truly random, if the algorithm is properly designed and there’s no tampering with the code, then they are sufficiently random for purposes of the lottery. Inherent mathematical fairness is not the issue.

In other words, absent fraud either is equally suitable. But in real-world application, when the stakes are so high, I wouldn’t trust computer generated numbers.

Both methods are almost random. No big difference.