5 Card Cash has been offline since Nov. 2015
HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut Lottery retailers in Canton and Hartford face larceny and computer crime charges after authorities say they illegally manipulated the 5 Card Cash lottery game to produce more winning tickets.
Vikas Patel, 32, of Windsor Avenue, Windsor, and Pravnav Patel, 32, of Revere Drive, Bloomfield, each face three felony counts of first-degree larceny, first-degree computer crimes and rigging a game. Both posted $25,000 bail and are scheduled to be arraigned Monday at Superior Court in Hartford.
Several more lottery dealers are expected to face charges.
The 5 Card Cash game was suspended November after Connecticut Lottery and state Department of Consumer Protection officials noticed there were more winning tickets than then game's parameters should have allowed.
An investigation determined that some lottery retailers were manipulating lottery machines to print more instant winner tickets and fewer losers.
At Hartford Liquor at 212 Capen St. in Hartford, authorities determined that in one sample 67 percent of the 5 Card Cash tickets were instant winners. In a second sample, 58 percent were winners. In a control group of retailers, 24 percent of tickets sold were instant winners. Hartford Liquor owner Vikas Patel denied manipulating the machine. Most of the winning tickets were cashed at his store, but more than 400 were cashed at a lottery retailer near his home.
At Center Spirit Shoppe at 32 Bridge St. in the Collinsville section of Canton, investigators determined that 76 percent of the 5 Card Cash tickets sold in one sample were instant winners. In the second, 59 percent were winners. Store owner Pravnav Patel denied manipulating the lottery machine, according to the warrant for his arrest, but was identified as the person cashing the bulk of the winning tickets at other lottery retailers.
According to the arrest warrants, an investigator for the Connecticut Lottery determined that terminal operators could slow down their lottery machines by requesting a number of database reports or by entering several requests for lottery game tickets. While those reports were being processed, the operator could enter sales for 5 Card Cash tickets. Before the tickets would print, however, the operator could see on a screen if the tickets were instant winners. If tickets were not winners, the operator could cancel the sale before the tickets printed.
The 5 Card Cash game remains suspended.
Looks like Vikas & Pravnav Smith are in hot water.
Wow thats crazy I buy from that store
Patel,
need I say more.
LOL....They even tell you the game is rig to not produce a winning ticket!!! To fool people just place it in their face they won't notice it. All computer drawings are rig period. It picks from the lowest picked numbers. This ensures high returns and more games for suckers too play.
Bingo!
I think you meant to say rigged. Patel's again...
While the sales process was flawed, the bigger issue is the ability of lottery machine operators to buy tickets from their own retail location. That should not be permitted. While that wouldn't necessarily prevented this situation, it would have raised the bar somewhat.
Retailers have detailed information that the public at-large doesn't have. For example, in PA, a retailer can know whether 90% of lower tier winners have been redeemed out of an instant ticket pack. From my limited understanding, will show up as auto-settled on the retailer's report. While such knowledge is of limited value, it could, in theory, be gamed on high denomination packs ($20 and up) to determine whether few tickets have a better than normal probability of a winner...
20 tickets in a PA $30 pack. 90% of 20 is 18. Statistically expected number of winners is ~7. If 90% of lower tier prizes still not redeemed by 18th ticket, then there's a roughly 50/50 chance of the next ticket being a winner. That's better than the typical 1 in ~3 odds. Or if the retailer doesn't want to risk anything, wait until the 19th ticket. If still not 90%, the last ticket is a near sure thing. For lower denominations, this isn't even worth the retailer's time, but for the possibility of winning $10+ ($40 is the minimum non-break-even prize for PA $30 tickets) it's worth gaming.
With all that said, I could be mistaken, and perhaps the 90% auto-settle threshold doesn't work the way I believe it does. Sure, someone here with more knowledge can chime in whether this is exploitable. Regardless, point is lottery retailers have information that the general public doesn't, and hence have an unfair advantage.
On a different, but related thought to this story, there are many instances of lottery games, despite all the testing, going live with obvious flaws. Among the most notable was the original Texas All or Nothing game that had no prize cap. I noticed that flaw immediately, but it wasn't until a close call many months after the game had gone live, Texas lottery officials took note of the serious issue. Texas pulled the game and reworked it with new play tickets that lacked pre-selected choices (ie. no more 1st 12, last 12, all even, all odd), strongly tout using quick-pick, and added a relatively low prize cap. Texas Lottery dodged a bullet, because they could have potentially lost upwards of a 1/4 Billion (not a typo, yes really that much!) if a popular combination had hit.
