A deep-pocketed mystery man from Chicago tried to bet an odds-skewing $7 million on the Mass Millions numbers game this week after Lottery officials opened the door by helping him buy 60,000 of the dollar tickets just last week.
Lottery officials furiously backpedaled yesterday, refusing to release the man's identity even as they admitted they have no idea where his cash came from - raising fears among lawmakers that a mobster or drug kinpin may be trying to launder money through the Lottery.
"I'm worried about where that kind of money comes from," said state Rep. George N. Peterson (R-Grafton). "There aren't a lot of people who walk around with a cashier's check for $7 (million) to $10 million in their pockets."
The Lottery dventually turned down the huge request and Lottery Director Joseph C. Sullivan, while admitting the $60,000 bet struck officials as "unique," said Lottery policies do not require special actions for such a large bet.
"We financially, legally followed all procedures," Sullivan said. "We're looking at whether or not we have to institute a policy."
The trouble began last Thursday, when the mystery man walked into the Lottery's Braintree headquarters and asked to buy $60,000 worth of "quick picks" for that night's Mass Millions drawing, Lottery officials confirmed.
The man offered a $60,000 cashier's check, which Lottery officials verified was legitimate and promptly turned into 60,000 tickets - producing $6,000 worth of winners, sources say.
Lottery officials acknowledged that, over the ensuing six days, the man raised the specter of buying between 7 million and 10 million tickets for last night's drawing.
After laying the groundwork to accept the man's massive second wager in the wake of the first outlay, Sullivan said agency officials got cold feet and called off the bet.
Had the man been allowed to purchase 7 million tickets, he would have cornered half of the game's possible number combinations - boosting his chances of hitting the $38.9 million jackpot to 50-50, compared to the 1 in 14 million odds for a single-ticket player.
"The Lottery exists for all its players," Sullivan said. "One player seeking to potentially buy a jackpot goes against the spirit of our mission."
Sullivan refused to release the man's name or whether he has any financial backers, saying only, "He wishes not to be identified."
With staff discussions underway over what to do, the Lottery on Wednesday canceled an agent training session to free up a roomful of game terminals at Lottery headquarters, as a "precautionary" measure in case they needed to key in millions of tickets for the man, Sullivan said.
While trying to downplay the massive potential bet as a "hypothetical," Sullivan defended his decision to make preparations for accepting the wager - which was called off Wednesday night.
"A request, no matter how unusual it may be, needs to be considered," Sullivan said.
In the end, Lottery officials said they gave the man a list of the state's 7,300 agents and told him to buy the tickets individually.
State lawmakers were flabbergasted that the agency would take $60,000 in one fell swoop at all - let alone mull a bet as high as $10 million.
Wall Street gets suspicious and conducts a thorough vetting when somebody tries to buy a huge number of stocks, said Peterson, a regular Lottery player.
Officials put the man through a "thorough background check," which Sullivan defined as verifying the validity of his driver's license and cashier's check.
Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill said through a spokeswoman he agrees with the Lottery's decision to accept the $60,000.
A cashier's check is the most secure form of payment the Lottery accepts, and banks that issue such checks for more than $10,000 report it to the IRS, spokeswoman Karen Sharma said.
"The treasurer is comfortable that this is not money laundering," Sharma said, acknowledging, however, that Treasury officials have not conferred with the IRS.
Sounds like one of those Lottery Investment Syndicates. Years ago a T.V. show 'How They Do That' featured a story about one that won the Virgina lottery, but they took over terminals at a few 7-11 stores an played 80% of the possible combinations. The group said they looked for state lotteries that had jackpots with cash values greater than the odds of winnings and invested in them. Right after that Virgina changed its lotteries laws so no single group could take over enough terminals to do that again.
I had heard a story about a group of investors from Austrailia that attempted to buy the Virginia lottery a few years back. They went about filling in the punch cards themselves and then taking them to individual ticket sellers around the state. They never purchased enough tickets to cover every combo, but they bought about 75% of them. And they did win. And they were the only winners.
Sounds like this guy is working alone, that syndicate have a big group of bonded people to play their cards. I guess some of the politicians don't want the lottery to be a sure thing. They would really go nuts if someone came up with a system that with $20K they could win a lottery jackpot 50% of the time.
He already lost very bad...He spent $60,000 to win $6,000...obviously a man willing to bet that kind of money and get that kind of return...and yet still attempt to bet again with even more money does not really care about the return that he will get. Who bets $7 million dollars without a sure return on his money?
Well while we are discussing plans let me explain mine. The old Super Lotto here in Ohio was 6/47 with 10,737,573 combos. My plan was to create a club of 107,375 members. Each member had a pre selected set of 100 non repeated combos, that no other member had. When the jackpot hit a target of say 50 million we bet. One of the members had to hit. The member did not share the winnings. I got as far as getting a newsletter set up, most of the programming up and running and decided I better check with the lottery. They to say the least did not share my enthusiasm for the idea. I received a letter from the Chief Legal Council herself explaining the law and letting me know just what would happen if I tried such an dvent. They called it a block bet. In other words I would of kept someone from being the sole winner. Man it would of been fun. I would like to try the Mega Millions, sort of. Covering the first 5 would be easy, but the 52 of the 5 would be the killer.
