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12 arrested in conspiracy to rig Mexico lottery drawingNews Story
Twelve people, including four public employees, are accused of attempting to embezzle 160 million pesos ($12.1 million) from Mexico's national lottery, authorities said. Around $8 million of the money has been recovered, the Attorney General's Office and several other federal agencies said in a joint statement. The announcement followed a front-page story in capital daily Reforma that revealed some details of the scheme to rig the Jan. 22 drawing. Four directors of state-owned lottery a
Jul 20, 2012, 9:12 am - Lottery News

Court: Police can collect $1M lottery prizeNews Story
The police in Medford, Oregon, can collect much of a $1 million prize from the Oregon Lottery that came from a scratch ticket bought with a dead woman's credit card, Oregon's appeals court has ruled. Oregon allows police to keep money seized in criminal activity. The winnings were awarded to the police when Christina Elizabeth Goodenow, 45, pleaded no contest to using the card that belonged to her boyfriend's mother said. For starters, Chief Tim George said, the windfall will be used to ex
Jul 13, 2012, 10:45 am - Lottery News

N.C. man charged with stealing $1M lottery ticketNews Story
By Todd Northrop Less than two weeks after a North Carolina community college student smiled for the cameras and cashed in on a winning $1 million lotto ticket, police say it wasn't hers to claim. It's honestly just luck, Mikala Fields said as she accepted her prize July 2. You actually can win. But luck had nothing to do with it, according to a North Carolina Education Lottery investigation. The Lottery accused Fields of conspiring with her husband, Sean Mewherter, who works at the l
Jul 12, 2012, 11:24 am - Lottery News

CEO of poker site Full Tilt arrestedNews Story
The chief executive of Full Tilt Poker, the beleaguered one-time Web poker giant, was arrested Monday on a plane that had just landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport as the government unveiled new criminal charges against him related to an alleged Ponzi scheme. Ray Bitar, 40 years old, is the most significant person yet to turn himself into the Justice Department's 15-month-long effort to prosecute the three one-time leading online poker companies in the U.S. He pleaded not guilty in
Jul 3, 2012, 11:21 am - Lottery News

Minn. store clerk accused of "micro-scratching" lottery ticketsNews Story
What began as a complaint from a lottery customer about the loss of $15 led to an undercover operation and eventually the arrest of a store clerk for lottery fraud. A man told the Minnesota State Lottery he'd bought a scratch ticket at the Casablanca Market in Hopkins. He scratched it and found he'd won $15. But, when he took the ticket to the Lottery booth at the Minnesota State Fair, he was told the ticket had already been redeemed. Lottery Security checked the records they had from C
Jun 26, 2012, 8:54 am - Lottery News

California lottery winner arrestedNews Story
A Linda, California, man who made headlines earlier this year when his $5 lotto scratch card turned out to be worth $2 million used some of his winnings to post bail on Sunday. John Ross Jr. hit the jackpot in February and was arrested Sunday on suspicion of receiving stolen property, a felony, the Yuba County Sheriff's Department confirmed. Deputies said Ross helped Skila Ann Hickman hide and fix a stolen Honda sedan. Detectives determined that Ross played a role in assisting Hickman g
Jun 12, 2012, 10:01 am - Lottery News

Mass. lottery winners face charges in welfare fraudNews Story
Two big time lottery winners are facing arraignment on fraud charges Thursday after the state auditor found that they collected welfare benefits during the same period that they won hundreds of thousands of dollars from the lottery. James T. Casey Jr. of Waltham did not tell welfare officials that he has won more than $700,000 since 2009, Auditor Suzanne Bump found, a period in which Caset has collected $12,157 in MassHealth benefits and $1,553 in food stamps. Casey, who had just been release
May 31, 2012, 6:46 pm - Lottery News

8 lottery scam suspects arrested in JamaicaNews Story
Eight people accused of defrauding U.S. citizens through a multinational lottery scam were arrested during raids of several homes on a single street in Jamaica's capital, police announced Thursday. A police statement said officers detained six males and two females during the Wednesday night operation in Havendale, a middle-class community at the foot of the mountains that tower above Kingston. They also seized nearly $150,000 in cash, jewelry, eight flat-screen television sets and five cars,
May 21, 2012, 10:42 am - Lottery News

Woman arrested for trying to fake jackpot winning lottery ticketNews Story
Note to anyone thinking of gaming the state lottery: it never works. An Elgin, Illinois, woman tried to cash in on the record $656 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot with a ticket she bought online eight minutes after the winning numbers were drawn, officials said today. Leandria Williams, 28, was initially charged with wire fraud last week for falsifying documents. She has now been charged with attempted theft and forgery, according to the Cook County sheriff's office. An investigat
May 1, 2012, 3:40 pm - Lottery News

Jamaican lottery scams spread despite US crackdownNews Story
The 88-year-old retired Coast Guard officer hadn't been outside the U.S. in decades. Yet phone calls started pouring in from Jamaica, dangling the prospects of huge winnings from an international lottery that he had won. There was a catch, of course. He had to send a check to pay the tax on his winnings. He wired the money to Jamaica. Soon he was ensnared in a scam that may cost him his home in an assisted living facility outside Seattle. It's been heartbreaking, said Ruth Wilson, a Seatt
Apr 19, 2012, 11:43 pm - Lottery News