Investigator was paid $50 for ticket worth $20,000
OLYMPIA, Wa. — An employee of the City Limits Deli Mart in Sumner and her companion got an unpleasant surprise Monday when they traveled to Washington's Lottery headquarters to claim what they thought was a $20,000 prize.
Olympia police arrested the two women for allegedly trying to claim the prize through fraud or deception, according to a Lottery spokeswoman.
The alleged fraud occurred Thursday, when an undercover Lottery employee posing as a customer at the store conducted a random consumer compliance check, said Lottery spokeswoman Jacque Coe.
Coe said the investigator had a specially designed winning lottery ticket, and he gave it to the employee to check whether it was a winner.
The ticket indicated it was a winner, and that the person who possessed it was due $20,000, Coe said. But an employee told the compliance officer the ticket was worth a $50 payout, Coe said.
The woman kept the ticket after giving the Lottery employee $50, she said. On Monday, the store employee and a companion tried to claim the $20,000 ticket at Washington's Lottery headquarters on Fourth Avenue in Olympia, according to Coe. Lottery officials called Olympia police, and officers arrested the two women.
The compliance checks by Washington's Lottery have been ongoing for about a year and are meant to test proper ticket-cashing procedures, Coe said. Monday's arrests were the first of their kind, she added.
"This is unusual," Coe said.
Customers at any of the Lottery's more than 4,000 retailers must be able to rely on store clerks to give them the accurate value of their tickets, Coe said.
"Consumer protection is paramount to the integrity of the Lottery," she said.
Coe reminded Lottery consumers that they can always check the value of a winning lottery ticket by calling the Lottery's winning-numbers line at 1-800-545-7510. Stores that sell lottery tickets also should have scanners that customers can use to get an accurate value if a ticket is a winner, she said.
Retailers can pay out winning lottery tickets on-site only when they are valued at $600 or less, Coe said. Winning tickets in amounts higher than that must be cashed out at one of the state's six regional lottery offices – in Vancouver, Olympia, Federal Way, Everett, Yakima or Spokane – she said.
Coe said anyone who buys a winning lottery ticket should sign it to make sure no one else can claim it.
Coe said the investigation into the two women arrested at Washington's Lottery headquarters Monday is ongoing.
The Olympian is not releasing the names of the two women because they have not been charged with a crime. Both had been released from the Thurston County Jail as of Tuesday afternoon.
It remains to be seen which county prosecutor's office will have jurisdiction over the case. Thurston County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim said he was unfamiliar with the case, but that it could be filed in either Pierce or Thurston counties.
This story is disturbing from every angle.
While I am glad the Lottery is trying to ensure customers are not deceioved and that stores are held accountable for stealing from customers I am disturbed at this particular sting.
"A speciallty designed winning ticket"? WTF is that?
If the Lottery can fake a winning ticket, let it show up on a machine as a winner, why should't I believe the whole darned thing is rigged? Wake up folks.
This needs an independent investigation.
I don't have a problem with a lottery official possessing a rigged ticket to set up a thief. I have a problem with the trust that is automatically
assumed when handing a ticket over to the person standing behind the machine. That trust has been violated many, many times...examples
reported here with larger amounts yet, remember?
Imagine the countless times where something like this wasn't reported because the prizes were much less. How easy to say the ticket is not a
winner and pocket even $50.
PA recently replaced old machines with new and supposedly better machines..one of the perks or add ons was a ticket reader. Scan the bar
of the ticket and get results stating whether or not you're a winner. Do it yourself, nothing better than that. I have seen some people hand
the ticket over to the clerk even after doing the scan themselves saying: I'm not sure about this one....
A huge downside is that these fancy, new machines DO NOT read instant tickets. Where is the sense in that move? PA and any other state that
has ticket readers need to put the ability to read instant tickets in place. AND people need to wake up and not be so trusting. Times are
hard but that comes and goes, thieves are a constant. Make sure YOU know before handing your ticket over to some smiling clerk...it's
not that hard to find out if you have a winner or not....newspapers, Internet, the actual drawing, letter codes on instant tickets, self scanning
machines. Beware.
If a person dosen't know how much his ticket is worth before he goes in to cash it they should not be buying lottery ticket..These clerks are just stupid because this has been tried before..They will never get away with it..Glad the lottery does this and no it's not rigged!!..
I gotta disagree tiggs. I bet they get away with it all the time.
Do you think that this was the first time that this broad ripped somebody off and she just happened to get caught by an investigator on her first try?
I don't.
I hope we hear what happens to her now since she hasn't even been charged with a crime.
Wait I don't understand, if they tried to claim a wrongful prize, why aren't they being persecuted by the AD? And as far as that winning ticket goes, from what I get of it, it wasn't part of the game itself in terms of sales, just a ticket that showed up as a winner that carried the label of the game? Hmm..., either case I hope they start doing this in all states, people don't hate me for saying this, but most people it's not that they don't care, it's just that they don't have the time to check up on everything and rely on honest clerks to tell them the truth, even if it is a purchase. I know I know.
So when it does happen, I say, Fry Em'! 
If you got time to go into a store and buy a ticket you got time to check the numbers to see if you won and how much the ticket is worth..
Once again tiggs is wrong..When will he ever learn..
"Wait I don't understand, if they tried to claim a wrongful prize, why aren't they being persecuted by the AD?"
I've got no idea why the lottery and the prosecutor wouldn't have figured it out ahead of time, but it sounds like they aren't sure if she should be prosecuted in the jurisdiction where the ticket was taken, or where she tried to claim the ticket. It seems to me there should be an easy answer to that: both. She committed one crime by fraudulently taking the ticket, and another by trying to claim the prize as her own.
I'd like to know why her companion was arrested. There's absolutely nothing in the article to suggest that the comanion did anything wrong.
I know the feeling tiggs.
I thought I was wrong once but luckily I was mistaken.
Throw the book at her....some of these clerks will take your teeth if you let them.
Neat trick. I hope all of the States employ this tactic, to bring some honesty back into the system.
It's got to be hard to police the retailers and their practices.
true that. It seems guys here would rather blame the honest victim rather than the crook. When you go to a store you expect to be dealt with in a fair manner and the law assures us so.
I agree , one gas station always has unsold tickets taped to the register in hopes some one just won' t be able to pass them up..always its for big jackpot games.
I've been guilty of buying some of those taped tickets. But, where I play, the tickets were usually generated when the customer wanted some other game or they could not pay for all of the tickets they asked for.
Mind you, I don't think I ever cashed in on any of these tickets, so that was a waste. But you never know who could have discarded the winning numbers.