Ex-Lottery Worker Convicted of Programming System To Win $14M

An anonymous reader sends news that Eddie Tipton, a man who worked for the Multi-State Lottery Association, has been convicted of rigging a computerized lottery game so he could win the $14 million jackpot. Tipton wrote a computer program that would ensure certain numbers were picked in the lottery game, and ran it on lottery system machines. He then deleted it and bought a ticket from a convenience store. Lottery employees are forbidden to play, so he tried to get acquaintances to cash the winning ticket for him. Unfortunately for him, Iowa law requires the original ticket buyer's name to be divulged before any money can be paid out.

Comments

Correction:

[RoverDaddy]

" Unfortunately for him, Iowa law requires the original ticket buyer's name to be divulged before any money can be paid out. "
Unfortunately for him, he had stupid friends - FTFY.

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he was an idiot for buying the ticket himself.

Re:Correction:

[bondsbw]

No, anyone is an idiot who puts money on electronic devices that are so easy to game. If not for the fact that he screwed up and bought the ticket under his name, he would be richer and everyone who played would be screwed out of their money.

Makes you wonder how many of these succeed without being found out.

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes you wonder how many of these succeed without being found out.

And there is very little incentive for the states that are running these games to police themselves. Actually finding fraudulent behavior like this is bad PR. I would assume a very high level of fraud with all this money running around and it being somewhat easy to game the system.

Re:Correction:

[Virtucon]

So the stock market then?

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially that.

The money you're putting into the stock market is going to make money for people who don't actually put money in, but CXOs who get stock as part of their compensation, and the fund managers.

As a peon investor you might as well be playing the lottery.

Just think, all the execs have to do is mismanage things a little, boom, stock goes in the crapper, they reprivatize, reorganize, then issue new stock. And you're screwed.

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only true is you are buying price. Plenty of well ran dividend paying public companies that pay a solid dividend every quarter.

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there are a lot of people on slashdot who insist that investing in the stock market is irrational, and their posts usually reveal that they don't have the slightest idea how it works.

So for them, such an investment probably would be irrational. Those of us who have a clue can make better choices.

Re:Correction:

[Jason Levine]

Or any banking or other financial system.

Your money isn't stored in a big container with your name on it. It's bits in the banks systems. Relatively speaking, it's trivial to move the bits from your account to someone else's account. Practically speaking, there are safeguards in place to ensure this doesn't happen in an unauthorized manner and to track all transactions that happen, but at the core this is a computer system and someone could theoretically hack the system to increase their funds and decrease yours.

Keeping your money off of all electronic systems would mean stuffing piles of bills into your mattress.

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

If not for the fact that he screwed up and bought the ticket under his name.

How do you buy a ticket under your name? They don't ask for your name at the gas station, they don't even need to have cameras. The only way I can think to buy a ticket under your name is you purchased online, which some states do allow for residents purchasing usually a yearly subscription package.

Re:Correction:

[Culture20]

Who really wins these lotteries? The advertising firms designing every new scratch off ticket. Every week there's another new "game" that has a million advertising spots on radio, TV, billboards, etc. If it were about income for the state (tax on the math challenged), then they'd just need a few scratch offs that never change style and a big lottery for the dreamers. There would be little to no need to advertise (or to have a hushed, sped-up voice admonish listeners to "play responsibly"). This is about funneling money to the advertisers, and using the advertisers to grab (or create) as many gambling addicts as they can get. That's a sick thing for government to do.

Re:Correction:

[Stan92057]

Stupid? How about smart, smart knowing if they lied they would be going to jail too. I'm guessing they were not as much his friends as he though they were lol.

Re:Correction:

[Virtucon]

give it to me in gold then.

Re:Correction:

[TsuruchiBrian]

And even if you went the "piles of bills into your mattress" route, that's just pieces of paper.

And even if you went the "gold bars" route, that's just atoms of some incidentally rare material on earth. We could find a bunch of gold on some other planet, or simply just not deem it valuable anymore at some point in the future.

It's all just a big game of monopoly.

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have to guess that you completely overestimate your friends' loyalty after they start getting grilled by professional detectives. Interrogators threaten jail time for them and their family. Blood is thicker than water. I know, because this exact thing happened to me. Well, not with a lottery fraud but with check fraud.
 

Re:Correction:

[JackieBrown]

Relatively speaking, it's trivial to move the bits from your account to someone else's account.

As Michael Bolton learned the hard way, make sure to put the decimals in the right spot.

Re:Correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

When I buy a lottery ticket, I'm not betting that my numbers will be chosen randomly by some disinterested cold computer. I'm actually betting on the fact that my numbers will be the same as the human that happens to be rigging that particular system. You have a much higher chance of winning with this strategy.

Re:Correction:

[Jack Griffin]

Even easier to defraud, I'll just send round some guys to steal it while you're at work.

Re:Correction:

[rtb61]

The real value for any human being is their community and how well it supports itself as well as the individual members of that community. Now that ain't monopoly, and it can not be bought, sure you can rent it for a time but as a renter you never really are a part of that community and you will be rejected by it unless you personally contribute to it.

Re:Correction:

[gzuckier]

Let me introduce to you, Martha Stewart. Took the advice of her broker or whoever to sell some stock; saved a few tens of thousands (which she could afford to lose) when it fell the next day; went to jail for insider trading.

Re:Correction:

[TsuruchiBrian]

I suppose that could be true depending on the details. It seems that there are quite a few psychopathic people who really only care about themselves and don't give a shit about what happens to their communities while still realizing the importance of the appearance of contribution as a means to an end.

Also, there are quite a few very wealthy people who have zero interest in contributing anything back to anybody. Maybe for those people their community is other entitled rich people.

I don't presume to know what is in the heart of every human being.

He did all that

[invictusvoyd]

and could not manage to find a stand up guy to buy the ticket for him?

