Includes video report
RALEIGH, N.C. — A man walks into a convenience store and asks the clerk to check his lottery tickets. "Can you scan these and see if there are any winners?" he asks. The clerk scans the first ticket and freezes, staring at the screen that shows it's a $1,000 winner. The clerk shakes his head, puts the ticket to the side and tells the customer, "There's nothing on them."
What the clerk doesn't know is that the customer is an undercover officer wearing a hidden camera, which captures the entire scene, including the clerk quickly knocking the winning ticket off the counter onto the floor.
This scene played out Dec. 3, 2010, at a convenience store in Rutherford County. The clerk, Michael Mace, was later arrested when he tried to cash in the $1,000 ticket at a claims office. He was given 24 months' probation.
Since 2009, the North Carolina Education Lottery has teamed up with local authorities for what they call a "Player Protection Campaign," aimed at caching cheating lottery clerks.
The undercover officers use special lottery tickets, designed to mimic a winning ticket when it is scanned at a lottery terminal. The clerk is supposed to tell the undercover officer posing as a lottery player that the ticket is a winner and that the prize must be claimed at a lottery office.
Retailers who take customers' winning tickets can face a Class H felony charge of attempting to obtain property by false pretenses. During the lottery's latest investigation, which lasted 14 months and ended this past March, seven people were arrested, including two in Wake County.
The North Carolina Education Lottery sells, on average, about 2.2 million tickets each day at more than 6,700 retailers across the state. As the lottery's director of security, Moe McKnight has a lot of games, store owners and clerks to keep an eye on.
"We just want to make sure the players have an enjoyable experience," he said. "They trust the system. They feel confident in the security and safeguards that we have in place."
McKnight shared two of the undercover videos with WRAL Investigates, including the one that captured Mace taking the $1,000 winning ticket. The second video was shot at a Charlotte convenience store on Dec. 9, 2009.
"I'd like to check these tickets," the undercover officer tells the clerk.
"Nothing," the clerk says, after scanning the tickets.
"None?" the officer asks. "Are you sure?"
"None," the clerk responds. "No winners."
Store owner Dipak Rajpuria pleaded guilty in the case. He received probation and lost his license to sell lottery tickets.
North Carolina Education Lottery officials terminate the lottery operations at any store where the owner was charged, and they suspend lottery operations at stores where an employee is charged. Stores are not allowed to resume ticket sales if the clerk charged with attempted fraud is still an employee there.
Raleigh store owner and lottery retailer Steve Byers says he knows the prospect of cashing in can test clerks' morals. He makes sure his employees play by the rules, for his sake and the customers'.
"It's something you have to keep on top of, something you have to manage, because there's a lot of money involved, a lot of possibilities for things to go wrong, a lot of temptations," he said. "There's no limit to the potential of abuse that can happen with this type of thing."
To help combat the problem, lottery officials are deploying scanners across the state, which allow customers to check tickets by themselves. While winners are obvious on some scratch-off tickets, that's not the case in all games. Some require game knowledge beyond matching some numbers or symbols.
Lottery officials suggest players educate themselves and check for themselves. Also, players should sign the back of their tickets as soon as they get them to show ownership.
VIDEO: Watch the news report
Awesome!!!. This is always my fav. story, busting those S.O.B's. WTG NCLottery, you are doing a wonderful job for your people. Keep it up. That video was fun to watch.
BEAUTIFUL !!!!!!!!!!
Good job!
Nice story Todd!
I have a lot of deragotory, mildly racist, and politically oriented, and generallly wisdom infused bonehead comments to make with this one.
BUTT first
From my experience in NY, where I have in many posts complained about the scanners not being able to read the scratchies,
I think its because you cant scratch the back, but you have to scratch the front. ( I dont rememberm or know how I was scanning a scratcher since I hate them, BUTT!
If you notice the reporter dude, tells you to scan it but he scanned the back.
That doesn't work from my experience.
You have to scratch the latex front and scan that.
SCTIM!!!
(I just saved you some bandwidth there)
You shoud always check your own tickets yourself. It's not hard to do. I do. It can be a little frustrating though because sometimes those scanner machines are so slow.
Too bad the two in this story only got probation. In California, they ran similar stings and many are actually serving time.
Always scratch off the bottom to scan the bar code. The winners are easy, you see that you won. However, when it looks like a loser that is really when you need to double the ticket before you trash a winner by mistake.
The first names on the video report of the culprits is one Yogesh Patel
you cannot make these things up.
I wish more states would do this.
In Texas, the TLC installed new terminals that play a tune if a ticket is a winner. So, it's hard for a clerk to cheat a customer. I still check my tickets and know what the winners are worth when I redeem them.
ohio is the same if your ticket is a winner ..it will say in a mans voice "winner..Winner!"
Exactly what I've been saying all along. This has happened to me so many times! Even after I scan the ticket myself before handing the ticket to them! It's definately happening in Georgia and I had complained to them about it. One clerk threw mine in his trash bin and I ended up getting it back! It's disgusting!
they are supposed to hand losers back, maybe we all need to start videoing the transactions and explaining what we expect before handing the ticket over.