I'm from from central Ohio too. Before I retired, I worked with a guy who tried to organize a similar scheme, but he would going to sell each member a set of numbers to play and make his money off selling the numbers,but he couldn't get ten people to join, so the scheme never got off the ground. At the time, our town had about 25,000 people and about 2,500 lottery players who bought $5-$10 of tickets per draw and nobody had ever won the big jackpot, so he couldn't convince anyone that would change if everyone bought their numbers off of him.
Some time back, before posters had to register, someone posted a link at this forum to a group in Canada that had a scheme like you suggested for their 649 lotteries. They claim they could cover all the mostly likely combinations with about 300,000 lines and hit 30% of the time. They required a $10,000 deposit up front to get into one of their investment groups of 200 people. They had an impressive website from which you could download a pdf file with a lot of data showing their past performance, but I think it was a scam because I never heard about them from any other source.
Like I stated in an earlier post, there was a time when some lotteries had jackpots valued several times the odds of winning and such schemes made sense and worked, but today I seldom see a lottery where the cash prize is more than the odds of winning.
Sounds like one of those Lottery Investment Syndicates. Years ago a T.V. show 'How They Do That' featured a story about one that won the Virgina lottery, but they took over terminals at a few 7-11 stores an played 80% of the possible combinations. The group said they looked for state lotteries that had jackpots with cash values greater than the odds of winnings and invested in them. Right after that Virgina changed its lotteries laws so no single group could take over enough terminals to do that again.
RJOh
I had heard a story about a group of investors from Austrailia that attempted to buy the Virginia lottery a few years back. They went about filling in the punch cards themselves and then taking them to individual ticket sellers around the state. They never purchased enough tickets to cover every combo, but they bought about 75% of them. And they did win. And they were the only winners.
Wow spooky. We basically po
Sounds like this guy is working alone, that syndicate have a big group of bonded people to play their cards. I guess some of the politicians don't want the lottery to be a sure thing. They would really go nuts if someone came up with a system that with $20K they could win a lottery jackpot 50% of the time.
RJOh
With That kind of WAM (walk
I bet he doesn't even know that the game still does NOT offer a cash option.
Hey, that's pretty funny! The guy would probably just do better to invest his $10 Million, rather than to pay the lottery $10 mil for an annuity.
That's the sad truth, Todd.
He already lost very bad...He spent $60,000 to win $6,000...obviously a man willing to bet that kind of money and get that kind of return...and yet still attempt to bet again with even more money does not really care about the return that he will get. Who bets $7 million dollars without a sure return on his money?
He is either very very smart or very very stupid.
Hmmm!
Well while we are discussing plans let me explain mine. The old Super Lotto here in Ohio was 6/47 with 10,737,573 combos. My plan was to create a club of 107,375 members. Each member had a pre selected set of 100 non repeated combos, that no other member had. When the jackpot hit a target of say 50 million we bet. One of the members had to hit. The member did not share the winnings. I got as far as getting a newsletter set up, most of the programming up and running and decided I better check with the lottery. They to say the least did not share my enthusiasm for the idea. I received a letter from the Chief Legal Council herself explaining the law and letting me know just what would happen if I tried such an dvent. They called it a block bet. In other words I would of kept someone from being the sole winner. Man it would of been fun. I would like to try the Mega Millions, sort of. Covering the first 5 would be easy, but the 52 of the 5 would be the killer.
He is a candidate for Gamblers Anonymous or the looney bin.
Sweat,
I'm from from central Ohio too. Before I retired, I worked with a guy who tried to organize a similar scheme, but he would going to sell each member a set of numbers to play and make his money off selling the numbers,but he couldn't get ten people to join, so the scheme never got off the ground. At the time, our town had about 25,000 people and about 2,500 lottery players who bought $5-$10 of tickets per draw and nobody had ever won the big jackpot, so he couldn't convince anyone that would change if everyone bought their numbers off of him.
Some time back, before posters had to register, someone posted a link at this forum to a group in Canada that had a scheme like you suggested for their 649 lotteries. They claim they could cover all the mostly likely combinations with about 300,000 lines and hit 30% of the time. They required a $10,000 deposit up front to get into one of their investment groups of 200 people. They had an impressive website from which you could download a pdf file with a lot of data showing their past performance, but I think it was a scam because I never heard about them from any other source.
Like I stated in an earlier post, there was a time when some lotteries had jackpots valued several times the odds of winning and such schemes made sense and worked, but today I seldom see a lottery where the cash prize is more than the odds of winning.
RJOh