_________
Only if villains could shoot straight

Re:He did all that

[operagost]

Seems like it should have been part of the plan, right? He should not have been any part of the ticket buying process, regardless of the law.

Need ticket buyer's name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did he buy tickets with credit cards? Or he just couldn't find someone he trusted to not run away with the $14million?

Re:Need ticket buyer's name?

[tompaulco]

Did he buy tickets with credit cards? Or he just couldn't find someone he trusted to not run away with the $14million?

The latter. You can't buy tickets with credit cards, because people are dumb and must be protected from their own dumb selves.

Re:Need ticket buyer's name?

[bobbied]

Did he buy tickets with credit cards? Or he just couldn't find someone he trusted to not run away with the $14million?

The latter. You can't buy tickets with credit cards, because people are dumb and must be protected from their own dumb selves.

How untrue. We don't protect the dumb from theirselves... We DO have the lottery after all... I call it a tax on foolishness myself, but you can call it being dumb or stupid when people play..

No Plan?

[Jaime2]

In his master plan to steal 14 million dollars, he forgot to tell his accomplice to not blow him in?

Re:No Plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

only if my accomplice is a female sexy cosplayer would I allow her to blow me.

Lessons learned from McDonald's Monopoly fraud

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> he tried to get acquaintances to cash the winning ticket for him

He should have looked into how insiders scammed McDonald's Monopoly contests for about $13M first.
http://lubbockonline.com/stori...

Re:Lessons learned from McDonald's Monopoly fraud

[RoverDaddy]

Of course, they did eventually get caught. So maybe not such a good example to follow.

Re:Lessons learned from McDonald's Monopoly fraud

[MickyTheIdiot]

Well, unless they just pushed it too far and got greedy.

Re:Lessons learned from McDonald's Monopoly fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, unless they just pushed it too far and got greedy.

Greed is kind of the point to fraud.

Re:Lessons learned from McDonald's Monopoly fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, come on. Greed is the whole point of the financial industry. Fraud is just a means to an end.

Re:Lotteries are for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi user:sexconker (1179573), we know it's you, you forgot to check the "Post Anonymously" box earlier:

http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

And this is why...

[Majestix]

...everyone should learn to program. :)

Re:And this is why...

[meta-monkey]

I think I have a good idea for the challenge in the next Underhanded C Contest...

First Clue...

[puddingebola]

First clue something was wrong was the winning number was 1-2-3-4-5-6.

Re:First Clue...

[Anonymous Coward]

First clue something was wrong was the winning number was 1-2-3-4-5-6.

That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!

Re:First Clue...

[bobbied]

First clue something was wrong was the winning number was 1-2-3-4-5-6.

Due, this was in C/C++... It was 0-1-2-3-4-5.....

Re:First Clue...

[ArcadeMan]

Wrong, your luggage only requires five numbers mr. president.

Re:First Clue...

[Quirkz]

It's like those phone numbers where they use a word with more than 10 letters. The mnemonic can be extra long. Just fill in the blanks until you run out of blanks, whether that's 3, 4, or 6 of them. You definitely don't want to get caught with a mnemonic that's too short, or you're really in trouble.

Or maybe he was bored with his mudane life...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and wanted to be caught.

If I found a way to net myself $14 million, I could see myself following through every step except the one where I actually got away with the money. Just to show I could.

The most impressive display of power is a demonstration of restraint.

When California wanted a lottery...

[Anonymous Coward]

They said it would benefit schools. Here we are 30 years later and our schools still struggle asking for donations of supplies.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[Fire_Wraith]

John Olivier did a wonderful piece explaining this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

In short, despite what they tell you, the money is fungible. Not because they actually take the money from the lottery and use it for something else, but because it doesn't stop them from cutting OTHER funding for the schools. So say they previously spent $500 million on the schools each year. The lottery brings in $150 million, so that should mean the schools get $650m, right? Nope, because they just cut the school budget by $300 million, meaning the schools are now only getting $350 million, of which $150 million is from the lottery.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[alvinrod]

That's why revenue from these sources should be given out only after the base level funding is in place. Ideally, they should also be spent on related programs such as dealing with gambling addiction, which is more prevalent than one might expect. I have no problem with leftover money going to other areas, especially schools, but the school system should not depend on funding from gambling or other types of vice taxes.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[__aaclcg7560]

The schools have no problem building brand new football fields, which is a higher priority than class size and supplies. Your tax dollars at work.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[bobbied]

They said it would benefit schools. Here we are 30 years later and our schools still struggle asking for donations of supplies.

Public schools are money pits. They will take as much money as you have and a few dollars more and provide just about the same level of education as they would on half the resources. They struggle because they have HUGE administrative costs and they are not effective at providing education because there is no incentive to perform.

I homeschooled my two children for about $800/year in supplies and about 4 hours a day of labor. We had a student to Teacher ratio of 2 to 1, spent only a fraction of what it cost at the local public school, and the kids got as good or better educations in the process. My results may not be typical, but my oldest is currently an honors student in college going after a PHD in Physics and my youngest seems to be on track to do better than the first.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[RobinH]

Depending on what kind of full time job you had to give up, it could have cost upwards of $50,000 or $100,000 per year for you to educate your 2 kids, given the opportunity cost. Don't get me wrong, I can think of lots of *good* reasons to home school your kids, but saving money isn't one of them.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[bobbied]

Depending on what kind of full time job you had to give up, it could have cost upwards of $50,000 or $100,000 per year for you to educate your 2 kids, given the opportunity cost. Don't get me wrong, I can think of lots of *good* reasons to home school your kids, but saving money isn't one of them.

And it wasn't my reason either.. I was simply saying that my little two student homeschool cost less per student than what gets spent per student at the big public school up the street and that the public school system is a money pit that really doesn't fulfill it's primary purpose anymore..

