Breakfast buddies file suit over lottery ticketPrevious TopicNext Topic

I wonder what would happen if a lottery ticket was indeed a bearer instrument and no lawsuits based on these "he cheated the lottery pool" claims were possible. If the bearer said the ticket is his alone, he gets all the money, if he says he is sharing it with a pool everyone gets a check. It would all depend on the integrity and honesty of the ticket holder, so you would have to choose your friends wisely.  If you don't want to risk a friend or coworker walking off with "your" millions, then don't join a pool. 

Some of them are, aren't they?

I wonder what would happen if a lottery ticket was indeed a bearer instrument and no lawsuits based on these "he cheated the lottery pool" claims were possible.

The Trail Lawyers Association have issued a death on sight warrent against you.  No one should be allowed to act on their own.  That would infer taking responsibility and none of that is allowed any more.

The suit asks for a judgment of $350,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages and a finding that the Salcones not get any share of the winnings. The case is assigned to Judge Andrew Logan.

Actually that's smart.  They are suing for MORE than the ticket is worth, so he will "settle" the lawsuit by agreeing to split the money like he should have in the beginning.  And if he doesn't settle, then the winnings will pay for lawyer's fee, court costs, and make him have to take out a second mortgage to pay his former friends for his greed and theivery.

After reading news reports over the years, seems like the two problems that occur with lottery pools is:

1. 1) past players want a cut due to some vague oral "agreement" even though they didn't kick in money for the winning ticket 
2. 2) ticket holder claims it was THEIR personal money that bought the ticket, not the group money.

To address those two problems, in our Mega Millions lottery pool at work we actually have a legal agreement at the top of the signup sheet detailing how it all works.

1. 1) only people signing up for that drawing (and paying money) get a share.  Small past winning roll over into new drawings but you HAVE to sign up again (and pay money again) to get a share.  Winning part of $5 in the last drawing does not entitle you to a share of the jackpot if we win this week, even though the $5 winnings was used to buy more tickets.  That's the rules we have, it's spelled out in writing, and we have your signature that you are agreeing to the rules. 
2. 2) Also, we make photocopies of all the tickets BEFORE the each drawing.  the photocopies are distributed, so there's no question what the group ticket numbers are.  If I'm buying the tickets and I'm not working that day, I've even scanned them at home and e-mailed the attachment to several people at work and they make the copies to distribute.  A little more hassle but I don't want there to be any questions if I happen to buy a winner with my own money.  Believe me, if you win (as part of a group or by yourself) people will look for any angle to try to get some of that.  Our legal agreement and procedures have taken care of any possibility we can think of. 

What would happen if the mere possession of any of your property, whether it was a lottery ticket, a tv set, or your car meant that I owned it and you had no legal recourse? Ownership of a lottery ticket isn't any different than ownership of other property, and the law already covers all of the necessary issues in enough detail. The law spell out the rules, but  it can't make people tell the truth and honor any agreements that they've made.  The best it can do is try to sort out the truth and apply that to any agreements the court believes were applicable. Being in a pool increases the chances of a dispute, but the existence of the pool isn't integral to the nature of the disputes. They all result from somebody claiming ownership of something they don't have a legitimate claim to, just like any other dispute over ownership of property, and there's no reason for lottery tickets to be treated any differently than other forms of property.

The only way to guarantee that you will never be party to a dispute over ownership of a lottery ticket is to never win, and never claim a share of somebody else's winnings.

Being in a pool increases the chances of a dispute, but the existence of the pool isn't integral to the nature of the disputes.

Since the topic revolves around a lottery pool, it is primary to the discussion.  As long as there is (1) more than one person involved and (2) the issue is large sums of money, there will always be a dispute.  If it has not happened, it will happened, it is just a matter of the amount.  It is like the old Outer Limits show, where the guy was granted one wish, and he wished for world peace.  Poof, he was the only person left on the planet.  You will never have peace as long as there is more then one opinion more then one viewpoint, or more then one gun.

Interesting story and comments. The "pool" concept makes sense if you buy into the odds theory that the lotteries propagate, that you divide your odds by the total number of combinations and the number of combinations purchased.

This is just not true. If there are 175 million combinations and you buy 55 tickets your odds of winning are 175 million MINUS 56 (including the winning ticket), not DIVIDED by 55; (that comes out to 174,999,944 to one, not 3,180,000 to one). Mathematical fact.

My point is that a "pool" lowers your odds slightly so why bother with it especially when you read these kind of stories every day. Greed is not a good thing. The only jackpot pool I've heard of lately that won without any problems were the car salesmen in the Chicago area who volunteered to give some of their winnings to a regular member who had not ante'ed up that week. That's the kind of pool I'd like to be in, not a bunch of "breakfast buddies" ready to shove a plastic syrup-coated knife in your back.

