Northstar, through its majority owner IGT, declined to tell the Tribune exactly how many tickets it expected to sell for this game or others, but it acknowledged, in general, it printed more tickets for big-prize games than it anticipated it would sell. One reason it did so, it said, was to make sure it had enough tickets in case players really liked a game. Other states told the Tribune another solution to such a welcome dilemma is to order more tickets and offer more prizes. Northstar did it for one of the 17 games, but not Birthday Surprise.