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Feds bust up illegal fantasy football lottery schemeNews Story
A business pairing the enormously popular fantasy football leagues with the Georgia Lottery must have looked like a money-making combination. Two eager investors thought so and forked out $500,000 in loans to the Atlanta man who hatched the idea of a fantasy football lottery league. But Timothy Cobb, a former lawyer who once worked for Turner Broadcasting System, was running a scam, according to allegations in a federal indictment unsealed this week. Cobb is no longer engaging in fantasy,
Dec 1, 2018, 8:34 am - Lottery News

8 years after buying $10.8 million ticket, lottery winner says life is 'marvelous'News Story
A Pennsylvania couple who took home more than $10 million in Delaware's first Hot Lotto jackpot eight years ago traded in their mobile home for a four-bedroom house but say their good fortune hasn't changed them. In August 2009, Robert Crowther already had retired from the Chrysler Assembly Plant in Newark, Delaware, where he had worked for more than 30 years. Since the Crowthers opted to take the jackpot as a lump sum of $10,774,362 rather than as a deferred annuity, life has been marvelous,
Nov 12, 2018, 4:09 pm - Lottery News

'It was a horrible, horrible crime that I committed,' Jamaican lottery scammer repentsNews Story
Charles Bennett had already lost his home and moved into a trailer to pay the scammers who had taken over his life. Soon he was hiding there in the dark, told in a late-night phone call that he was about to be arrested over unpaid bills. The 85-year-old Massachusetts man would be stopped from selling the trailer by a social services investigation, but he lost all control over his finances. Even then, he starved himself so he could hand over his food allowance to the scammers. He remained conv
Oct 5, 2018, 9:25 am - Lottery News

He won $19 million in the lottery — and became a bank robberNews Story
The first time Jim Hayes robbed a bank, at age 55, he gave himself a pep talk. The former security guard a clean-cut guy with silver hair and a doughy physique stood frozen next to the entrance of Montecito Bank Trust at a strip mall in Carpinteria, a mellow beach town about 12 miles southeast of Santa Barbara. Hayes had stuffed a pillow in his shirt and pulled a Zoo York cap low over his face. It was 5:15 p.m. on April 27, 2017 and he'd spent weeks researching how to pull off the heist. Now,
Sep 30, 2018, 11:38 am - Lottery News

Audit reveals 'questionable' Colorado Lottery winsNews Story
A handful of people seem to have been winning the Colorado Lottery a bit more often than the odds would dictate, raising the specter of possible wrongdoing, a state audit revealed Monday. That audit showed that some individuals, including one licensed Lottery retailer, have won several high-dollar prizes over the past three years, raising concerns with the Colorado Auditor's Office that something could be amiss. One person won $600 or more from the Lottery's Pick 3 game 47 times over a th
Sep 25, 2018, 9:16 am - Lottery News

China probes yet another lottery official suspected of corruptionNews Story
Try as it might, China's sole form of legal gambling simply can't escape allegations of corruption committed by the officials in charge. This week, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs announced that Wang Suying, the former director of the China Welfare Lottery Issuance Management Center, was under investigation by the ministry's disciplinary inspection and supervisory departments for what was described as serious violations of the [Communist] Party discipline. The 57-year-old Wang began wor
Sep 15, 2018, 8:24 pm - Lottery News

Police break up scratch-off lottery ticket burglary ringNews Story
Authorities have arrested three San Jose, California, men and are seeking at least one other suspected of breaking into Bay Area businesses to steal lottery scratch-off tickets. Belmont police Capt. Patrick Halleran said his agency cracked the crime ring with help from the Burlingame, Menlo Park, Los Gatos-Monte Sereno, and San Jose police departments and the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. The suspects would break into closed businesses in the early morning hours and steal large quan
Aug 17, 2018, 1:07 pm - Lottery News

Memo: Iowa Lottery kept selling games after security warningNews Story
A newly unsealed memo shows the Iowa Lottery kept marketing four popular games despite an August 2015 warning from its security chief that their integrity was compromised. The memo was written following the trial of Eddie Tipton, who was convicted of rigging a Hot Lotto jackpot worth $16 million. Steve Bogle, its vice president of security, recommended that the lottery immediately suspend sales of Hot Lotto, Pick 3, Pick 4, and All or Nothing. He told CEO Terry Rich, we cannot allow the ci
Aug 1, 2018, 2:27 pm - Lottery News

Man busts through store roof, steals lottery ticketsNews Story
Includes video report By Todd Northrop A thief hoping to steal his way to some good luck busted through the roof of a grocery store and took hundreds of dollars worth of lottery tickets on Wednesday. Ironically, unlucky for him, it was all caught on camera. Surveillance footage captured a fairly clear image of the suspect's face, and after about a day on the run, Kevin Croft, 30, was arrested for the crime by Florida detectives. Croft was booked into the Lee County Jail and faces
Jul 20, 2018, 9:01 am - Lottery News

Texas lottery winner battled Alzheimer's as daughter stole $250,000News Story
Not long after Austin widow Billie Lawler matched all five numbers in the Mega Millions in 2005, her health began to erode along with her $750,000 prize. She hoped to live out the balance of her life at a high-end Alzheimer's care facility, but was evicted after about a year when she no longer could make the $5,000 monthly rent, prompting a court-ordered investigation that revealed her daughter had burned through her mom's money a crime against the elderly that prosecutors and judges say is c
Jun 3, 2018, 4:28 pm - Lottery News