Too bad the guy was a chump and couldn't split the group's winnings. If I was on the jury I would probably opt for punative damages also. From the story, it looks pretty air-tight to me. They don't sell 25 quick picks, stop and sell one to another customer, and then continue entering your remaining quick picks.

If he and his wife had ONE OUNCE of brain, they would split the winnings with the pool, apologize profusely and with genuine tears and subtract the legal costs incurred by the other members from their share. MAYBE then they could gain a speck of respect among their friends and community and won't have to move across the nation to avoid their wrath and hatred.

But I'm not surprised he's not breakfasting with them anymore....that kind of says it all.

Sometimes the issue of Having * integrity* lays heavily in court cases. Since most of the reporters allegations are merely on the sums lets play math here. Any citizen may bring any ludicrious amount to the court systems and ask for it in their case. The FACTS are - rarely are those sums granted or ever paid in winning cases. Even when Major corporation are sued -they dont write out a check to the defendent-instead they tie the case up in appeals. What this gang is doing is typical- its DOESNT preclude that because they ask for an high amount that there case is any more solid then molten lava. Since my four dollars that I dump in my lottery pool has the same chance then it makes no difference to me if I do happen to share the pot with my upstanding associates. Chewie mentioned the regulations that some pools maintain and that is precisely the kind I belong to. Hooray for the Lottery pools that are about the *sharing* without bickering! I still am waivering that this guys wife could have very well bought a winning ticket on her own.....Despite the overall opnions of most of the lottery posters....

Well that would be the case to prove for the defendant. Did the defendant's wife regularly buy 55 quick picks for Friday's MM draw at the same store as her husband did for his pool? Were there 55 tickets in that block of tickets that were sold at the same time from that same terminal...(they are date, time and location coded in IL)? Why would she buy 55 tickets and not 50 or 60?

I will call the store clerks as my next witnesses.

Rick G wrote: 

<< Well that would be the case to prove for the defendant. Did the defendant's wife regularly buy 55 quick picks for Friday's MM draw at the same store as her husband did for his pool? Were there 55 tickets in that block of tickets that were sold at the same time from that same terminal...(they are date, time and location coded in IL)? Why would she buy 55 tickets and not 50 or 60? >>

The defendant  doesn't have to prove anything. It's up to the plaintiffs to prove their case or they lose.  Until the lottery department says how many tickets were in the block containing the winning ticket there is absolutely nothing to indicate that the ticket belongs to the pool other than a bunch of unsupported accusations by people who want to share the winnings.

I might add that the IL Lottery has the time stamp down to the SECOND you purchased it.

If OH does not have this, they should consider it. If you buy 55 quick picks it takes about a minute to crank them out of the machine. This should be a no-brainer. 55 quick picks in one minute from the same terminal is a "block" of tickets.

KY,

Maybe I read the article wrong, but I thought it specifically said that the winning ticket came from the same block of tickets purchased at the same time, location and number of tickets purchased (in this case quick picks which makes it easier to decide).

The defendant DOES have to refute the prosecution's allegations and therefore PROVE their innocence before a jury without any doubts from the jury before they can be found innocent or guilty.

Let's let 12 of his peers figure it out. We don't know all the facts and are not in the courtroom right now.

I have seen several posts which say about odds of winning when you buy many tickets and some of which seems to be not correct as far as odds/probability/math are concerned. The concept of odds/prabability is a simple one.
When it says odds of 1 in 175 million what it actually means that there are 175 million combinations of winning numbers  possible and if you get 1 you have a chance of 1 in 175 million. But if you get 10 differant sets of numbers(tickets) you have a chance of 10 in 175 million i.e. 1 in 17.5 million. If you get 100 then you have 1 in 1.75 million. If you get 175 million numbers then you have a chance of 1 in 1 . It is as simple as this and as straight as this.
If you work or like to think it as a probablity instead of odds then here it is.
probability of winning for a single line of ticket is 1/175,000,000.
Probability of winnning for 10 lines of ticket is 1/175,000,000 + 1/175,000,000 ++++ added 10 times
which is 10/175,00,000 which is equal to 1/17,500,000.

Rlevins,

When you buy 10 combos at 175 million to one odds of hitting the jackpot you are saying that your odds are lowered to 17.5 million to one if I'm not mistaken.

I understand what you are saying when you extrapolate and buy all 175 million combos. But this concept would have to be accepted on an extremely "sliding scale".

But going back to the original example......what happened to those other 174,999,990 combinations that could have beat you? They don't just disappear (as hypersoniq so eloquently put it).

Odds are odds. If you are playing a one digit out of ten game and you play one digit your odds are 9-1 of getting it right. If you play two numbers your odds are lowered to 8-1 of getting it right. Why? Because your first number had to have been wrong so it must be included in the losing propositions. The other digits remaining are still possibilities and can't be ignored.