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[Anonymous Coward]

ahem "4 hours a day of labor" so still had the job / maybe was stay at home parent / only did remote work (this is /. right we know whats internets are)

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[RobinH]

When I looked little while ago (2004?), in the Detroit area the funding was about $6000/yr per student in the inner city and up to $13,000/yr in the suburbs around it. For that money you have to pay the teacher with benefits, a support staff (principle, VP, secretary, janitorial, music, school nurses/psychologists, IT, etc.) and then supplies, bussing, and pay for the construction, maintenance and utility costs on a rather large building. I agree it's not a steal but it's not unreasonable either.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[Anonymous Coward]

Partly because you've already paid for, and thus aren't accounting for things like teacher salary/benefits, the cost of facilities, support staff, etc. You may not think some of those things are important or valuable, but not everyone would agree with you.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[Anonymous Coward]

There were no such problems in public school systems in China and Japan. May be your country has too many niggers.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[bobbied]

Detroit is a total mess you know and their public school system is a reflection of the same mess, loss of tax base, loss of students, loss of stability. I don't think I'd point to the Detroit schools as an example of how much it really costs us to provide public education, but no matter..

It's still a money pit. I have 2 students and one teacher and even with the opportunity costs of having my wife not work the $26,000 it cost my suburban public school price is way too high. I could have done it, and paid my wife for her part time job for less than that. The public schools around here have 20 to 1 student to teacher ratios, and nearly 15 to 1 student to staff ratios, they should be a whole lot more efficient at this than my 2 student operation.

However, I'd like to point out that there is a *reason* public schools are like the /dev/null of money streams. It's because they do a whole lot of things other than actual teaching of students. Much of that is not their fault, but is a direct result of the patchwork of laws, programs and grants that push social engineering stupidity onto the schools at the expense of education. It's about securing the various funding streams now, not educating kids. Their priorities are messed up.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[bobbied]

Yet, I have a student to staff ratio of 2 to 1, my little private school should NOT be as efficient as the big public school up the street with 10-15 to 1 student to staff ratio, yet, it is. Another poster put the suburban cost outside of Detroit at $13K per student, using his numbers I could have easily paid my wife for her part time effort and had money left over to pay for the building costs and such. Public schools should be able to make up a LOT of cost efficiency on volume because they have at least 5 times more students pre staff than I do. If I had 10 kids and could collect $130K for 10 students, I'd be in high cotton (and my wife in a straight jacket..) but I could blow the doors off of the public school cost per student.

I'm totally aware of the things unaccounted for here, I'm not really complaining all that much about it either. I'm merely saying that public education in this country has turned into a money pit which is not efficient and not good at educating. The reasons for this are varied, but it boils down to one simple thing, they have left their primary mission and made it something else. Now it's about securing funding from that program or fulfilling the social engineering rules from that law over there and actually educating students has fallen off the top of the priority list.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[bobbied]

I was saying that my kids where being schooled by my wife about 4 hours per day. That was about all it took to "teach" two kids, which really amounted to supervising their schooling, making sure they did the work and grading their progress.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[ceoyoyo]

That's silly. You just didn't include any of the extra costs: a building for the class, a qualified teacher, heating, air conditioning, etc. Properly accounted, you probably spent many times what a public school spends per student.

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[bobbied]

So I'm not a "qualified teacher" eh? Truly you DON'T need one of those to teach kids. The rest of your list I would have paid for anyway, being it was for my home. The cost deltas for me was about $800 per year pre student. I can do it cheaper (and I'd argue BETTER, but that's another argument). I could have sent my kids to a PRIVATE school for less than what most public schools spend per student. Trust me, I considered doing that a number of times.

The POINT I'm trying to make here is that public schools are horribly inefficient operations. They suck in money like an out of shape 50 year old software engineer running a 3 min mile sucks air. Even with a five fold increase in the number of students per staff member over my private school, they cannot deliver quality but need more funding. Even if I paid my "teacher" for her time, I could have more than doubled the minimum wage and stayed under the $50-100K numbers being thrown out above.

No, public schools are money pits...

However, I'd like to point out that the reasons public schools are this way is not what you may think. They have become a lab for a whole host of social experiments and well intentioned but stupid laws. There are programs handing out money and laws governing how they do what they do. Both force them to push "educating children" off the top of their priority list and put "follow the stupid law" and "Chase the program money" in it's place. That's why they are so good at spending and so bad at educating.

It's also why I could do it so much cheaper.... Feel free to thank me for not spending your tax money on educating my kids.... Go ahead... I'm waiting....

Re: When California wanted a lottery...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, most qualified teachers would not conflate being an undergrad with dreams and being actually anywhere near obtaining a PhD in physics

Re:When California wanted a lottery...

[ceoyoyo]

I didn't say you weren't a qualified teacher, I said you didn't include the costs for one. If you're happy working for free, I've got some stuff for you to do. If you don't need a qualified teacher to teach, you'd be happy with your kids going to a school and being taught by whatever homeless guy happened to be closest? There are quite a few of them, and they work cheap.

You're spectacularly failing to make your point then. You can't just say "hey, I bought $800 worth of books and taught my kids so public schools should be able to do the same!" Take that $800 and add the four hours a day of rent or mortgage/maintenance/taxes on your house, plus salary for yourself, plus insurance, plus a supplement for the extra costs to deal with special needs, and you'll start to get a more reasonable estimate. American public schools might be terribly inefficient, I don't know. But your accounting is pretty ridiculous.

Fake SSN?

[RogueWarrior65]

It's times like these when a truly clever criminal would make use of a social security number and fake identity set up years before.

Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do this

[gurps_npc]

Man was a fool. When doing Insider trading, the only real important part is to GET A TRUSTWORTHY PARTNER TO CLAIM THE MONEY.

Everything else is relatively unimportant. Anyone can code a script to steal the lottery. Well, any of us here could do it.

There are certain parts of a crime that they don't show on TV, so stupid criminals don't do them. This is half the reason why they get caught.

