Includes video report
The Florida Lottery, suspecting fraud, has suspended sales at 11 more stores, bringing the total to 14 since a Palm Beach Post investigation revealed startling patterns of winners.
Two of the stores were owned by winners profiled in The Post's investigation.
Amit and Nita Thakker have owned or operated various stores in and around Gainesville for years. Since 2005, they've cashed in 226 big lottery prizes worth more than $560,000.
Lottery officials seized equipment and turned off the terminals at their current store, the Williston Corner Market, about 30 minutes southwest of Gainesville.
"The Florida Lottery will not tolerate fraudulent activity by our players or retailers," a lottery news release stated.
If the lottery's investigation confirms that store owners or clerks fraudulently sold or redeemed tickets, the lottery will terminate their contract. They could face criminal charges as well, according to the news release.
The Post's investigation found lottery winners who were cashing in tickets against incredible odds. The most prolific winner, for example, was cashing in a ticket worth $600 or more every 11 days, on average, for years.
The winning patterns were red flags that led other lotteries to uncover ticket theft by store employees, ticket cashers who helped people avoid paying taxes or child support and even criminals using the lottery to launder money.
One of the prolific winners told The Post that he'd been cashing in tickets for other people, a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
Fort Pierce gas station owner Vipul Shukla has cashed in tickets 149 times, collecting $323,000, since 2006.
He previously told The Post that he'd been cashing in tickets for others, but he had stopped.
The lottery said Thursday it had suspended his store, the Midway Food Mart, 1200 W. Midway Road.
Seven of the suspended stores are in the St. Petersburg area. A Monday report by a Tampa-area TV station found that the owner of all seven stores had an unusually high number of wins.
Two other stores also had disproportionate wins by their owners.
The name of the man listed as the owner of La Rampa Supermarket, 2925 NW 27th Ave., in Miami, matches the name of the store's top winner in lottery records. He has won 11 times at his own store since 2008, collecting nearly $36,000.
The man listed as the owner of the A&L Discount Beverage in Ocala has won at his store 17 times for $21,500 since 2006, lottery records show.
Both men had even more winning tickets from other stores.
The Post's investigation, published March 30, found that six of the 10 most prolific winners in Florida since 2003 were store clerks or owners.
The chances of winning any lottery prize worth $600 or more are remote. Only one in every 8,700 scratch-off tickets sold is worth that much, and the rate is far worse for online games such as Play 4.
Mathematicians calculated that many of the top winners would have to spend millions to have a low chance of winning hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Thakkers had said they had discovered a loophole in the lottery that allowed them to turn a profit every year playing the game. Experts and lottery officials discredited their explanation.
After suspending three Pompano Beach stores identified in The Post stories on April 2, the lottery three weeks later permanently revoked their licenses. The lottery said someone at the stores broke the law and won't ever be allowed to sell tickets again.
The Post found that the lottery wasn't following some industry best practices, including asking winners whether they work at stores that sell lottery tickets.
While the lottery has not adopted that rule, officials said they would adopt software to track frequent winners and install more self-checking machines at its outlets so that players don't have to rely on store clerks to tell them if they have winning tickets.
VIDEO: Watch the press report
Just another reason why I don't play scratch off tickets.
If you don't scan your ticket yourself and are handing it over for the clerk to do it AND believe them
when they say:
SORRY NOT A WINNER...
chances are, some of those SORRY NOT A WINNER replies should have been:
CONGRATULATIONS!! Here's your claim form.
Why stay in your own country and suffer when you can come here and prosper?
If people just sign their tickets, they can't be scammed by the clerks right?
Here we go again, with the misadventures of dishonest store clerks and owners. That loophole he found, must be his gaping A-hole, that he just pulled his head out of. Jail time is in order.
What I don't like about this story is how the FL Lottery and their auditors likely turned a blind eye to this entire situation for years. The data is right there, staring them in the face. It was only after the Post's article was published that their legislature demanded an investigation, and now suspensions and terminations are moving at a fast pace.
Pick 4 constituted a substantial portion of the "fraudulent" winners.
People always trying to cheat the system i.e. deadbeat parents instead of paying for their kids
So the "fraud" is not the winning ticket itself but the act of cashing it in for the true winner? I thought that perhaps these retailers were doing something with the bar codes on scratch offs to pre-determine which were winners.
