Lottery Post has been warning of the dangers of computerized drawings for over a decade, and now prosecutors of the mystery Hot Lotto winner from Iowa are looking at the possibility that those warnings have come true.
Prosecutors believe there is evidence indicating a former information-security director for a lottery vendor in Iowa tampered with lottery equipment before buying a Hot Lotto ticket that would go on to win $14.3 million, according to court documents filed Thursday.
The trial for Eddie Raymond Tipton, 51, of Norwalk is set to begin Monday. Tipton was arrested and charged with two counts of fraud on Jan 15.
(See MUSL employee arrested in Hot Lotto jackpot mystery, Lottery Post, Jan. 15, 2015.)
Tipton has been accused of purchasing a Hot Lotto ticket at a QuikTrip near Interstate Highway 80 on Dec. 23, 2010. At the time, Tipton was the director of information security at the Multi-State Lottery Association. His job barred him from playing the lottery or claiming lottery prizes, as stated in Iowa law.
Authorities said Tipton enlisted the help of others to try to claim the $14.3 million prize. They say this included Robert Clark Rhodes II, 46, of Sugarland, Texas, who was arrested by Texas police on two counts of fraud March 20.
At a January press conference announcing Tipton's arrest, authorities said the charges were not based on the premise that Tipton manipulated the lottery outcome. Court documents filed Thursday indicated prosecutors suspect Tipton did tamper with lottery equipment.
"There is sufficient evidence for a jury to reasonably conclude from the evidence that Defendant tampered with lottery equipment," prosecutors wrote.
The prosecution outlined their supposed evidence in a reply to the defendant's motion that requested "all evidence of the tampering theory be excluded." The defense claimed the prosecution's tampering theory "is not factually viable."
The defense argued Tipton could not have edited or accessed the Random Number Generator in December 2010. The motion stated Tipton was in Texas from the afternoon of Dec. 23, 2010 until after New Year's 2011.
The defendant's motion also explained how the RNG computers were in a "locked glass-walled room accessible only by two people at a time and then only on camera" and not connected to the Internet or any network. The defense wrote that the RNG programs do self-checks and outside firms "access them and certify their contents and programs."
"Moreover, the State is aware that there is actually no evidence that Defendant tampered with the RNG computers or program," the defense wrote in its motion.
Prosecutors countered this motion by claiming they have a "prima facie," or at first glance, case that Tipton tampered with lottery equipment.
In their reply to the defense's motion, prosecutors argued that Tipton's co-workers said he "was 'obsessed' with root kits, a type of computer program that can be installed quickly, set to do just about anything, and then self-destruct without a trace." The prosecution claimed a witness will testify that Tipton told him before December 2010 that he had a self-destructing root kit.
Prosecutors also argued in their reply that Tipton was in the draw room on Nov. 20, 2010, "ostensibly to change the time on the computers." The prosecution alleged the cameras in the room on that date recorded about one second per minute instead of how they normally operate, recording every second a person is in the room.
"Four of the five individuals who have access to control the camera's settings will testify they did not change the cameras' recording instructions; the fifth person is Defendant," the prosecution wrote.
It is a reasonable deduction to infer that Defendant tampered with the camera equipment to have an opportunity to insert a thumbdrive into the RNG tower without detection."
Bizarre case leads investigators across the continent
The ticket Tipton has been accused of buying went unclaimed for almost a year. Hours before the ticket was set to expire in 2011, Hexham Investments Trust, a mysterious company incorporated in Belize, tried to claim the prize through Crawford Shaw, a New York attorney.
Lottery officials refused to release the prize because those behind the trust declined to give their identities, as required under Iowa law. Shaw withdrew the claim to the prize in January 2012.
Iowa Lottery officials asked the Iowa Attorney General's Office and Iowa DCI to investigate. The investigation led authorities to a man in Quebec City, Canada, who was listed on a Grantor Trust Agreement as Hexham Investments Trust's trustor and president.
That man, who has not been charged, told authorities two Houston men — Rhodes and an attorney — asked for his help in claiming the lottery ticket in October 2011. The man in Canada said he had past professional relationships with the two men.
The Houston attorney told the Canada man that he "represented a client who had a legitimate claim to the lottery but wanted to remain anonymous," according to a criminal complaint.