Don't you mean you used to buy from that store ?
"Looks like Vikas & Pravnav Smith are in hot water."
I'm sure the lottery can revoke their ability to sell lottery tickets, but what crime did they commit?
They took advantage of a flaw in the system to cancel tickets that were losers. Did the state legislature actually write a law making that illegal? I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume that the lottery didn't even think it was possible to find out whether a ticket was a winner or loser before it was issued.
They didn't cancel the tickets that they knew were winners. I'm not sure how you'd make that illegal even if you wanted to.
There may be a law prohibiting "manipulating a lottery machine", but I'm not seeing the manipulation. They took advantage of the system to slow transactions, but they didn't do anything to make the machine do something it didn't do by design. They very definitely didn't manipulate anything to influence the tickets that were generated by the central computer - they just decided which of those tickets to accept. As I see it authorities are claiming it's a crime because of the result, rather than because of the action, though I am open to arguments on this point.
Did they violate their contract as retailers? I'd figure there's a pretty good chance they did, bur breach of contract is a civil matter. Did they do something unethical? I think that's a matter of opinion. They took advantage of the system to gain an advantage. How is that different than a handful of people doing that in the MA game that rolled jackpot money into smaller prizes? How it it different than using a system to predict numbers you think will be drawn?
Either way, the take away is that it's really stupid to design a system where the terminal announces that a ticket is a winner without requiring that the ticket be scanned. I don't think you need to be an expert on lottery security to figure that one out.
Why can't people - ALL PEOPLE - move away from doing this kind of nonsense?
It's bad, and I hate it. It's dishonest, and I'm totally against it.
Why do these morons even try?
TO ALL THOSE MORONS:
Stop ripping off this and that, you won't get away with it. The lotto system in place has an incredibly large lobby, and therefore significant security. Eventually, you will be caught and SORRY. You will be made to pay!
You'll find yourself sitting in your jail cell and all the time your there, you'll be thinking:
"Man, wha I do dat? My momma raise me betta. I even knowd betta. But I hook up wif dis ovva dude, and he say it was aw'ight, and so I go wif him." "now, what's I gwinta teo da Judge?"
Mr Floyd- The movie "Hunt for Red October" was on the other night in this neck of the woods and there is a scene where the Admiral tells Ryan " The Russians don't take a dump unless they have a plan" in other words, Connery has to convince the crew that they have to get off the sub voluntarily. .and he does. Point being - the authorities are not going after these Patels unless they know they did something that is not permitted by the lottery rules. Just because you don't see it- does not mean it does not exist.
As they say: Stay tuned.
"I'm sure the lottery can revoke their ability to sell lottery tickets, but what crime did they commit?"
They were charged with "three felony counts of first-degree larceny, first-degree computer crimes and rigging a game." and possibly changed with inciting some LP members to make bigoted comments.
WOW!!!!
Wow seams like the Indians an jamaicans r the number 1 scamers of the lottery.
Yes you right its a common name but something more lots of missing ticket and lotto fund if I see a retailer with that name goodluck won't be on my mind I run lol
Typical liberal knee jerk reaction. If you have no real proof otherwise accuse anybody who said something you don't like of being racist.
There have been quite a few stories about lottery scams here on LP and the name Patel comes up over and over.
Have you been asleep your whole time here and never noticed that, or is your day not complete unless you call someone a racists?
"Typical liberal knee jerk reaction."
You really ought to stick those silly nonsensical casino gambling remark instead of adding more bigoted remarks to the fire.
Nice knowing that all is well with you Stack, how is your team doing or did during March Madness? On a side note: It would appear that your cage match with Coin Toss is back on.
Stack,
I'm still waiting for you to tell me how many chips (actually they are cheques) a $200 buy in got the player in a Faro game and how much each one was worth.
And by the way, Palace Station used to be the Bingo Palace but I guess you wouldn't know that never having lived in Vegas.
I'll play, you really ought to put your habit of highlighting other people's comments in blue just so you can make your own snide remarks on hold.
As for the remark about the name Patel being involved in a lot og lottery scams being 'bigoted' I guess you've been asleep too.
LOL yes use to!