I DO BELIEVE SOME STORE CLERKS HAVE A MEETING
OF THE MINDS AS SCRATCH OFFS ARE SOLD AND
OWNERS FROM STORE TO STORE,ABOUT HOW THE
CORNER NUMBERS DISTRIBUTION AND STUDY IT
JUST LIKE ANY OTHER GAME. THEY ALSO OFFER TO CASH
THEM IN FOR BUT FRAUD AND JAIL TIME AND CAMERAS
TELLS THE ENTIRE STORY.WHEN COMES RIPPING THE
COSTUMERS THAT'S STILL GOING BECAUSE MAY COSTUMERS
DON'T UNDERSTAND THE TICKETS.OKAY SELF SCAN
YOUR TICKETS.
Exactly.
The states know this is going on but if they do anything about it the corruption is exposed and they look bad. They'd rather let it continue than make themselves look bad. Thank God a newspaper is willing to do their job for them every once in a while or nothing would ever be done.
I would bet that this is epidemic throughout all the states and they all know it.
Buncha useless, incompetent, corrupt bureaucrats.
The chances of winning any lottery prize worth $600 or more are remote. Only one in every 8,700 scratch-off tickets sold is worth that much, and the rate is far worse for online games such as Play 4.
that above statement from the lottery scares me a little..
I don't know about scratch offs..but pick 3 and pick 4 players can win more then $600 more often then they think..they also mention in the article it be hard to make a profit..BS..I did even play much last year and made a profit, they are some serious lottery players who do well with the daily games..but the best thing is to win less then $599..
But can you make a "profit" for 7 years running, like some of these winners? I think that's what raised alarm here. Yeah, people get lucky every now and then, but not that lucky. If it were possible for lottery players to profit over the long-term then the lottery would go broke.
It's obvious these clerks were either swindling winners out of their tickets or cashing them in for them to avoid taxes, child support, etcetera.
If clerks gave customers back their losing tickets then they wouldn't have any reasons to lie. I don't buy ticket at place where clerks keep your losing tickets.
I was wondering how the Patels upgraded their Taxis.
the state lotto is partly resposible, if after knowing some dodgey dealing is goibg on, refuse to prosecute and allow stores to continue, thebn what are store owners to do?? they will here form store successfully scamming players, ge4tting away and join the fun.
if ther state allowed a store owner to continue 200+ thern prosecute on the4 next one? whos fault is that 201st crime?
Yep, their hands are definitely dirty. They want all that extra "revenue" from clerks/owners playing and are reluctant to give it up.
And remember how all this started. Not from their own internal audit or the goodness of their heart, but by an investigative story by the Palm Beach Post. This is all a reaction to the negative publicity of that story. They can negate this in the future by allowing all winners to claim anonymously. That way the pesky nosey newspapers can't go around doing investigation and research and stir up trouble.
My sentiments exactly!!
Not surprised. Last month, I had a female clerk at my favorite store jip me around $10 twice. My sight is pretty bad so I figured I miscounted. However, I felt something wrong. So the last time I went in to cash out, she tried it again. But this time I also had a friend verify and sure enough, she tried to short me $30 this time. Glad there was a line of folk behind me as I called her out. Of course she apologized over and over and promised she wasn't trying to jip me. Not sure how true she was but I'm sure she'll think twice next time...
I also noticed a ticket scan machine in the store a few days later. Think I'll be using that more frequently.
"The chances of winning any lottery prize worth $600 or more are remote. Only one in every 8,700 scratch-off tickets sold is worth that much, and the rate is far worse for online games such as Play 4.
Mathematicians calculated that many of the top winners would have to spend millions to have a low chance of winning hundreds of thousands of dollars."
-----------
They seem to be telling people that they are wasting their time and money playing the lottery;
That you would sooner get hit by lightning than make a regular profit playing any lottery games.
That those very few people who make a regular profit must be doing it unlawfully.
This problem can be solved considerably by letting customers play online or on mobile phones like EU lotto tickets and cutting the middle man out.
Winnings are deposited directly to customer's bank account and also customers never looses winnings due to a misplaced ticket.
Minnesota is planning to have online scratch off games and then the idiots in legislature intervened and killed the idea.
Give people want they want and politicians should stayout from meddling in profitable businesses.Let market sort out the goods and bads.
I always prefer vending machines like in the wawa in newjersey over cashiers.only problem is that they wont give change.
I wish they roll out vending machine that give out cash from lottery winnings like casino bill machines and I think the new generation vending machines will be like that.
I know it may be difficult for older people to play online but as demographics changes the online option will be more desirable.
Data is meaningless without someone to read it. I had a clerk steal 100 from me once - before I knew to check payouts, I knew I had 4 of 6 correct, but she told me I won $5. After I cashed out it seemed low so I checked online and found it was 105. Lesson learned. I do think some of the self serve machines could provide payouts, if they redesigned them. I love the self scan on the machines. Clerks suck.