Shaw told authorities the Houston attorney, with whom he had a professional relationship for more than 30 years, originally contacted him about the ticket and sent it to him. Shaw then completed the paperwork needed to claim the lottery prize, as instructed by the Rhodes and the Houston attorney.
DCI officials traveled to Houston to talk to the two men in June, but they "did not make themselves available," the complaint said.
At an Oct. 9 news conference, DCI officials asked for the public's help in identifying the man seen in surveillance video purchasing the winning ticket. Authorities said they received a tip on Oct. 13 from an out-of-state employee of the Multi-State Lottery Association that claimed Tipton was the man in the video.
Tipton said in an interview with a DCI special agent Nov. 7 that he did not buy the ticket. He said he was seeing family in Houston, where he grew up, authorities said.
Tipton's cellphone records indicated he was in Des Moines when the ticket was purchased, according to the arrest report. Investigators also discovered Tipton had frequent phone conversations with Rhodes, with whom he attended the University of Houston and worked at a Houston-based company.
Authorities said Tipton rented a silver 2007 Ford Edge, which matched the vehicle of the buyer of the winning lottery ticket, on Dec. 22, 2010.
In December interviews with DCI special agents, other people claimed Tipton's voice and mannerisms matched those of the man shown in the video buying the winning ticket, authorities said.
Authorities arrested Tipton on Jan. 15. He was charged with two counts of fraud, which is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $750 to $7,500.
Texas police arrested Rhodes on March 20. He was also charged with two counts of fraud.
They try to convince us that Hot Lotto draws are audited and yet this guy was able to work around that. I hope people boycott computerized games.
Look at the link I posted in the first paragraph, which leads to the Petition for True Lottery Drawings.
I wrote the text on that page 12 years ago.
The second bullet point describing why computerized drawings are bad is:
Computer hacking is a term that has entered the daily lexicon because of its prevalence within every aspect of computers. Hackers can produce code that goes undetected for long periods of time, and causes unseen problems. Why do the state lotteries think that they are immune from hacking, when some of the most secure computers in the world have been hacked into? Worse, a state employee "on the take" could insert malicious computer code into the drawing process that could specify the exact numbers that are drawn. A crafty programmer could keep this secret for a long time.
Anyone who laughed off that point (and the others) can now watch and learn, as it has probably now taken place (according to prosecutors).
Well.
I was actually considering driving to OK to buy Hot Lotto tics just for the heck of it.
Guess I'll just stay home.
This is so ridiculous.
Balls are the best way.
Well lookie here!!
I have always been against, computerized drawings. This story is every players nightmare for any game of chance.
l am willing to bet that this is not a " one time" occurrence. If thieves can physically break into safe deposit boxes in the UK...
WHATT
NOOO, say it aint so.
Will they offer refunds on this game ?
Don't hold your breath.
On the way to Florida I bought an advance draw of Hot Lotto, in Delaware, no winners.
Then checked LP's state report card and found this was a computer game.
Last trip to Delaware only bought PB and MM.
Ugh, after this mess they should go to ball drawings.
Never trusted a game that was produced by a computer..
HA! I knew it! Bad day for my haters with this news!
Singing a different tune.....How unsurprising.
UH OH!
TODD VADER SPEAKS THE TRUTH
I knew it!
This is about Computerized Drawings- Open your eyes & expand your brain. MM &PB use the balls or can't you tell the difference?
Why am l not surprised.
Todd,
Is Lucky for Life and or Cash 4 Life both RNG or ball games???
The information can be found in two places:
I always said they should put jackpot money if not claimed, back into next draw possible.
It's good thing lottery stopped this guy and crew form claiming the jackpot. but that money belongs to players who built that jackpot and give them a other chance at it.
as for "employee might have"
am with the facts of this case.
This guy has access to comp network running the show.
This guy played and WON. beating millions to 1 odds.......
and was barred form ever playing...............
Ya if lottery tells me there great wall of china level security in place can prevent all attacks...
they must think where all really that dumb.
No jury member with basic level of critical thinking, will be fooled by hes defence that he was "lucky" and at same time had access to comp that ran the whole thing, and he was not to ever play, but on this date, HE PLAYED & WON.
And did hes best to cover up who he was and wanted others to claim it on hes behalf.
So lottery people just admit it, your game has flaws and a bad apple found the flaw, mistakes happen, it's a human thing, just admit to it. plz just don't play us for fools.