You might be missing out then. I did a very quick search here for news stories about Patel. Most were store owners where winning tickets were sold, rather than scammers.
Sounds like you worked for a retailer who sold lottery games???
Not one bigoted comment was made, thoughts?
Let's just sat a bank investigator knew that many people trying to run banking scams such as check kiting schemes and hanging bad paper use the name I.M. Rich.
So they have their staff take a really close look at any activity by people using that name.
Then some left leaning oh so politically correct clown
says that's a really 'racist' thing to do.
Now just reread the above and substitute Patel for I.M. Rich.
I thought I had the worst bracket until I looked at some of the "expert brackets". The selection seeding was horrible, but at the end of the day it was all about match-ups and most the upsets were because of the match-ups. Indiana was a tough match-up for UK regardless of seeding.
"It would appear that your cage match with Coin Toss is back on"
Naw, I just noticed some confusion among the posters over the difference between racist and bigoted remarks and commented that it appeared like CT's remarks were adding fuel to the fire. If they don't now know the different between bigoted and racist remarks, they won't ever learn.
"I'm still waiting for you to tell me how many chips (actually they are cheques) a $200 buy in got the player in a Faro game and how much each one was worth."
If you really try, do you think you could ask an even dumber question?
"I'll play, you really ought to put your habit of highlighting other people's comments in blue just so you can make your own snide remarks on hold. "
I use yellow to highlight when I'm quoting from from an article, but I reserve my snide remarks to the really ignorant.
"As for the remark about the name Patel being involved in a lot og lottery scams being 'bigoted' I guess you've been asleep too"
Pay attention because there might be a quiz on this later. The post you ignorantly responded with "Typical liberal knee jerk reaction" is no longer being show which means you're doing exactly what I said you were doing; adding fuel to a fire that no longer exist.
Look up the definition of "bigoted remark" and hopefully somebody will explain to you why "Typical liberal knee jerk reaction" is by definition a bigoted remark.
"As for the remark about the name Patel"
Don't be stupid, I never responded to any remarks about the Patels in the article or Patels in general. I responded to your bigoted remark "Typical liberal knee jerk reaction".
Only you know what compelled you to respond negatively to my remarks: "and possibly changed with inciting some LP members to make bigoted comments." even though my remarks were aimed at the poster calling you names.
Did you miss where that post was deleted?
Just come out and admit you don't have a clue about the $200 buy in.
It was amazing how you went from 'never heard of Faro' to being the resident expert after going to a website. John Scarne you ain't.
Your only expertise is in being an annoyance.
No go back to your book learning and being a liberal parrot.
"Just come out and admit you don't have a clue about the $200 buy in."
The last time I looked the topic here is manipulating a lottery terminal, which makes whatever you're talking about way off topic. And really boring.
"It was amazing how you went from 'never heard of Faro' to being the resident expert after going to a website."
Why not start a "Faro thread" in the Gaming Forum where you can discuss Faro strategies hoping the game makes a comeback instead of bugging me.
"John Scarne you ain't."
Considering the fact he died over 30 years ago, you're a genius for figuring out that I'm not John Scarne.
"Your only expertise is in being an annoyance."
Then this is really going to annoy you. Are you aware of the fact the post you originally responded to was deleted making your remarks look even dumber?
"No go back to your book learning "
Yep, I usually do some research on ancient casino games.
"and being a liberal parrot."
A "liberal parrot"?
Where do you dig up this stuff?
Apparently CT took offense over a joke I made to Floyd about the accused being charged with inciting bigotry on LP and now wants to ask me silly questions about defunct casino games. Please tell CT the post he responded to was deleted because now his response makes really no sense.
I asked what crime they committed, not what they were accused of.
Larceny is a broad catch-all encompassing a number of different things. The only one of those things that comes close to matching the specifics of this case would be obtaining property by false pretenses. The problem with that is that they obtained the winning tickets simply by requesting and buying them. That part of it is no different than you or I walking into any lottery retailer and buying a ticket. Where's the false pretense in that?
They gained an advantage by using the lottery's lousy security and mind-bogglingly stupid implementation of the ticket issuing process to not buy losing tickets by canceling them. By deliberate and intentional implementation of the software the lottery notified them whether or not a requested ticket was a winner, and permitted them to cancel tickets that were losers. The system may not have behaved the way the lottery expected, but it did what it was designed to do. They didn't get any property as result of canceling the losing tickets, and I'm still not seeing any false pretenses.