It's not so easy

[ciaran2014]

> he was an idiot for buying the ticket himself.

I agree, but at the same time, have a think about how many people you know to whom you can say: "I found a way to defraud a company of 14 million and you can have half but I need you to put your name to it."

Rule out all your acquaintances who aren't smart enough to avoid fucking it up, plus those who you can't trust, and rule out friends with kids or a job who are afraid of jail time, and people who can't keep a secret from their own friends and family who might fuck it up. And remember, for each person who says "no" to your plan, you've just created someone who can testify against you or blackmail you.

And then your accomplice has to get your half to you. A bank transfer of seven million is a little incriminating, or if they give you a suitcase of cash, you can't just lodge it into your account. "Enjoying" your money isn't so easy when you have to avoid ever creating a record of having the money.

Finding an accomplice for a big illegal act isn't *that* easy.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL. Unless Iowa requires the purchaser of a lotto ticket to show id at the time of purchase, whoever signs the ticket is the "purchaser." He foiled the lottery, if he didn't want to get caught, he shouldn't have laid ANY claim to it, and sold the "winning lottery ticket" on the street for $500. Sure, it's a lot less than the 15,000,000 that was the prize, and sure, it even sounds like a lousy scam, but his chances of getting caught would be significantly lessened.

Re:It's not so easy

[The-Ixian]

This is exactly what I was thinking.

You need someone criminal enough to go along with it, loyal enough to never divulge the secret, competent enough to not screw it up and savvy enough to not trip on any of the hundred pitfalls along the way... that's sort of a tall order.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but if it's certain numbers that are rigged, and you know what those are in advance, think of how many people you could say, "oh, you play the lottery? Pick these numbers, they're my lucky numbers... but if you win, you give me 10%"

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a pretty weird thing to say to someone, and I can't think of anyone I know who'd pay for my lucky numbers instead of picking their own.

And then, Oh, You won the jackpot?! What good fortune!

It's paper thin.

There's no getting around that you need an accomplice.

Re:It's not so easy

[tompaulco]

And then your accomplice has to get your half to you. A bank transfer of seven million is a little incriminating, or if they give you a suitcase of cash, you can't just lodge it into your account. "Enjoying" your money isn't so easy when you have to avoid ever creating a record of having the money.

Well, as long as you can avoid the government spying program, I mean Anti-terrorist program that requires banks to notify the government of any large deposit, I would think you would be okay. It is not like the inter state lottery is going to keep track of where their winners spend their money, or even has the jurisdiction to do so. The only reason they could is if there was previous suspicion and they could get a judge to issue a warrant.
Even if you tripped the government's bells over a large deposit, I don't think they would necessarily do anything if you could come up with a good reason, like "my friend just won the lottery and decided to give me a large chunk of money".

Re:It's not so easy

[hippo]

Yes it is, just contact the mafia and expect to settle for a 10% cut.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you get a friend who is into superstitious things like the zodiac, and say that you saw them win the lottery in a dream, and tell them the numbers you saw(programmed to win). They win, they take most of the money but offer you a million or two for being such a good friend.

You get to make someone happy and remove all your debt in one fell swoop. Perhaps it's not easy street - you can't live a great life(40+ years) in perpetuity on just a million, but you can't possibly say "Oh bummer, I was given a million dollars today...my life is soooo terrible!"

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

I, AC, am willing to be your stooge for $7 million. Just putting that out there everyone . . .

Re:It's not so easy

[tobiasly]

...plus those who you can't trust

You do raise some really good points (although I'm pretty sure I can think of at least a few friends who could go along w/ it), but the trust issue could be greatly mitigated by a video recording of the illicit agreement. If your friend tries to make off with all of it, you have evidence of their complicity.

It is rather baffling that this person didn't execute his plan any better. He should have had his friend buying lottery tickets every day for months beforehand.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

From the way this sounds, I'm guessing he didn't tell his friends at all, so when he somehow convinced them to cash the ticket for him they probably had no problems saying, "Oh yeah, my buddy Dave gave me the ticket to cash for him. No, I don't know why he couldn't do it himself."

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that the deposit would spark an investigation but that it means that if an investigation is started for another reason then you're stuck with a bank record you can't deny or explain.

> "my friend just won the lottery and decided to give me a large chunk of money"

If I was an investigator, this wouldn't make me move along.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeh, because we all have their phone number and we trust them.

Re:It's not so easy

[Mishra100]

It's much easier...

You to trusted friend: "Hey want to buy a lottery ticket? I'll go in half but can't pick it up today if you don't mind paying for it." Use these numbers, it's my lucky numbers.

Done. I have friends that I'm 98% sure they would give me half and not let me worry about being in the public spot light.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you're going out? Here's 10 bucks. Pick me up a lottery ticket while you're out.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

> he was an idiot for buying the ticket himself.

Buying a lottery ticket is not fraud. If someone else bought it for him, that someone else could easily have kept all the money. In return the lottery employee would keep his freedom (and a grudge).

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

If your friend tries to make off with all of it, you have evidence of their complicity.

You must enjoy spending time behind bars.

Re:It's not so easy

[Kjella]

In this particular case the requirements seem to be very low, any doofus can win the lottery and it doesn't require any elaborate explanations. You bought a lottery ticket, you won, lucky you. The lottery makes the payout and case closed, if that's all done why wouldn't you just make a bank transfer? As long as you do everything openly with the IRS and pay your taxes I don't see why they'd even look twice. The bank isn't likely to tell anyone because of client confidentiality, the winner just says he gave half to charity and the fraudster could just make up any excuse about an inheritance or whatever. It's not like the bank account has to match the story they're telling people.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

> the trust issue could be greatly mitigated by a video recording

That makes it an even bigger ask: My friend, I want you to put your name on the fraudulent ticket *and* (because I don't trust you, my trusted friend) I want to video you saying you know we're committing a crime.