#Lotterygothacked
Actually, Indiana actually did that for their Daily 3 and Daily 4 games back in 2013. (Three cheers to Indiana!) They switched from computerized drawings back to real ball drawings, hired a television personality, etc. Very good move!
Computerized drawings is one area where advanced technology is NOT a good thing. This is being spoken by a technologist (me).
l wish California could bench their Fantasy 5 computerized drawings as well. Their spokesman loves to show their " integrity videos" on how " This unit needs certain keys or whatever"/ Surveillance cameras in all areas to ensure that No one messes with or looks inside the computerized machine " unsupervised". Right.
I am surprised it took this long for one to finally surface. How many have went undetected? The laughable third party watching over things. How many of the computer glitches were overseen by 3rd parties that went on for months and only discovered by the players, and still denied after players complained. The Tennessee fiasco comes to mind right away quick.
I seriously hope they find hard evidence of tampering that way the dismissal of computers in the lottery games is truly considered. And kudos to IN, I had no idea they did a reversal. That is awesome! It would be interesting to see if there sales went back up after that decision. I know that would influence my buying of tickets if that happened here in MO. As I have said before, the only place for a computer in the lottery is in the printing of your ticket, other than that, NOWHERE!
Computerized drawing have been a major source of debate on lottery post for years.
Phew!
Relief...both Lucky for Life and Cash 4 Life are drawn with mechanical ball machine...so glad to have seen this on your website. No to RNG!!
The challenges of maintaining integrity and auditing computerize randomizers brings to mind similar issues with computerized voting machines.
Lottery randomizer computer code is often closed-sourced, procedures not fully documented, lack of testing (there have been numerous documented problems with lottery computer randomizers in the past favoring some numbers over others; search forums here for details), and the fundamental problem, due to the complexity of randomizer programs, there's often no way to verify all possible operations such a program may perform...
That is to say, a computer program may do operation "X" 100,000 times perfectly, but then encounter some edge condition and do something totally unexpected. The glitch may never be noticed, or is after the fact (that's how some past rnd problems have been found), and/or some may quietly take advantage of the flaw to beat the game... That may not affect other players at all / maybe even help them, but other times, such as in this news story, hurt other players seeking to win the jackpot, who had near zero chance unless they too happen to choose the same numbers; splitting a jackpot with a cheat.
Powerball and Mega Millions use computer randomizers for the Powerplay and Megaplier numbers. I realize there's history behind why they do it that way, but still seems sketchy.
There's another issue to consider when it comes to the discussion of computerized randomizer verses balls - many lottery drawings themselves, even when actual balls are used, are often not televised / streamed in real-time. So how does one really know the drawing was the drawing?
It's something I always wonder with Pennsylvania Lottery day drawings. What's to say there weren't others / was fixed ... it's a mystery. I've talked with some players who refuse to play PA Lottery day drawings for that reason - they don't trust it; drawings seems sketchy.
Also, many lotteries don't make televised drawings available on-line ... so if the tv drawing isn't shown due to due a sporting event or special (frequent problem in PA), one will never see the drawing unless they search youtube, etc and hope someone else recorded it.
All in all, there's a lack of controls and auditing of lottery drawings in many lottery jurisdictions. Computer randomizers and lack of transparancy, including the actual drawings themselves. Sure balls are better, but are of little consequence if the drawing itself is questionable - was it performed live, delayed, altered? Often it's difficult to know for sure.
Rambling on, but hoping, as many others here are, that lotteries dial-back their usage of computer randomizers, plus make more of an effort to make live video of drawings widely available, including both television and streaming over the net.
I know I'm done with hot lotto....thanks for helping me save money
I think I'm gonna stop everything and just deal with the casino. I do have one last dream number which is 0404. I'll keep that in and pray they let it come out one day.
Personally I think that's a bit extreme, but I don't blame you. As long as the states keep using computers for their drawings, they are playing with fire. Thank goodness there are still many games out there using real lottery drawings. I hope events like this will keep them aware that switching to computers is too big of a risk. The more events happen like this, the lower consumer confidence will be, and they will absolutely bleed revenue as a result. It's not worth the risk.
You've made all good points,I would add that here in AZ, you can not even be a witness for the drawing is not even held here in the state. The company running the Powerball does it. Machines stop allowing you to play at 7pm then you wait till after 9pm to see the results. Hell they have taken a hole day to show results. I do believe this is why here in AZ you have more second place prize winners than other states. 666 has yet to come out here in AZ since the lottery became legal here.
