Spain nabs con artists in major lottery scam
Spanish police have arrested 43 Africans on suspicion of running a fraud ring in which people were duped into paying money as a handling charge to collect fake lottery winnings.
(Editor's note: See http://www.usamega.com/lottery-scams.asp for a description of this type of lottery scam.)
Authorities estimate the men 42 Nigerians and one Senegalese bilked people out of more than 2 million (US$2.6 million) altogether. They were arrested Tuesday in Seville, and another five Nigerians were ...
Feb 7, 2007, 12:45 pm - - Lottery News forum
Tenn. legislator no longer pursuing national lottery
Idea had no support from House Democrat leaders
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said Tuesday that he has abandoned the idea of sponsoring a bill to create a national lottery, saying it had little support from his party leaders, and would take money from the hands of Tennesseans.
Cohen suggested just after his November election that he might pursue the idea after his lengthy and ultimately successful effort to get a Tennessee Lottery signed into law. But his first discussions with House Dem ...
Feb 7, 2007, 12:09 pm - - Lottery News forum
Wyoming lottery bill killed once again
Casper resident Larry Griffith thought surely this was the year for Wyoming to finally join a multi-state lottery.
Griffith has been buying Nebraska lottery tickets for years, and said Wyoming is losing big money to adjacent states.
So Griffith was not happy when the state House on Monday voted 31-27 to kill yet another attempt to legalize a lottery in the state.
I think it's pathetic, he said.
After a half-dozen previous attempts to legalize lottery by the state Legislature, this ...
Feb 7, 2007, 11:09 am - - Lottery News forum
Successful lottery winners don't change too much
Eleven years after hitting a $1 million jackpot in the New York Lottery's 7-11-21 game, Agnes Jackman got some free advice on how to handle her winnings.
In a 1991 Money magazine cover story titled Midway Through a Million, financial planner Gary Schatsky suggested investing in money market funds, certificates of deposit and U.S. government bonds. He also told Jackman to stop spending money on lottery tickets.
She rejected his guidance.
And now, seven years after cashing her last inst ...
Jan 31, 2007, 4:39 am - - Lottery News forum
Nationwide, lotteries struggle to stay competitive
Lotteries across the country are struggling to remain competitive, retaining their players while increasing their bottom lines. Last year, 25 U.S. lotteries reported increased sales, but New York's lottery was one of six that had higher profits.
One key to New York's success is that the New York Lottery continues to attempt to be fun and entertaining, said former Lottery Director Nancy Palumbo, who was interviewed before leaving the division late last year.
We're constantly challenged to ...
Jan 31, 2007, 4:03 am - - Lottery News forum
Lottery tickets prove a popular gift
What started out as a stocking stuffer for Fred Heckman's grandchildren turned into a profitable tradition for the family.
One year when he was searching for small extras to give his two grandchildren on Christmas, the Endicott, N.Y., man discovered a New York Lottery promotion that offered $10 worth of scratch-off tickets packaged in a festive envelope. He hasn't found them since that year, but every year since, he has purchased $10 worth of tickets as a present whichever games feel lucky. ...
Jan 31, 2007, 2:27 am - - Lottery News forum
Nationwide, lotteries pay for far more than education
Martha Keller is a 78-year-old resident of Altoona, Pa., who frequently takes the bus from her apartment on Walnut Avenue to her doctor's office or the local senior center. Chandni Amin is a 19-year-old nursing student at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Keller and Amin have little in common save for one thing both are benefiting directly from money raised by state lotteries. Lotteries help pay for everything from education to economic development, buses to baseball stadiums.
In Penn ...
Jan 31, 2007, 12:06 am - - Lottery News forum
Video gambling a cash cow even for smaller states
Surveying West Virginia's rural neighborhoods, where most people lack broadband access to the Internet, you would never guess the state is a lottery cash cow.
That is until you drove by the racetracks that dot major population centers.
There you would see crowds of people shoving streams of dollars into buzzing and blinking video lottery terminals the reason this small state, with one of the country's lowest per-capita incomes is home to one of the most lucrative lotteries in the natio ...
Jan 30, 2007, 8:09 pm - - Lottery News forum
Lottery players learn tough lessons
When Chris Ramesar plays the Florida lottery, sometimes he gets a warning from his 8-year-old daughter, Gabriela.
Daddy, she says, remember what happened in New York?
Ramesar is a 57-year-old co-owner of an auto body shop in Miami. He is thousands of miles and more than a decade removed from the day he found out his lucky numbers had come up in the New York Lottery.
But he hasn't forgotten what happened, or the lesson he eventually learned that it is very hard to sue the Lottery s ...
Jan 30, 2007, 11:47 am - - Lottery News forum
Antigua gets favorable WTO gambling ruling over U.S.
The United States has suffered a new setback in a four-year-old legal battle with Antigua and Barbuda over U.S. restrictions on Internet gambling, a U.S. trade official said on Thursday.
At issue is an April 2005 World Trade Organization ruling against U.S. prohibitions on online horse race betting. Since then, the U.S. Congress has passed additional legislation to ban certain financial transactions related to gambling over the Internet.
Gretchen Hamel, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Repre ...
Jan 27, 2007, 8:46 am - - Lottery News forum