And if your friend gets caught, a video doesn't prevent your friend from blabbing about who's plan it was as part of a plea bargain. I think the video only helps in a very limited set of situations, and it complicates things greatly. I wouldn't make a video.

> I'm pretty sure I can think of at least a few friends who could go along w/ it

I can think of a handful that I'd consider, but if the first three said no and the forth said yes then I wouldn't be too happy knowing that three people know of the plan and either aren't getting paid or are demanding to be paid. And if someone mentions it to their spouse, you never know when dirty laundry will come out during a divorce etc.

> He should have had his friend buying lottery tickets every day for months beforehand.

Yes.

Re:It's not so easy

[GTRacer]

And just how do you plan to move that much money? At some point, I expect a large deposit landing in the account of a state lottery employee (or worse, a recently-quit one) would raise some eyebrows.

Re:It's not so easy

[ciaran2014]

Just to summarise your plan: When the investigator asks you why winner Dave wants the 14 million to go into your account, you answer "I don't know".

That's the extent of your plan?!

You don't cash $14 million tickets in a corner shop, you know that, right?

AC, you've just been removed from my list of possible accomplices.

Re:It's not so easy

[Fallso]

Is this actually a problem? What if you actually won the lottery legitimately and decided to give away half to family members because you can? Over here in the UK, as long as the person who gave you the money doesn't die suddenly I don't think you pay tax on it as it's a gift, although if they do you need to pay inheritance tax, which is a whole new kettle of fish. .

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Easier than all that. The best accomplice is the unwitting accomplice.
1) Fill out a card with five sets of numbers, one of them being the hit that gets your $14 mil.
2) Put the code you need into the prod environment.
3) Invite a good, generous friend to a concert or movie or something.
4) Stop for gas.
5) Hand friend a twenty and the card and say, "Hey, bud. How about you run in and get us some [smokes, sodas, whatever] and turn this card into some lotto tickets for [whatever game you gamed]. I can't actually play, but if you win, I know you'll cut me in for half."
6) Go to concert or whatever.
7) Drop friend off with fond farewells.
8) Wait for the friend to call with amaaazing news. Act super-excited.
9) Don't quit the job for a while, even after you get your friendly distribution.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

"competent enough to not screw it up" ... yet not so competent as to say "why don't you gimme $1M and I'll pretend I never heard you say this!"

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Finding an accomplice for a big illegal act isn't *that* easy.

And the person you find has to not just take the money and run.

CAPTCHA: succor

Sort of like SUCKER!

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, and then somebody asks them what the significance of the numbers they used were, they so "oh, my friend had a dream", that somebody connects the dots, and you are busted.

If the person helping you with the fraud doesn't know it's fraud, they're too likely to accidentally reveal the connection to you and ruin the whole scam.

Re:It's not so easy

[parkinglot777]

ROFL. Unless Iowa requires the purchaser of a lotto ticket to show id at the time of purchase, whoever signs the ticket is the "purchaser." He foiled the lottery, if he didn't want to get caught, he shouldn't have laid ANY claim to it, and sold the "winning lottery ticket" on the street for $500. Sure, it's a lot less than the 15,000,000 that was the prize, and sure, it even sounds like a lousy scam, but his chances of getting caught would be significantly lessened.

Would you go through all the troubles just for $500 or a couple thousand dollars when you may have (or plan to have) a chance of millions? I highly doubt you (or anyone) would do what you said. I think your reply makes no sense at all and rather is silly.

Re:It's not so easy

[parkinglot777]

And then your accomplice has to get your half to you. A bank transfer of seven million is a little incriminating, or if they give you a suitcase of cash, you can't just lodge it into your account. "Enjoying" your money isn't so easy when you have to avoid ever creating a record of having the money.

Well there is more on this thing when you are including "taxes." The taxes would eventually help to find its way back to the employee's plan. By the way, for 14 millions and if he chooses to do 50:50, the whole taxes witholding may be on him and that would net him 3.5 millions instead of 7 millions.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Could you buy me a ticket? I've got to run off to the bathroom."

No trust required, exchange caught on camera as evidence (friend off the hook).

Re:It's not so easy

[TsuruchiBrian]

I recommend being a "benevolent" lottery cheater. You can find out what numbers your friends and family members have picked (or always pick), and just rig the game for those numbers to come up.

They won't know of any cheating, so they won't act nervous or weird.

If enough of your friends and family win the lottery, maybe they will give you some.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

what's worse in a situation such as this, is the whole 'trusted' group of friends would likely be easily mineable data.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? With all that money, your friend buys some houses. They can't live in all of them, and as you're a good friend of theirs, they might let you live there rent free for a while. And that yacht? I'm sure they'd let a good friend use it whenever they want. And hey, sure, borrow one of the nice cars... No money ever needs to change hands.

Re:It's not so easy

[TsuruchiBrian]

I think $10000 is probably a good price. A lot of drug dealers have that much money, and they are able to kill you if you are lying to them. You can agree to stay captive in their underground lair until they get their winnings.

Re:It's not so easy

[TsuruchiBrian]

I know a few people with the technical know-how to pull this kind of thing off, and then completely fuck it up when it came to common sense stuff.

I'm thinking of one person in particular who wanted to steal a companies data and try to sell it to another company for a few thousand dollars. He seemed pretty sure that the "I didn't steal the data, I generated the same data independently" defense would be unimpeachable. He seemed to confuse the notion of "proving something with certainty" with "proving something beyond a *reasonable* doubt to 12 jurors or "proving something by preponderance of the evidence to a judge".

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

This may come as a surprise to you but I Uwe Mugato am a Prince of Nigeria...