Sounds like a big mess. Bottom line: Some people lack integrity!
I always said that rng hackers can do anything today, drawings can be rigged and by some of the day results in PA it can be a reality I hope they ban them all and go to live drawings like most other states
I didn't know Indiana actually went back to balls. That's great. I wish Idaho would do ball drawings but I don't see that ever happening.
Not only are computerized random number drawings a bad idea because of this intentional rigging, there are also the unintentional problems that have been reported before with defective software not being truly random or not allowing certain number combinations to be picked (example - Tennessee's Cash3 and Cash4 problems reported here).
Although it is possible ping pong ball drawings can be rigged or skewed toward certain numbers, it is more difficult to do than rigging, or hacking, computerized drawings.
Computers are great tools, but they are not the answer to everything...
This article needs to be sent to every state lottery that's using computerized draws...
i think more than one game is rigged.
I always preferred Hot Lotto over Powerball, because of the better odds of winning. Nevermind that the top prize is small. It would still be life changing money to me and it costs half as much to play now.
However, I will likely never buy Hot Lotto tickets again, until they switch to balls for number selection. Only proble is, how will I ever know that they have switched?
I'm sure it would get mentioned in the media and other news sources and Todd would post an article about it. It would be a pretty big deal for them to go from computers to ball drawings
Iowa is a crooked state when it comes to the lottery a week or so ago they showed the number as 600 and 2 hours later they changed it to 900.............
pretty sad when they steal from the public. They are making plenty of money it is just GREED !!!!
They need to look into TN computerised lottery games as well. From what I have heard, many of their games have veered from the straight and narrow road.
I just hope Indiana brings back ball drawings for Hoosier Lotto.
Ha...you are correct. Even though I have heard of "shaved" or weighted balls and yes I mean that seriously... Gotta keep your eye on everyone and everything when that much money is at stake.
Tennessee would shut down before they would let that happen,you could win some money if it was balls,,,no wait they would rig that too.
well he could not pull this off without a helper.......camera guy.....was in on it too! he was just a dumb dumb......
his plan was not well thought of....and he is busted......i hope all states get this story, and try to at least keep some
security measures in place......i do wish all states would go back to ball drawings.......and give us at least a sense of
random.......tennessee which is the worst lottery can not afford ball drawings......people there just don't play and if
they pay out more then they take in.......so computer gives them the advantage to know their payouts......isn't that a
form of being rigged!
i figured sooner or later there would be a story involving hacking computerized drawings. I have never been a fan of them and glad that Texas is a 100% ball machine drawings state.
There is a reason as to why they are called RNGs. It is because RNG stands for Rigged Numbers Game.
Once the Michigan Daily Keno went from ball draws to RNGs the number of top prize winners was cut about in half!
the guy messed up by purchasing the ticket himself. Think about how many times this may have been pulled off by just getting someone else to buy the ticket and split the winnings.
Its clear with fantasy 5 the randomization sucks. And furthermore seems to keep the game (ca lotto books) balanced. Seems when "not enough" people are playing nobody wins (crazy combos), then jackpot gets higher, bringing more people into a game they don't always play, sales figures get met,and so on... once enough tix are sold then all of the sudden a reasonable combo comes along and the large jackpot gets split 2-3-4 ways. never too high never too low. hmmm???
ca lotto pulled live video of super lotto+ draws for no apparent reason. then the only option they offer is to watch the draw in-person at their offices in Sacramento???
when it has become ridiculously easy for anyone to have a live video feed nowadays via youtube why is ca lotto moving backwards when it comes to the player? but full steam ahead when it comes to protecting profits???
I always wondered why Tipton would even buy a ticket considering he could only cash the $100 prize and under without getting caught and it didn't matter if the ticket was a QP if Tipton knew he could manipulate the drawing and find someone to cash it. The real questions is "Can the drawings be manipulated" and even if Tipton didn't, there is still the possibility. Those who play lottery games with computer generated numbers should ask their state lottery officials what they are doing to prevent this type of fraud.
Oh, and had Iowa allowed anonymity, it's possible Tipton would have got away with it.
