$20M lawsuit against Hoosier Lottery gets class-action status

Though the issue with the Cash Blast game was a one-time problem — and the game has since been discontinued — the lottery continues to be criticized about issues with scratch-off games. The specific concern with those games is that tickets continue to be sold after top prizes have been won.

This is one thing that won't change though.   All state lotteries do this, because if they didn't, they would have to stop offering the scratch-off games.

It's all based upon odds, and there are a finite number of tickets printed for each game.  Say they print $500,000 in prizes and each ticket costs $5 to buy, and the top prize is $50,000.    If that ticket gets sold the first day, let's say its the the one hundredth ticket sold.

The lottery has then made a gross of $500 worth of income and has paid out $50,000 on the game (or more if any of the other 99 tickets was a smaller prize winner).  So they'd be in the hole for $49,500 if they had to stop selling the game just because the top prize was awarded.

Meaning that if the court decided (decides) that they can't sell tickets after the top prize is awarded, they would stop selling scratch-offs of any kind in the future. They couldn't take the chance that they would be losing money.  And if that gets decided as such In Indiana, it would quickly apply to all other states.

No more scratch-offs.

Though the issue with the Cash Blast game was a one-time problem — and the game has since been discontinued — the lottery continues to be criticized about issues with scratch-off games. The specific concern with those games is that tickets continue to be sold after top prizes have been won.

More dungpile-with-a-side-of-flies. A "one-time" gov't problem? Ummm....

INDIANAPOLIS - The Hoosier Lottery has told its retailers to stop selling scratch-off tickets for games in which the top prizes already have been won, a report Saturday said.

The lottery sent a message to retailers late last week telling them to remove three games from circulation: $20 Solid Gold, $5 Monthly Money and $2 Heads orTails, The Indianapolis Star reported.

Solid Gold's final million-dollar prize was claimed May 28, but tickets continued to be sold. Top prizes in the other two games were awarded within the past three weeks.

Those WMDs are around here, somewhere, too.

Hi, Time

In my hope of winning the big one, for tax purposes i would hold on to every lottery ticket i purchased.  when i win the big one or even a medium size win, i can use the lossing tickets to offset my win.  so , I  am  one of the ones that saves my tickets.  I know what your thinking :) and you are right,  I haven't won yet so, at the end of the year i throw them away and start over.  Too bad im in Georgia, that lawsuit would come in handy to me!   take care

Very Smart of you to save tickets.

you should never throw away a ticket, anything can happen. there are countless unclaimed prizes due to people failing to thoroughly check thier tickets. Also keep in mind that although misdraws are rare, they do indeed occur. I would hate to think that I threw away a winning ticket because I didn't verify the numbers. And as you cleverly stated before they also can be a tax deduction. With this economy the way it is, I will take the breaks wherever I can get them.

Also, I am in a pool at work so I save them. before I throw them out at the end of the year, I will give the guys in the pool a chance to see them if they wish. This is to ensure that I am indeed purchasing lottery tickets.