Clerk arrested in undercover Lottery stingPrevious TopicNext Topic

In PA with the introduction of the scanners, it can only read one type of bar code scans. The instant tickets carry a Box with a different set of scans to be read. Consider it an entirely different type of bar code language. Sorta like it can read english but not gaelic.

I seriously would love to be one of the compliance ticket folks, here is what I would do extra...after they read the ticket and proclaimed the amount I would get the meager cash they claimed it was ...then  ****** Ask them for the ticket so it can be signed on the back ! Boy would that get their goats :) You would only be complying with the" sign the back of the ticket" rule. Naturally It would take some finesse to pull that off as their faces would turn a shade of white :)  I get it that basically they are entrapping a person so the DA would have to argue that was necessary ....Overall PA sure could use some compliance officers, seen way too many folks pull fast ones from behind the counter.

Actually, there was no encouragement to defraud committed by the lottery rep, so there was no entrapment. If the rep had been told an amount and then the rep offered to accept a lower payment due to an "existing tax issue" or such, that would be entrapment. Merely supplying the opportunity to commit a crime is not considered entrapment. Suggesting or encouraging the committing of a crime would be entrapment. But a defense lawyer would indeed try to argue that anyway.

But I do love your idea of a personal trap.That would be fun to videotape their reaction. YouTube for sure!

here in my town tyhey are soon installing player scanners so we can check our own tickets.

I have heard about scannerrs making mistakes and people tossing tickets.so still will have to hold on till after.

best to visually check your own numbers.

we do have a display facing the player, that shows the value of thew scanned ticket,m but i always felt a crafty  crook could scan a known loser ,, behind their counter, showing a no win result. and pocket your ticket for later.

always assk for tickets back.

anyhow we have [player registrations here where the ticket is played and assigned to a pplayer card, not good for you identity freaks, but hell if it stops me being ripped off im going for the card. it also means they send out any lost or unclaimed prizes after a few weeks, ive had about 5 checks sent ion my time

alll low prizes unfortunaltely

I don't know.  You would think that with all the undercover busts going on clerks would be scared to continue to do that.

I am with you Litebets.

In some ways I *almost* wish it were illegal for clerks to play the lottery, but I know that is unfair to them , especially since I worked at 2 different gas stations when I was younger (my first 2 jobs actually).

But undercover tests like this need to happen to ensure they are kept in line.

Signing the ticket would be a great idea if you thought the penalty for defrauding a player should only be a $50 fine. Simply making a mistake isn't a crime. If the clerk doesn't try to claim the prize how would you prove that they intended to defraud the player?

Thanks KY! Fortunately I was making lite of the situation. Didnt mean to make it a serious discussion. Life does that enough.

I'd like to see states all put in scanners that tell you what you've won and possibly stamp it on the ticket. I know there are those who say if you can't check your own ticket you shouldn't be playing and all that but in reality there are a lot of lower IQ people playing and we all know it. Why not give them a little confidence in the system or at least a way to know what they've got coming and are not going to be ripped off by some scheming clerk.

Tennessee is too backwards looking to have scanners and though Virginia has them they seldom work and when they do they only tell you that you've won but not how much. There are a lot of improvements that could be made in that area.

Sounds like entrapement, however it also goes  to show how dishonest people can be, wow ! alot of people trust the person behind the register to be honest, i never hand my tickets to anyone to check for me, i check them myself.

I guess now I am wondering if the lottery office can print a winning ticket, then I can assume they know what the non-winning combinations are after 9:00 PM ( the cut off time for buying numbers) Are we really sure about which combination of numbers comes up? Ater all they can produce a winning ticket. So lets just bring up another non-winning combination tonight. we could'nt take a chance on multiple winners which, I never heard of. BUSTED ! I have been playing supercash since 1989. 15 bucks a night. yep thats almost 80 thousand dollars. I hit 500 bucks three times. something smells rotten. wecome to the NFL rookie

i agree with this also!!!! Or maybe lottery tickets should be sold by lottery officials only. I know that would be a pain but hey.

That's a slippery slope, ca-.

First it's lottery officials only.

Then it's government officials under a Lottery Czar.

Then it's government robots.

Then it's armed government robots.

Have you ever seen the movie Westworld with Yul Brynner?

Exactly.

This has nothing to do with non-winning combinations or the cut-off time for ticket sales. Every single lottery ticket is printed with a unique indentity, and that identity is one of the things  the lottery uses to validate a ticket as a winner. The lottery could print a "winning" ticket for a game that doesn't exist. Modern technology means that anybody can print a ticket that looks like  a real winner, as long as they know what a winning ticket looks like.  Once the winning numbers have been drawn, or the design of a winning scratch ticket is known, anybody can know what the ticket should look like, except for the things that indicate that ticket's unique identity. It's the identity of the ticket being registered as a winner that matters.

In this particular instance the lottery could have printed a ticket for an online game (just as you or I could) with winning numbers once those numbers are known. That means sometime after the drawing has taken place.  By entering the identity of that ticket into the lottery's database as a "valid" winner, it would be indicated as a winner by any online store terminal or a scanner available to the public. If it was a scratch ticket, it could have been printed as soon as the game and tickets were designed. Again, the identity of that particular ticket would have to be entered in the database.

At the store it will be reported as a real winner. Because the value is too high, the clerk can't pay the prize to the customer. If the clerk doesn't make a genuine mistake they  should tell the customer that the ticket is a winner, but the customer will need to claim the prize directly from the lottery. If that hapens, the ticket can be used at th enext store, and so on, until a clerk chooses option number 2 and tells the "customer" that it's a modest winner and gives them a few bucks in hopes of claiming the real prize for themselves. When that does happen the clerk will presumably go to a claim center to present the ticket.  On the lottery's end the ticket's identity will show that it's a special ticket for enforcement purposes, so that they can have the claimant arrested. That's exactly what happened here.

As a practical mater that's how it's already done.They retailers aren't employees or true legal agents of the lottery, but they are authorized by the lottery to sell the tickets.