Tennessee has been doing it for years,,yes it can....a lottery thats been running for years and still no payouts,,,last week with the 1011 hit,large payout,,lets see if it is posted in the weekly payout draws and where it was hit,,,I bet not
I remember when that idiot attorney tried to claim the ticket for his "clients", but couldn't provide verification of anything. Then he said he wanted to claim it to give it to charity; at that point, I knew something was fishy, as no one walks away from a $14.3 Million prize. Turns out it was completely fishy; the boneheads deserve what they get...
Now it makes you wonder what would have happened if this was a state where you could claim anonymously! Hope they have the right wording in those rules...
That had crossed my mind also.
Funny thing is that I haven't seen or heard anything about this on tv or online anywhere else. This is pretty newsworthy.
This is probably more a local story than national, only big lottery jackpots and the people who win them make national news.
Never trusted the RNG machines until a friend hit 9 out of 10 numbers. Still not a fan of them.
Being honest, I think lottery has a right to know who winner is, to prevent lottery employee or an vender(theyu make the instant tickets)claiming a lottery prize or some other banned player by law.
The real issue is when the "state" lottery knows it then becomes a public record and PUBLIC should not know period, they have no right to know is my key point.
Just like Public does not have a right to know how much anyone wealth is form the IRS department.
The irs knows everyone wealth, but all records are NOT public. You can't have IRS tell you who 1% are.
I Have no issue with IRS and Lottery knowing who someone(s) is behind the lottery win, but like irs, needs to not be public record.
The real issue is not being "anonymous" to the govt/lottery , there is no debate about why they should know who you are. They should know!
However being "anonymous" to the public is up debate.
There many real life examples of public abusing public records to con/beg/steal/threaten/ etc past lottery winners.
For instant I think any judge in hes right mind would grant a sealed(no pubic record of an) name change to a lottery winner if he got death threats. Why can't we just give the people winning the option of being unknown, by choice. Right form the start at lottery office.
At the moment the only way to be really "unknown" in majority of states is to prevent even lottery form knowing to avoid there stupid public record laws.
And i think that's bad idea. i want the freaking lottery to know who I am. Yet not the public. It's an conflict of interest that should not have to happen for lottery winners.
If am ever forced to pick between my own Safety or state knowing who then shares that info to whole world. am picking my safetly over states sound request to know who I am.
At the moment, corporations are people! The U.S. Supreme Court says they are.
Must people are simple-minded and are oblivious of current legal system they live in.
Take for example if any large company such as 'The Coca-cola company' could walk into lottery offices with a wining powerball ticket worth 300m and claim it on behalf of share holders
If even the LOTTERY really REALLY wanted to know who won it won't happen.
And the winner would be the coca-cola company in the public records law, why is that?
Will it's all thanks to courts, a corporation is a person and can do whatever you or i can do. Deal with it.
Also gl finding out who share holders are.
'The shareholders, on the other hand, are normally not listed and not published. You'll have to ask the company, and it probably won't tell you (and won't even know them all as many shares are held in the "street name" of the broker or trust even).'
Even if lottery wanted to Fight me in a long court battle they lose this war of knowing who I was. even if the corporation was ordered to give over our full share holder list, i could full that list with tons of names and trusts names who own shares. Not even coca-cola knows who all there share holders are. what make you think lottery has a chance in hell of finding out if someone tried this trick!
Now, cue the inevitable onslaught of messages from people who claim you can't be anonymous even to states lottery who demands your names, Who also assume they have any understanding of legal chaos that is united states laws.
I always believe that computerized drawings are not fair to lottrey players..
It will become a National story if there is enough evidence that Tipton rigged the drawing, but for now he is only accused of fraud for buying a lottery ticket.
When this report first came out here on lottery post I did express my concern with Iowa lottery officials for spending the money quickly b4 releasing video for public help. Now we know why it is one of them with the fat ugly face in the video really really crazy stupid even a moron can steal better at least not 14million at a time.
Wow just wow! This is really messed up.
MADDOGG
Machines can all be rigged. AMEN
Additionally, anytime there is great chance @ a great amount of money available in all forms of speculation - then this creates great opportunities for scamming & scheming on both sides of the table.
Eddessa_Knight
Now I know why I never won hot lotto!
I didn't!!
I initially thought that someone who really wanted to live off the grid sold the ticket on the black market for a few million dollars. Then I thought someone who either wasn't eligible or thought they weren't elegible to claim was trying to claim through some legal entity.
Didn't see this coming. My apologies. In thought many people on this broad were off base talking about conspiracies and rigged drawings.