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Wanna bet that he goes by the name " YOGI"- not to be confused with Yogi Berra, considered one of the greatest catchers in baseball history.
Well this yogi got
.. what a catch!
The story doesn't say if there were more arrests and two out of 6,700 retailers across the state in four years doesn't exactly sound like a crime wave. In North Carolina it's a Class H felony and with a maximum 4 to 25 months and under the circumstances, probation is appropriate.
I'm glad that they're doing stings like these.
I don't know if Patel is a must have name for men of a whole tribe because even the stores at my town have Patel's behind the counter.
I know there is a country in Asia where people used to have one name only. I'm not sure if they changed that
You'll never see anything like that in Tennessee as long as the Dragon Lady is calling the shots. If you call to report it, they just tell you to be careful. They don't even want to know where it's happening. They tell you to watch the readouts on the screen and listen for the music but half of the readout screens are facing the wrong way or are covered up by winning scratcher tickets taped over them. And a lot of them have the music turned off somehow. You don't hear anything at all. And I never have them check tickets, I just have them cash small wins.
Also there are no self-scanners in East Tennessee though I hear they have them in Nashville for the muckety-mucks to use.
You can become very rich checking lottery tickets in East Tennessee, I'm here to testify.
Patel is a very common surname in India, much like Smith and Jones are in English-speaking countries. The origin of the name Patel is even similar to the origin of names like Baker and Cooper.
I agree.
They should get a nice firm kick in the pants by chester cheeto.
Only one?
What are the odds of that? 1 in 575,000?
Do they offer chicken dinners for prizes?
You thinking of these guys
all the Men are " Mr Singh" in the Sikh Religion- all the woman are " Mrs Kaur" in addition to the other names added to those mentioned above.
Patel's are a common name- l would presume.
They need to do these operations in every state. theres quite a few retailers who wont even let you cash in your winning ticket you bought there.
Noticed NC added alot more ticket scanners to protect the players. I would'nt trust the young clerks there anymore then peter patel.
Yeah, interesting list of crooked clerks they showed there:
Yogesh Patel
Easam Sidar
Ala Sider
Sat Pal
Balraj Dhillon
Gurminder Dhillon
KEVIN RICKETTS
"one of these things is not like the others..."
And they even capitalized it!
In PA we should have a scanner at each location. I have recently been seeing them behind the counters instead of where the customers can scan their own tickets or the self scanner is broken. BEAWARE!!
I check my own tickets thank you!
Patel is a family name in India and is found primarily in the Indian state of Gujarat. It means owner or tenant of royal land.
KD:
Note:
If a retailer ever refuses to CASH-In my legal winning TICKET<<<<<<<
think Psyko will ask Todd 4 permission 2 post store name & number & clerks first
name on The Lottery Post>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>!
BUT:
First, Psyko would report it 2 that states Lottery Commission and then would ask
Todd if could have a little help from The Lottery Post as my backside>BACK-UP!!
Slow news day I guess. The story highlights a sting that occurred in 2009 and 2010? There was a heartwarming story some years ago about an elderly woman playing a scratch-off ticket in NYC (Queens, I believe) who had a million dollar winner but threw it out mistakingly believing it was a loser. The store owner/clerk recognized it as a winner, knew the regular customer who had played it, and notified her- she later split it amongst her adult children.
Bad boyz,.....Bad boyz ,.......whatcha gonna do when they come for you,......................................bookum Dano,......
Pack you towels ,and ride your camel back to the other side of the pond.
I always check on my commputer by going to the nc website.
This would not happen IMHO if people just checked on their own, and signed their tickets. In Georgia I once had a guy TRY to say my ticket was not a winner, but I had the winning numbers circled, and when he was going to say "Oh sorry you did not win" he happen to turn the tickets over and realized I signed my signature. He was surprised. LOL
When I win big, no one can pull the wool over my eyes.
Agree, I know in Oklahoma if you give your ticket to the cashier it makes a noise when the clerk sends the ticket throhgh the reader to let you know that you won.
That's a great idea if the clerk's machine makes some kind of winning noise or jingle. No way for them to hide winners. Ours in California don't make any sound, but places I go, stores' lottery terminals behind the counters are connected to small monitors that instantly displays our wins. I still know beforehand exactly what I've won before redeeming.
Clerks stealing tickets. Is this really a news story anymore?
This happens all the time them shady clerks doing this all the time.
Yes and it needs to be in the news until all of the states start doing something about it.
It will be News when players learn how to sign the back of the ticket and/or ask for it back if the clerk says no winner, especially if the player is not sure if it's a winner.
From the NY lottery:
"Never hand a lottery ticket to anyone without knowing how much it's worth. (If you have to give a ticket to anyone to assess its value or collect winnings, sign the ticket first and always keep your ticket in view.)"
And it says about the same thing on the back of the tickets in every state lottery I played. Do all the state lotteries really need to set up sting operations on their retailers because some of their players aren't very smart?
Dont know why New York State will not do this