Looked more into Cash WinFall, looks like they are trying to fix the lottery and are blocking gamblers from buying more than $5000 of tickets per day per terminal:
<a href="http://www.masslottery.com/about/news.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.masslottery.com/about/news.html</a>
So Srivastava could determine a winning-vs-losing ticket by looking at it. <i>What lottery out there</i> lets you examine and play with tickets before purchasing them? Are you allowed to return an unscratched ticket for a refund?
I thought the winning tickets would be decided first, <i>then</i> filled with winning/losing numbers and symbols, specifically to avoid situations like this.