Bombshell indeed. I am stunned. Looking forward to the details coming out.
From a completely unrelated angle, does anyone with a Lottery System have anyway to breakdown the Hot Lotto draws from back then and show that this particular draw was an anomaly and doesn't fit with the other draws? I'm naive when it comes to Lottery Systems and admittedly don't know much about how they work and what they can show. Do they even work with computer draws?
There was a case in Indiana a few years back where a security person got hold the distribution list for the scratch-off tickets and sent two of his buddies to buy the whole roll of tickets that had a million dollar winner. He would have gotten away with it if his buddies hadn't got mad about how he split the winnings among them. It make you think there had to be a time when every thing went well and were never detected.
I doubt it. I remember a few years back when Tennessee first used a RNG in its number game, it was almost a month before anyone at the lottery headquarters noticed it wasn't generating any double or triples even thought some of the players were complaining. This was just one drawing so even a combination like 1 2 3 4 5 would look normal.
I sometimes feel that Powerball and Mega Millions are computerized as well because whose to say that the balls are not computer generated ahead of time?
That would be a trick trying to predict which balls are going to roll down the chute of a live drawing of a ball machine. I'm sure someone is working on software to do just that but a ball machine is as random and unpredictable as it gets.
When people lose faith in the integrity of the game, the game is over! In lottery, balls CAN'T be hacked! but computers can!
Well at least you apologized. :) Many don't.
I remember this story vividly, and I remember some people couldn't understand why the state wouldn't pay the New York lawyer trying to claim the ticket for his anonymous client. A lot of people were saying "Pay it! Pay it!"
Here's the original news story from 3 years ago. Look at the first page of comments. Before MY extensive comment near the bottom, only one other person even said there was something up. Everybody else was slamming the Iowa Lotto Security chief for being too gung-ho. Go read the comments. Pure comedy now. ;) Even on the 2nd page of comments, someone compared him to "Barney Fife". Well, "Barney Fife" caught a crook.
The state wouldn't pay the money because the mysterious lawyer wouldn't identify his client or tell how his client came into possession of the ticket. They knew someone bought the ticket, they had video -- but the lawyer wouldn't say if his client was that person or even who his client was.
Think about it...
When you have a NEW YORK lawyer trying to claim an IOWA lottery ticket for an anonymous client hiding behind a BELIZE TRUST, which was chartered in CANADA -- oh, and with only HOURS left until the deadline -- something doesn't smell right.
The ticket was sent via FedEx to a Des Moines law firm and turned in at Iowa Lottery headquarters just hours before the deadline.
Steve Bogle, the vice president of security at the Iowa Lottery, says he needs to determine the chain of possession of that ticket.
"Start from where it came in here at the lottery headquarters and follow that ticket all the way back to the purchaser at the Quik Trip that day," Bogle says.
"I suspect that may take more than a couple of hours to corroborate that information."
And for those who don't remember, even the video of the purchase (publicly released later) was shady:
Investigators want to learn the identity of a white man wearing a hooded sweatshirt who purchased the lottery ticket at a QuikTrip near Interstate Highway 80 on Dec. 23, 2010, said Dave Jobes, an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation assistant director, during a news conference Thursday. The video released Thursday shows the purchase from two angles; however, a hood hides the man's face from viewers.
You can see the store surveillance video here in HD, and there's audio with it -- so you can hear the man's voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=28&v=ej2c5niBRN4
He should have gone to a store that didn't have such good security cams. :) But even then he wouldn't have been able to cash in on his scheme, thanks to the state lottery protocols.
I think it is time for a ballot to be written up for WA Lottery to go back to ball system drawing.. So i would like to get this started and i have no idea where to start. The goal is to get this on the ballot for Nov election and see if this passes... It's time to get WA Lottery to get rid of the computerized drawings for good. So what you guys think about it?
You're probably right for the lotto type games, but the pick-3 live ball drawing in PA was rigged several years ago. So far Tipton was not accused of rigging the drawing, but that could change.
I remember that thread too and it didn't take Bogle several days to question Shaw. But the article said nothing about Iowa law requiring the person purchasing the ticket to come forward. The article was written to make Steve Bogle look like Barney Fife and the first response verifies it.
The people demanding "pay the man" are obviously not very lottery savvy and/or believe the lotteries have money trees.