Perhaps the prosecution will argue that the false pretenses or manipulation is in the request for reports that slowed the process, but those requests were permitted by the lottery, and processed as the software was designed to do. There's a clear intent to gain an advantage, but they're really not manipulating the outcome because the outcome results from the software doing what it's supposed to do. They didn't rig any equipment, introduce malware, or change any software. The prosecution might argue that the overall effect of all those individual actions amount to false pretenses, but I don't see the legitimacy of bootstrapping a claim of illegality based on a bunch of legal actions simply because of the result. They found a way to improve their odds of winning to something far better than the lottery intended, and the lottery apparently cooperated every single time they asked for a transaction.
I can only assume the computer crime is based on using a computer (the terminal and/or central computer issuing tickets), but that fails if the first charge fails. Rigging a game is just a wild leap, because they did absolutely nothing to influence the individual tickets - they just asked for them using the standard lottery procedures and the lottery issued those tickets according to standard procedure.
In order to convict somebody of a crime the government is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did a particular thing(s), and that the particular thing(s) is a crime. The legislature could have passed a law making it illegal to take advantage of poorly designed software to gain an advantage another party didn't intend, but they didn't. I don't doubt that the legislature would want this sort of thing to be a crime, but I'm not seeing anything in the statutes that clearly makes this a crime. If there's ambiguity in the legislation the interpretation has to favor the accused.
Stack,
You need to put your ego in park. I guess you forgot you went from not knowing about Faro to telling us all about it, sharing your vast knowledge.
Doing research on 'ancient' casino games is exactly what you did in your attempt to dazzle us. Like all pathological liar your don't have a good enough memory to pull it off.
The more you reveal that you don;t know what you are talking about the less people will listen to you.
From here on in you are not worth any more keystrokes, but in saying adios to you I'll share this gem of yours for all to see:
Stack, November 2014:
Ronda Rousey could beat either of them (Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris). But to answer your second question, the game has changed so much since the days of Norris and Lee, the best pound for pound is debatable.
https://www.lotterypost.com/thread/283272
"I guess you forgot you went from not knowing about Faro to telling us all about it, sharing your vast knowledge."
I remember the thread where you changed the topic to Faro after another poster said "Most of Coin Toss posts are also an act of deception." On page 3 you even questioned the PA Lottery annual report and you tried to create an argument where no argument existed.
There were a possible 310,000 $500 winners and any body with an ounce of sense will agree that "lots of players do win". But I after I said to you "It's simple math, but you can't comprehend how it's possible SOME players actually win even after you were told how much the PA lottery paid out last year." you pathetically wanted to argue the difference between "some" and "lots".
"is exactly what you did in your attempt to dazzle us"
When it was said your "posts are also an act of deception." I responded with the facts by saying "I wouldn't go that far, but still waiting for any information of value from them."
"Stack, November 2014: "Ronda Rousey could beat either of them (Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris). But to answer your second question, the game has changed so much since the days of Norris and Lee, the best pound for pound is debatable."
This is exactly what I mean about you trying to create arguments where there should be no argument. Bruce Lee died 14 years before Ronda was born so that fight could never happen. And Norris is 76 years-old so it's obvious any answer to that question fantasy. You're probably arguing with children over the outcome of the Batman v Superman movie.
"A few years ago, I bought several gaming books at a yard sale and it's amazing how many of those same stories I see posted on LP. I never heardthe Faro story before, but maybe that's because there is probably nobody alive that played casino Faro."
Did you miss where I said "I never heard the Faro story" or are were you just pretending or being dishonest saying I said I never heard of Faro?
And which part of "probably nobody alive" confused you? You do understand what "probably" means don't ya?
Do you actually have an information of value to add to the scheme to to manipulate Connecticut Lottery game?
Why would the Lottery Commissioners even allow someone named Patel, be involved with the lottery? There are many incidents in many states where the Patel's have committed acts of crime involving the lottery.
I live in rural KY and more than half the stores selling lottery tickets near me are owned by Asians including the county cashing agent. Some were born in the U.S. so it's not like all the stores are foreign owned. Each state lottery has different rules and regulations to put lottery terminals into stores and obviously criminal records are checked.
It's the U.S. Constitution that "allows" the Patel and the Hitler families to be involved in state lottery providing they follow the state lottery rules.