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The man who cracked the lotteryNews Story
Crime story: A recounting of the biggest lottery scandal in history The file landed on Rob Sand's desk with something less than a thud. Despite holding the contents of an investigation still open after more than two years, the file was barely half an inch thick. Happy birthday, his boss said. It was not Rob Sand's birthday. His boss, an Iowa deputy attorney general named Thomas H. Miller, was retiring in July 2014 after nearly three decades of prosecuting everything from murder to fraud. H
May 3, 2018, 2:49 pm - Lottery News

Iowa Lottery CEO announces retirementNews Story
Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich announced Thursday that he intends to retire in late 2018 or early 2019. Rich has led the Iowa Lottery since February 2009 and is just the second person to serve as its CEO since the lottery's start in 1985. Rich, 65, released this statement regarding his retirement: Over the past years, I've had the privilege of serving three Iowa governors while achieving some significant milestones at the lottery, helping with projects to address some of the state's biggest
Apr 20, 2018, 8:35 am - Lottery News

Iowa Lottery wins International Gaming-Compliance award for work in lottery rigging investigationNews Story
Long-running case culminated in 2017 guilty pleas from three men The Iowa Lottery has won an international gaming-compliance award for its work in the long-running lottery jackpot investigation that uncovered fraud against U.S. lotteries and resulted in guilty pleas from three men. GamblingCompliance on Wednesday named the Iowa Lottery its 2018 recipient for outstanding achievement in compliance. The organization's annual awards that recognize excellence in 11 categories focused on regulat
Apr 19, 2018, 10:29 am - Lottery News

MUSL issues report about computerized drawing failures in ArizonaNews Story
One machine was broken, the other generated 'apparently valid results' By Todd Northrop The Arizona Lottery released the report last month from the Multi-State Lottery Association's (MUSL) investigation of a computerized drawing malfunction that caused the same winning numbers to be generated in successive drawings. When lottery drawings are discussed or envisioned by members of the public, one imagines a spinning drum of numbered balls from which the lucky winning numbers are drawn. I
Apr 11, 2018, 9:45 am - Lottery News

Infamous lottery scammer says US computerized lottery drawings remain fatally flawedNews Story
Eddie Tipton warned them. As the head of IT at the Multi-State Lottery Association, Tipton pulled aside his boss and told him the computer software that randomly selected the winning numbers for million-dollar games in as many as 17 states had a terrible flaw. It wasn't really random. Though his boss listened, Tipton told state investigators that other officials with the nation's chief lottery system did not. They told him to fix it, then moved on. A disgruntled Tipton made some upda
Mar 19, 2018, 8:32 am - Lottery News

How a gaming geek with a checkered past pulled off the biggest lottery scam in U.S. historyNews Story
12-15-18-29-38-41. Eddie Tipton jotted down the numbers on a yellow sticky note as he sat at his desk in Urbandale more than a decade ago. Around him were more sticky notes filled with number sets that he carefully wrote down as they spun up on his computer screen. The numbers were generated by a cryptic two-line software code Tipton had planted in his employer's computer system at the Multi-State Lottery Association. The office building was virtually empty as Tipton ran test after test
Mar 16, 2018, 7:48 am - Lottery News

Lottery scammer rigged more drawings than first thought, records showNews Story
The computer program that a former lottery security official used to rig drawings worth millions of dollars in Iowa and other states was more expansive than investigators first discovered, court records filed last week show. Eddie Tipton, a former employee of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) in Clive, wrote the code to allow him to predict the randomly drawn numbers of multimillion-dollar jackpots in as many as 17 states and claim the cash prizes. The code remained active and und
Feb 19, 2018, 6:03 pm - Lottery News

Lotto America multi-state lottery game tickets on sale SundayNews Story
New game replaces canceled Hot Lotto By Todd Northrop What's old is new again. Ripping a page from the 1980s, the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) is starting a new game on Sunday called Lotto America the original name of what is now known as Powerball. The throwback name is probably a good idea, since the new game has the difficult task of helping people forget the tumultuous ending to Hot Lotto, the game it replaces. Fortunately for lottery players, not only does the new g
Nov 10, 2017, 10:15 am - Lottery News

Lottery rigger warned officials about computerized drawing machines years agoNews Story
By Jason Clayworth The mastermind behind a national lottery scam says he warned officials about a glitch in computer-generated drawings 11 years ago, but nobody seemed too worried, his lawyer revealed in an exclusive interview. The same glitch involving identical numbers drawn consecutively or nearly consecutively occurred again in the past two weeks in Arizona, prompting state officials to offer players a refund. Eddie Tipton's new behind-bars revelation, paired with the duplicate numb
Oct 15, 2017, 8:54 am - Lottery News

Winner sues Colorado Lottery 12 years after rigged drawingNews Story
A decade after Colorado engineer Amir Massihzadeh hit the lottery, two state agents visited him with stunning news: He was likely the only legitimate winner of a $4.8 million jackpot he'd had to split three ways. They told the Boulder resident that the other two people who had won the 2005 drawing were linked to a conspiracy in which a lottery insider and several cohorts had rigged drawings in several states. Now Massihzadeh, 62, is suing for the rest of the winnings that he feels should have
Oct 5, 2017, 6:57 pm - Lottery News