That is true, but how often could they get by with having to do something to switched out ball sets verses the SAME computers that nobody ever gets to see the inside of or the program used? Real solid balls verses a code that could be laced with rootkits (with different multiple drawing dates that would only need to be accessed once, mind you) and disappearing code? hmmmmm wonder which one has more integrity?
So, will the money eventually go to the person or persons who won the next Hot Lotto big prize? Or will the states keep it?
Interesting. The next winner was also from Iowa and he won within 6 months of the previous drawing. What is the time limit for claiming tickets in Iowa at that time? Could the perp have been setting up a win again, just in case he got caught for the win in December, and, thinking the winnings would go to the next jackpot winner, made sure it would go to someone he knows?
I hope the authorities rule out any connection there.
Anything is possible these days. Those balls juggling around could be just for looks. Some other mechanism could be pushing the ball picks up to the surface. Their weight could be changed, so certain numbers could come up. Just too many other ways to rig it.
What games aren't computerized anymore?? Is there a list ?
Click here
If it was a program he used how did he buy a qp ticket and how did they recover the program that leaves no trace?
I used to play this game fairly often back when it had a 5/39, 1/19 matrix. I recall thinking back then (2010-2012) that Iowa had more JP winners than any other state involved at that time. I tried to find info about where HL jackpots were won historically, but couldn't. If Iowa has indeed won the most HL jackpots it raises the question of has this type of fraud happened before?
I've been trying to find an article that confirms that it was a QP. I think I read it somewhere, but I'm wondering if I'm just thinking that because the ticket was bought at a place called QuikTrip.
Just because it's possible to manipulate the computer that draws the numbers doesn't mean it happened. Based on the info presented, it appears that the only chance he had to manipulate the computer was about 5 weeks before the drawing, so that means anything he did not only had to go undetected for the 5 weeks, but had to remain undetected afterwards. It also has to have been undetectable at the time lottery security decided there was a possibility of tampering and started to investigate.
If the winning ticket was QP, then in addition to the tampering that allegedly happened on 11/20, he had to either force a lottery terminal to generate a QP with specific numbers, or he had to tamper with the drawing computer after he knew what the numbers on the QP were. The former may be technically possible, but I have a very hard time imaging how he'd make sure the terminal generated those numbers for the specific QP he bought. Other than being absolutely positive he purchased the only QP sold at a particular time, I'm figuring it would require magic rather than a technological fix. If he didn't force that specific set of numbers on a QP, then he had to tamper with the drawing computer at a time when lottery security apparently doesn't think he tampered with it.
At any rate, this isn't nearly as much about possible flaws with using computer RNGs to conduct drawings as it is about the failure of the lottery's security procedures. Imaging the hard drive as the first step of conducting a drawing would allow an investigation after the fact to determine if the contents of the hard drive had been manipulated in any way. The improper video recording could easily be detected automatically, and the modification itself should have been logged, and traceable to a specific machine, username and password. There could easily be multiple hard drives, with the one used for the drawing selected randomly, as is done with ball sets. Finally, there's the incredible lack of oversight that allows an employee to be in the computer room alone.
NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! Participate in a game where a computer selects the numbers. And NEVER believe those burucratic(?) jack-asses who run the games that claim the game is honest. They are lying through their smiling teeth.
They know there's a sucker born every minute and are counting on them to be wreckless. Hack, Hack, Hack.....
I've checked it out and saw before the computerized drawings started there were many more 2nd prize Lotto winners of $1000 than there are now. Sometimes more than double the winners than they have now since they started using the computer to pick the numbers. It was more random. Now they know instantly what numbers have been issued on all the tickets bought and then they can choose to payout the least amount. In other words the Lottery has control in the outcome of winning tickets.
He did NOT buy a quick pick ticket. If you actually look at the convenience store security video, he handed the clerk a play slip with the numbers on it.
No news story ever said "quick pick". They said the ticket was bought at Quik Trip.
He knew the numbers because he programmed the numbers in for the computer to pick in that drawing.
Investigators did not recover a program self-destructs and leaves no trace, but they have testimony he bragged about having such a program and they have evidence he altered the cameras in the room with the computers to only record one second per minute (useless) instead of every second (continuous recording). And very suspiciously, those cameras only did that when he was in the room that one time -- just prior to the drawing -- supposedly to "change the time" on the computers. Right...
I just wonder how many times it's been done and gotten away with.
RL