Retailer employee faces charges following integrity check
By Kate Northrop
An Oregon Lottery retailer employee is facing charges after an undercover investigation revealed they had stolen and attempted to claim a $25,000 winning lottery ticket.
The Oregon Lottery and Oregon State Police (OSP) caught a lottery retailer employee red-handed during a sting operation, exposing the theft of a ticket worth $25,000.
On Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, the OSP and Oregon Lottery initiated a Retail Integrity Check. Detectives from OSP's Lottery security section approached the counter at Short Stop on Gekeler Lane in La Grande and presented the clerk with tickets to check, including one worth $25,000.
The unnamed store employee scanned the tickets and informed the detectives that none of them were winners and kept the $25,000 winning ticket. Detectives then advised Oregon Lottery staff to place the ticket on "hold."
On Thursday, Sept. 26, the cashier mailed the winning ticket along with a signed claim form to the Lottery to attempt to claim the $25,000 prize.
OSP Lottery detectives interviewed the individual and issued a citation for Aggravated Theft 1 and Computer Crime, a press release from the Lottery states. Officials also recommended additional charges of Theft by Deception and Forgery in the First Degree to the Marion County District Attorney's Office.
The Lottery stated that Short Stop has been a retailer partner since 2005 and has no prior history of compliance issues.
"While it is rare to see an individual be dishonest at one of our retailers, we have a responsibility to ensure our games are played with fairness and integrity," Lottery Assistant Director of Security said. "These checks are one way we accomplish that."
OSP routinely conducts these undercover checks at lottery retailers throughout the year and have logged more than 170 checks since 2020.
"OSP detectives assigned to Oregon Lottery help support the agency by ensuring fairness, integrity, security and honesty in the operation of the Lottery," the Lottery said in a statement.
hehehe
something has to prompt these integrity checks, right? like a player complained to the lottery about a retailer or the lottery saw that someone who works at a convenience store cashed lots of winners. totally random integrity checks would be inefficient because most lottery ticket sellers are honest.
I'd like to know how the investigators came up with a winning $25,000 ticket!!
Hahahaha this is the comment of the decade. I can go back to sleep now 🤣🤣🤣
Benefit of doubt, am sure they print some for the random checks and probably have a barcode that shows they are for that purpose at the lottery end. That way even the investigators can't cash them in.
But that is a great question Tony, you got me laughing so hard 🤣 😅
I buy multiple tickets on Sundays for different games throughout the week. I mostly cash the winners on Sunday as I buy the new tickets.
I have an app for scanning the tickets so I always know what I have won even as I let the clerk scan them for me.
I have never had an incident where the clerk has lied to me.
However, that does not mean there are no evil people out there. I think when the winning ticket is worth 25K, the stakes are high and that can tempt the clerk.
I mostly win free plays, 3,5, 12 and at most 25 dollars. I would be hesitant to present a 50K winning ticket to the clerk, one because I can't cash it at the store and two because I wouldn't want them to know I won such an amount because I go to a few stores and they know me, not by name but face.
It was likely a "fake" winning ticket planted by the Lottery to ping as a winner in their system when scanned. These are routine integrity checks that they perform from time to time.
they spent millions of taxpayers dollars buying tickets till they got one to use
Isn't the simple term for this called "entrapment"?
no, because the undercover lottery agent is not egging on the cashier to do something illegal. they are only pretending to be a normal customer looking to check what their lottery tickets are worth.
i'm more concerned that they spend taxpayer money to do random checks on retailers with no known history of complaints against them.
Prolly would be few if any complaints if a retailer cheats a winner, the winner wouldnt know.
I mentioned before that in TX when a winning ticket is scanned there is a chime. I would tink most if not all states lottery terminals do the same now days.
I am pretty certain they are required to do random compliance checks. Common in many businesses for health and safety inspections as well.
I wonder if they checked to see if the clerk ever cashed any prior tickets that were presented by unsuspecting customers.
Good Luck, Chris