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SC lottery error prompts class-action lawsuitNews Story
It was Christmas Day in South Carolina and plenty of people were feeling lucky. For just $1, they could buy a ticket for Holiday Cash Add-A-Play at their local convenience store. The ticket looked a bit like a tic-tac-toe game: get three Christmas trees in a row on a nine-space grid and you won, maybe 2 or 20 bucks. Get all nine Christmas trees to fill the grid entirely and you won the $500 jackpot. The odds of that happening were 1 in 4,800. But something amazing started happening at exactly
Jun 2, 2018, 9:10 am - Lottery News

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 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

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

Judge rules $560M Powerball lottery winner can stay anonymousNews Story
A judge ruled Monday that a New Hampshire woman who won a Powerball jackpot worth nearly $560 million can keep her identity private, but not her hometown. Judge Charles Temple noted that the case's resolution rested on application of the state's Right-to-Know law, which governs access to public records for the woman. She was identified as Jane Doe in a lawsuit against the New Hampshire Lottery Commission. Temple wrote he had no doubts whatsoever that should Ms. Doe's identity be revealed,
Mar 12, 2018, 3:57 pm - 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

Court hears arguments on $559M lottery winner's plea to remain anonymousNews Story
The mystery woman in possession of the winning $560 million Powerball ticket purchased last month in Merrimack, New Hampshire, is highly stressed and is preparing to have security guards in place should her name be revealed, according to her lawyers. She doesn't want to be a celebrity, said William Shaheen of Shaheen and Gordon law firm. Shaheen said his client, who has filed a lawsuit against the New Hampshire Lottery Commission seeking to keep her identity a secret even though she signed t
Feb 14, 2018, 9:55 am - Lottery News

NH Lottery Commission wants Powerball winner's lawsuit dismissed, citing Right-to-Know LawNews Story
The New Hampshire lottery commission is asking a judge to dismiss a recent lawsuit brought forward by a local woman claiming to own the winning $560 million Powerball ticket and fighting to remain anonymous. Petitioner's desire for normalcy and anonymity is substantially outweighed by the public's right to transparency in the operation of lottery games, wrote Assistant Attorney General John Conforti. According to the state's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, the lottery commission believes i
Feb 13, 2018, 10:48 am - Lottery News

Georgia Lottery denies millions in prizes to winners of scratch-off gamesNews Story
The Georgia Lottery Commission has refused to pay more than $17.1 million in scratch-off game prizes since 2014 the year lottery officials instituted a policy of investigating big-money winners. The lottery has issued 270 denial letters to winners of $1,000 or more in the past four years, citing a variety of suspicions that could be fraud: people who claim multiple winning games in a relatively short period of time; winners who can't identify where or when the game was purchased; or individua
Dec 20, 2017, 7:13 pm - Lottery News