Re:It's not so easy

[freeze128]

Also, what is to say that your "friend" who buys the ticket doesn't just go to another convenience store and buy another ticket with the same numbers. Then there would be 2 winners, and your takeaway winnings would be reduced proportionally. Also, the friend could tell other friends, and so on, and so on, and so on, until you win only $30.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, any gift of more than ten thousand dollars is taxable to the giver.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so easy. The friend cannot tell anyone that you are in on it, because as a lottery employee, you are prohibited from playing (that would include playing through a proxy). Thus you would have to also convince your friend to keep the deal a secret, they would have to pay the taxes, and they would then have to work fairly hard and take legal risks to deliver your share without running afoul of the $10,000 limit on transferring money without reporting it to the government.

Re:It's not so easy

[Raenex]

You can agree to stay captive in their underground lair until they get their winnings.

I think you've watched too much Breaking Bad.

Re:It's not so easy

[ceoyoyo]

And make the winning numbers something meaningful to him so he has a good, natural story for why he picked them. Daughter's birthday or something.

Re:It's not so easy

[Raenex]

"competent enough to not screw it up" ... yet not so competent as to say "why don't you gimme $1M and I'll pretend I never heard you say this!"

That's the opposite of competent.

1) Instead of getting access to $7 million (or $14 million if you want to try and screw the guy), you're going for $1 million.

2) Made it harder for the guy to get his money in the first place in order to get paid that $1 million.

3) You've offered the guy a motive to kill you to silence you for trying to blackmail him. You made an enemy out of somebody you had a relation of trust with.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the US I think anything over ~$20k a year to direct family members is taxed.

Re:It's not so easy

[CreatureComfort]

Easy enough for a Trust fund to retrieve the payout, deposited into an account in the Cayman's.

Then all your stooge has to do is, when asked, agree that he was the original purchaser of the ticket. The trust fund manager is the one who will receive the money and manage any payouts from the trust. He's the one you have to rely on not to screw things up, so you should go with a good, experienced trust manager, most of whom would find $14M (payout probably only $6-8M) as small potatoes.

If you're really paranoid, use a double blind trust, where the manager of the first trust creates the second trust, so the trust manager retrieving the payout doesn't know who the original trust has behind it, and the trust manager of the original trust doesn't know where the money from the second trust came from.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

There are billions of ways to launder money. That you can't think of any only shows your limitations, not limitations of the plan. Buy a $7M house. Sell it to your "friend" for $1. So long as you record the transaction to the IRS correctly, there would be no laws broken, and no huge red flags raised (unless you were stupid enough to use a Real Estate agent or such that reports sales to the state, or such).

Re:It's not so easy

[penguinoid]

I think $10000 is probably a good price. A lot of drug dealers have that much money, and they are able to kill you if you are lying to them. You can agree to stay captive in their underground lair until they get their winnings.

They're also able to kill you if you weren't lying to them.

Re:It's not so easy

[TsuruchiBrian]

anybody can kill anybody for any reason.

Re:It's not so easy

[TsuruchiBrian]

I have watched exactly enough breaking bad.

Re:It's not so easy

[barbariccow]

Buy cars cash, sell them. "invest" in a business and claim a lot of profit. Plenty of ways to launder money.

Re:It's not so easy

[barbariccow]

If I was standing in the way of someone's 1 million dollars... I probably wouldn't be standing. I'd be ducking from the oncoming assault.

Re:It's not so easy

[barbariccow]

410-685-6625.

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

One can never watch too much Breaking Bad. Yeah, bitch!

Re:It's not so easy

[Jack Griffin]

We must move in different circles.

Re:It's not so easy

[adamstew]

and once it's successful, they will just hold you in their underground lair and have you do it again.

Re:It's not so easy

[TsuruchiBrian]

How are you supposed to hack the lottery computer systems from the drug dealers den? If they want more money, they need to let you go to work. As long as the money keeps coming, it's in their best interest that you are happy.

Re:It's not so easy

[gzuckier]

> he was an idiot for buying the ticket himself.

I agree, but at the same time, have a think about how many people you know to whom you can say: "I found a way to defraud a company of 14 million and you can have half but I need you to put your name to it."

Rule out all your acquaintances who aren't smart enough to avoid fucking it up, plus those who you can't trust, and rule out friends with kids or a job who are afraid of jail time, and people who can't keep a secret from their own friends and family who might fuck it up. And remember, for each person who says "no" to your plan, you've just created someone who can testify against you or blackmail you.

And then your accomplice has to get your half to you. A bank transfer of seven million is a little incriminating, or if they give you a suitcase of cash, you can't just lodge it into your account. "Enjoying" your money isn't so easy when you have to avoid ever creating a record of having the money.

Finding an accomplice for a big illegal act isn't *that* easy.

The irony is that his father was the recently imprisoned minister of finance for Nigeria, and he sent emails out to everyone asking them to launder the funds.

Re:It's not so easy

[gzuckier]

Easy enough for a Trust fund to retrieve the payout, deposited into an account in the Cayman's.

Then all your stooge has to do is, when asked, agree that he was the original purchaser of the ticket. The trust fund manager is the one who will receive the money and manage any payouts from the trust. He's the one you have to rely on not to screw things up, so you should go with a good, experienced trust manager, most of whom would find $14M (payout probably only $6-8M) as small potatoes.

If you're really paranoid, use a double blind trust, where the manager of the first trust creates the second trust, so the trust manager retrieving the payout doesn't know who the original trust has behind it, and the trust manager of the original trust doesn't know where the money from the second trust came from.

Invest in car washes. I saw Breaking Bad.

Re:It's not so easy

[gzuckier]

And then your accomplice has to get your half to you. A bank transfer of seven million is a little incriminating, or if they give you a suitcase of cash, you can't just lodge it into your account. "Enjoying" your money isn't so easy when you have to avoid ever creating a record of having the money.

