Gas station employee stole $850 in lottery tickets, police said

Aug 25, 2015, 8:19 am (22 comments)

Idaho Lottery

TWIN FALLS, Id. — Security footage caught a Twin Stop Chevron employee scratching Idaho lottery tickets on the job and putting the losing ones back for customers to buy, police said.

Kelsee Adams, 20, was arraigned Monday in Twin Falls Magistrate Court on a charge of lottery fraud.

During the last couple of weekends Adams scratched a small portion of about 30 tickets to reveal a four digit number, court documents said.

Adams would then scan the number to see to see if it won a prize. She would place the losers back in the case to be sold to customers, police said.

A customer brought a winning $20 lottery ticket in to the Chevron at 108 Addison Avenue West on Friday, but when the ticket was scanned a message popped up, "paid previously by you," court documents said.

An employee located nine tickets with the number scratched and contacted a district manager.

The manager reviewed the daily reports. Employees are required to log the number for each ticket sold and these reports identified Adams, court documents said.

She redeemed both winning and non-winning tickets for more than $850, police said.

Adams was released on her own recognizance and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 4.

News story photo(Click to display full-size in gallery)

Times-News

Comments

Jani Norman's avatarJani Norman

to be so young and ruin your life like this

Bleudog101

You can't fix stupid, with all the security measures stores and lotteries have one would be foolish to try anything shady.

 

On a side note,  a PATEL store in Louisville, KY sold a $100,000 scratcher.  Off to their website to see if the picture of the winner is there yet...

sully16's avatarsully16

Quote: Originally posted by Jani Norman on Aug 25, 2015

to be so young and ruin your life like this

I Agree! Yep.

gocart1's avatargocart1

EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES .. HOPEFULLY SHE'LL LEARN FROM THIS ONE .PartyUS FlagParty

zinniagirl's avatarzinniagirl

So young to become a theif!  Temptation is the biggest chalkenge facing all people.

HoLeeKau's avatarHoLeeKau

Scratching off those 4 numbers makes an awfully big hole.  Her customers honestly didn't notice it when they bought the tickets?  I notice a scratch (on the rare occasion I buy a scratcher) because it used to be easy to make a tiny scratch in the right spot to see a code.

maringoman's avatarmaringoman

Micro scratching thieving technique is one reason I will not buy those higher denomination scratch offs.  Also the fact that the tickets are not randomly distributed is not good.

cbr$'s avatarcbr$

This is really stupid. This 20 year old, just ruin her life. With this charge of lottery fraud. It is now public record. If she go out to get any thing that require a back ground check, she may get only no. Sorry, you have a record, we need to know we can trust the people we hire, or deal with....etc....

rasean75

Stupid is...as stupid does...

-forest gump-

LiveLaugh-Lv72

Its easy to read, sit, and judge another person and their actions. Just for the record.......The lottery ticket/customer/ video camera incident happening last friday completely false, and since you only got part of the story I will be more than happy to fill in the blanks that the news reporter left out. When she was hired on at Twin Stop, there was no company policy against playing lottery while on shift!!!!! When Oasis Stop and Go took ownership, it was against store policy, which is the reason for the whole ordeal....the video they're referring to was from over 2 weeks ago. She never stole any lottery tickets, she never passed on already scratched lottery tickets to customers...... who was this mysterious customer??? The report itself conterdicts the actions one minute she is cashing in the winners and selling the losers and the next thing ya know she selling even winning tickets to customers, there is absolutely no record of the supposed 'Customer'  its an employees word. Friday's are  Kelsees day off, she was called into work this past Friday to help with some stocking, they had her clock in and then had the police come in and talk to her she didn't ever run the till...... as for the $850.00 worth of lottery tickets beings scanned by her over a couple of weekends, well uh she is a cashier at a convenience store that sells lottery ....Use your brain, if she was cashing in winners and losers why would she knowingly give a winner to a customer.... so before commenting please make sure you know the true facts of the story...go to the Idaho Repository you wont find her, and as of Monday she was still an employee at the Store, ANY company that has a CRIMINAL mastermind working for them would certainly terminate their employment!!!!

beaudad's avatarbeaudad

Quote: Originally posted by Jani Norman on Aug 25, 2015

to be so young and ruin your life like this

AMEN !!!

HoLeeKau's avatarHoLeeKau

Quote: Originally posted by maringoman on Aug 25, 2015

Micro scratching thieving technique is one reason I will not buy those higher denomination scratch offs.  Also the fact that the tickets are not randomly distributed is not good.

Micro scratching!  Nice term.  I don't think the lotto machines would read a micro scratch to cash in the ticket, would they?  Pretty sure the whole thing has to be scratched off.  Maybe the girl really is innocent because I can't imagine anyone buying a ticket that has a macro scratch on it.  No Nod

maringoman's avatarmaringoman

Quote: Originally posted by HoLeeKau on Aug 25, 2015

Micro scratching!  Nice term.  I don't think the lotto machines would read a micro scratch to cash in the ticket, would they?  Pretty sure the whole thing has to be scratched off.  Maybe the girl really is innocent because I can't imagine anyone buying a ticket that has a macro scratch on it.  No Nod

Micro scratching is a real thieving technique. I once received a ticket with small cat scratches on it. They were so small that I didn't think anything sinister of them until I was made aware of micro scratching. 

https://www.lotterypost.com/news/247863

mikeintexas's avatarmikeintexas

Quote: Originally posted by LiveLaugh-Lv72 on Aug 25, 2015

Its easy to read, sit, and judge another person and their actions. Just for the record.......The lottery ticket/customer/ video camera incident happening last friday completely false, and since you only got part of the story I will be more than happy to fill in the blanks that the news reporter left out. When she was hired on at Twin Stop, there was no company policy against playing lottery while on shift!!!!! When Oasis Stop and Go took ownership, it was against store policy, which is the reason for the whole ordeal....the video they're referring to was from over 2 weeks ago. She never stole any lottery tickets, she never passed on already scratched lottery tickets to customers...... who was this mysterious customer??? The report itself conterdicts the actions one minute she is cashing in the winners and selling the losers and the next thing ya know she selling even winning tickets to customers, there is absolutely no record of the supposed 'Customer'  its an employees word. Friday's are  Kelsees day off, she was called into work this past Friday to help with some stocking, they had her clock in and then had the police come in and talk to her she didn't ever run the till...... as for the $850.00 worth of lottery tickets beings scanned by her over a couple of weekends, well uh she is a cashier at a convenience store that sells lottery ....Use your brain, if she was cashing in winners and losers why would she knowingly give a winner to a customer.... so before commenting please make sure you know the true facts of the story...go to the Idaho Repository you wont find her, and as of Monday she was still an employee at the Store, ANY company that has a CRIMINAL mastermind working for them would certainly terminate their employment!!!!

^ Kelsee's mom?

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