I mark the winning numbers on the ticket with an orange marker and calculate the payout before.
With a bigger win, I used to calculate the payout in Excel to know how much I won.
I suppose that some machines are not working properly. I hope for everybody that nobody worked on those machines!
When I don't see a payout when I expect one, I ask to check the ticket again or ask the ticket back. I suppose that some crooks just throw it immediately in a box with hundred tickets and say, sorry I can't help you anymore, when you asked to get back your ticket. I heard this once, he made me loose money and I let him go. He deserved a beating with wooden sticks, but who would hit an old man with thick glasses?
This can all be fixed by allowing people to claim prizes anonymously.
That way The Post would not have discovered this and The Lottery would not have investigate these anomalies.
SV:
the state lotto sounds like they R runnin D lottery like D VA hospital runs their laundry list 2 keep all D
state employees LOOK N GOOD^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^!!!!!!
making sure all lotto employees git bonuses^^^^raises^^^^promotions^^^^& retirement on time
but, then D PB Post cums along & KICK'$ their BUTT'ssss^^^^>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>!!!!!
It's amazing how nobody working for the Florida state lottery figured out these store owners are buying winning tickets valued of $600 from players wanting to remain anonymous. It goes back to 2005 for some of these owners and if it's not legal and/or against lottery rules, they should have stopped it years ago.
Fort Pierce gas station owner Vipul Shukla has cashed in tickets 149 times, collecting $323,000, since 2006. He previously told The Post that he'd been cashing in tickets for others, but he had stopped.
The story isn't about telling players their $1000 winning tickets were worthless so which laws was broken?
I Was Ripped Off Years Ago By A Store Clerk Here In Galveston, Tx On A Scratch Off Way Before They Got The Ticket Scanners... I Knew I Had Won What I Thought Was 25.00 On A New Scratch Off Game That Had Just Began But The Clerk Said It Wasn't A Winner So I'm Assuming It Was Probably More Than That For Her To Want To Be A Thief... After I Left The Store Later That Night I Begin Thinking The Computer Makes 2 Different Sounds 1 Beep No Winner And Another Sound When You've Won And I Realized This After The Fact But I Couldn't Go Back And Get Crazy Bc That Was My Fault Now I Pay Very Close Attention To ALL Sounds And Scan My Ticket/Tickets Before I Hand It Over...I Won't Be Taken Like That Again... I'm Glad They Have Self Check Scanners Now...All In All Pay Attention To The Clerks Because They Are Crooks Atleast Some Of Them...
Something fishy is going on here, and not just with retailers. This happened to me YESTERDAY!!! I went into a store to check some old tickets i had from Megamillions March 14th draw. Scanned all 3 of my tickets myself and all said "sorry not a winner". Normally i either throw them away after or have the retailer scan them on the machine just to verify. Well i did gave them to the cashier and the tickets would not scan properly so she punched in the codes and it said "not a winner". Still not sure why but i decided to keep my tickets. I JUST checked them like five minutes ago here on my computer and see that i actually won $15...(2 numbers + mega ball x multiplier).
I am soo F****** pissed. Not because this could have been a simple error, but because TWO different machines said "NOT A WINNER". Of course this is no big money but it counts. God knows how many times this has happened to not only me but to millions of other lotto players in the past without our knowledge.
What's up with these folks? Don't they realize they would be eventually caught?
Know you are angry but it's good that you doubled check your tickets. Don't know why the scanner did not work but it sure does sound "fishy".
Always demand your tickets back when you win or when they tell you they're not winners.
They're your tickets, not theirs.
call dateline or one of those tv shows that do under cover stories on lottery scams, im sure they would like to take it nation wide. bust this story open
You're not the first to report the self-scanners giving false negatives.
Just goes to show, always know the value of your tickets yourself. Never rely on the scanners, they should just be a double-check of what you already know. I've run into many places where the scanners were not working, usually shady places. Or could they be doing this on purpose?
And NEVER rely on the clerk. They can very easily lie about the value of the ticket, and spend the whole day "skimming the register" by underpaying players. I once had a clerk ask me when cashing a ticket, "how much do you think you won?" RED FLAG!!! If I didn't know beforehand, the clerk may try to pull a fast one and underpay. It's easy to justify and talk his way out even if he got caught, "oh, I made a mistake my friend, let me re-check it." Low risk, high reward.
i dont trust any of those mid east people or those indians and pakistsnies. they are more corrupt then honest
Oh no! I'm so surprised!