Well, as long as you can avoid the government spying program, I mean Anti-terrorist program that requires banks to notify the government of any large deposit, I would think you would be okay. It is not like the inter state lottery is going to keep track of where their winners spend their money, or even has the jurisdiction to do so. The only reason they could is if there was previous suspicion and they could get a judge to issue a warrant. Even if you tripped the government's bells over a large deposit, I don't think they would necessarily do anything if you could come up with a good reason, like "my friend just won the lottery and decided to give me a large chunk of money".

If you had $14 million you could probably skip the country for someplace without extradition and live pretty comfortably.

Re:It's not so easy

[gzuckier]

I know a few people with the technical know-how to pull this kind of thing off, and then completely fuck it up when it came to common sense stuff.

I'm thinking of one person in particular who wanted to steal a companies data and try to sell it to another company for a few thousand dollars. He seemed pretty sure that the "I didn't steal the data, I generated the same data independently" defense would be unimpeachable. He seemed to confuse the notion of "proving something with certainty" with "proving something beyond a *reasonable* doubt to 12 jurors or "proving something by preponderance of the evidence to a judge".

And without further ado, from the Doofus State, I bring you... http://www.nhregister.com/gene...

Re:It's not so easy

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a criminal lawyer, you need a "Criminal Lawyer"!

The Solar Lottery?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder who understand the reference...

we only hear about the failed attempts

[starless]

Naturally we only know about the times that this type of scheme fails.
If the lottery worker had got a 3rd party to buy the ticket in exchange for a large share
to the winnings (e.g. 50%) would he have got away with it?

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[Anonymous Coward]

Would a lottery worker suddenly in possession of $7m he didn't earn that was transferred from some guy he knew who won the lottery ever be under suspicion?

Gee, I don't know.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[Virtucon]

having worked in the gaming industry, you don't want to even have an air of suspicion around improper tampering of a gaming system, in this case a lottery system. Even if you're innocent you can lose your ability to make a living because you won't be able to be licensed or carried under a licensed gaming manufacturer.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[gfreeman]

Got $14M, don't care.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[tompaulco]

Would a lottery worker suddenly in possession of $7m he didn't earn that was transferred from some guy he knew who won the lottery ever be under suspicion?

Gee, I don't know.

How would anybody know he had this money? He would probably quit his job and stop hanging out with his work friends. Cutting ties with them probably insures his safety right there. If he did ever run into anybody, he could tell them he won a bunch of money in Vegas.
Better yet, he could take the easy road and lead a successful upper middle class life without having to work and just not get too extravagant, and almost certainly nobody would suspect a thing.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[bobbied]

How many criminals are smart enough to think long term like this? Not many I'm afraid...

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be greedy, let the 3rd party get away with 90% of the share, they won't rat you out and you divert attention away from yourself.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[starless]

How many criminals are smart enough to think long term like this? Not many I'm afraid...

But the thing is we mainly learn about the stupid criminals.
Those (however many there are) who are smart enough to make it work we don't
know about.
e.g. if someone uses an accomplice, doesn't spend any of the money for some time
(say a couple of years), then leaves work for a plausible reason and moves
to a new area, I'd guess we may not hear of these.
And we get a distorted view of criminals because the ones that succeed are never
heard about.

I think this counts as a "known unknown"....

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[petermgreen]

Noone knows, we only have records of the criminals who were stupid/unlucky enough to get caught. This is especially true for crimes where it is not obvious to the victim that a crime has been committed at all.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[Virtucon]

No, you have $14m in credited assets that the government can seize when there's any indication of fraud. You may have it for a short time, but before you realize it somebody goes WTF and you're in jail.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[jandrese]

He wouldn't transfer it into his personal bank account. He would set up a LLC who's sole purpose in life is to distribute the winnings, half of which happen to go to the original guy. As long as he doesn't suddenly start trying to live like MC Hammer and trigger an IRS audit he'll probably get away with it.

This guy was caught because he was an idiot.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[bobbied]

Well, that and he broke the law.... Which kind of makes you an idiot in my book....

What you do is collect your money in to the LLC, offshore the cash ASAP and move to a place that won't extradite you back to the USA.

Re:we only hear about the failed attempts

[Jack Griffin]

How many criminals are smart enough to think long term like this? Not many I'm afraid...

How do you know? The smart ones never get caught, and the really smart one's victims don't even know they've been done.
Or did you think every single offence ever has been reported in the news?
Next time you hear about the biggest drug best ever in the news, pay attention to the street price. We've had busts of hundreds of kgs of Coke or Ecstasy and the street price doesn't change. That is an indicator of how much stuff is coming through, and how many people must be getting away with it. I'm sure the same is happening in Financial Services and other industries.

State lotteries

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't the job of the state to run lotteries. It is essentially a regressive tax. If they are greedy for revenue (paying state employee pensions is a horrible burden) then legalize gambling and tax it. Vegas has a bad reputation, but the house edge on craps and blackjack are ~1.5% with best play. Slots, somewhat worse. The house edge for state lotteries averages 38%, maybe more. This is the disgusting real story.

Re:State lotteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure you understand what a regressive tax is. The cut is essentially the same regardless of the pot, so it's not regressive.

It's a "stupid" tax though, as in a tax on stupidity. The odds are well against the punters, so any punter who buys a lottery ticket deserves to be taxed at 38% on that spend. It's absolutely an opt-in luxury tax too - nobody has a lottery ticket in their "life's necessity" column so if people want to contribute to the state's tax coffers this way I fully support this over a mandatory income tax or a tax on basic foodstuffs.

Re:State lotteries

[Anonymous Coward]

JJust a small nitpick, but best play on modern craps (with 3x-4x-5x odds bets) is both simple and much better than a 1.5% house advantage. Closer to 0.6% house advantage. Compare to Blackjack which requires a LOT of practice before you can play to minimum house advantage.

Re:State lotteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare to Blackjack which requires a LOT of practice before you can play to minimum house advantage.

I have to disagree on this one. You can successfully play blackjack by purchasing a strategy card in the gift shop and placing it on the Blackjack table for reference! Best 99 cents I ever spent.
Just ask if it's ok to put the card on the table first. I have never been told no.

Re:State lotteries

[Anonymous Coward]

The stupid and poor are closely correlated. Thus, tempting the stupid is tantamount to taxing the poor. Your argument would make sense if the states didn't spend millions on TV marketing on people who don't understand probability.

Re:State lotteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I not put a ~ near the value? 345 games are unattractive to me. I prefer the 20x games at Main Street, Palace Station, Casino Royale..., where the house advantage can be driven far lower. The expected loss will remain the same, just a larger variance about it. The Wizard of Odds has a simplified basic strategy the achieves nearly the same result as the stand table with far simpler rules. I, however, have mastered the table and count cards reasonably well on double deck.

And yet

[NEDHead]

The infrastructure to launder this type of asset is well established and readily accessed

Re:And yet

[bobbied]

What? Bit Coin?

Re:And yet

[NEDHead]

I was thinking of the neighborhood mob affiliate, but on further reflection any of the major banks would probably help as well if their cut were big enough.

Let's vote on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet electronic voting is touted as safe and because I want to check IDs, I'm a racist.

Re:Let's vote on it

[dave420]

If you want to check IDs you are preventing those without IDs from participating, which in the case of voting is a bit more fucking important than playing the lottery.

Re:Let's vote on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see - the lottery is not so important, but they check ID. In an election, where it's way more important, they don't check ID.

Yeah, that makes sense.

NOT.

Re:Let's vote on it

[ceoyoyo]

That's one of the issues in the US that kind of puzzled me. We check IDs when you vote. It's not a problem, because everyone can provide the required ID. If it's actually a problem in the US, my question would not be "is it racism to require an ID to vote?" but rather "how racist is our society that significant portions of it can't identify themselves sufficiently to vote?"

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[swb]

So when this trusted friend claims the $14m and then decides to keep it all, what do you do then? Hey, he's not sharing the money from the scheme I rigged?

It sounds like the perfect crime...from the trusted friend's perspective.

Too geek-smart, too world-stupid

[hyades1]

Once it became obvious he couldn't cash in the ticket without giving his real name, Tipton should have let it go uncollected. Once he figured out a way around the problem, he could have run his program again and cashed in.

Re:Too geek-smart, too world-stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

You are assuming that the lottery company wouldn't bother to investigate why someone didn't pick up a lottery ticket purchased under his name...

Re:Too geek-smart, too world-stupid

[hyades1]

It wasn't. You don't have to give your name until you collect the winnings. Purchases are anonymous.

a gross perversion, no doubt.

[nimbius]

The lottery is a wholesome gaming system in which money is extracted from poor people or anyone without a cursory understanding of mathematics. That money then goes to the state, which in turn reinvests the money in large multinational corporations. On occasion lottery funds are used as slight of hand to make state budgets appear solvent. Education, job training, and other promises are rarely, if ever to be funded with lottery earnings.
the currency of lottery is hope. faith, desire, the ever growing yet inexorable reach for the one golden ticket to riches. This of course is never to be awarded; most lottery customers are woefully incapable of properly commanding large sums of money in a fashion that pleases the market. To think that someone gamed a system predicated on misery and greed to actually win the carrot at the end of the stick is vile.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're calling lottery players stupid. You seem nice.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[meta-monkey]

Stupid? No. Bad at math? Very.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's called the "Idiot Tax" for a reason.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[bobbied]

So you're calling lottery players stupid. You seem nice.

If he's not, I will.

Lotteries are a tax on stupidity. I call them a foolishness tax. Because most who play the lottery are stupid fools who are just wasting their money.

The only valid reason to play, IMHO, is for entertainment value, which is pretty limited. If you want to bet for entertainment, hit the blackjack tables after you learn the rules of how you play. Blackjack is a better deal because the entertainment lasts longer for the same cost, on average.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to bet for entertainment, hit the blackjack tables after you learn the rules of how you play. Blackjack is a better deal because the entertainment lasts longer for the same cost, on average.

Show me a blackjack table where I can wil $10,000,000+ on a single dollar bet and I'M IN!!!!

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

That reason is a desire to feel superior to those less fortunate than yourself.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[DurnikBob]

Concur, I play about twice a year just for the sheer fun when it gets above the $300 million mark. It's pure entertainment thinking about what to do if the 276M:1 odds ever fell in my favor :)

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[rhazz]

Lotteries are a tax on stupidity.

People paying for fancy cars is a tax on stupidity because I personally can't see the value of it. People paying to see a play is a tax on stupidity because I wouldn't enjoy it myself. Paying any money at all for a coffee is a tax on stupidity because I hate coffee. Everything you do for enjoyment that I wouldn't personally enjoy doing is a tax on stupidity.

If you don't get any enjoyment from it, don't do it. Other people enjoy it, which is obvious, so why be a prick about it? Very, very few people buy lottery tickets as a financial strategy, so the actual odds are irrelevant as long as it's run honestly and someone shows up in the news with a win occasionally. Personally I spend about $10 per month on lotto tickets. I enjoy it, it's fun for me, so fuck off with your judgmental generalization.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[bobbied]

Look, sorry if I offended you but you didn't read my whole post...

The only valid reason to play, IMHO, is for entertainment value, which is pretty limited. If you want to bet for entertainment, hit the blackjack tables after you learn the rules of how you play. Blackjack is a better deal because the entertainment lasts longer for the same cost, on average.

IF you get enjoyment out of playing the lottery and have money to spend on such entertainment, have fun, buy your tickets. You know what the odds mean and that you won't win but you enjoy the thrill making sure and finding that if you had matched ONE more number, they would have paid you $5.

However, you are not the target audience of lotteries. People like you don't buy that many tickets. People who are poor, don't have disposable income, who are inclined to make stupid financial decisions are the same folks who more often buying lottery tickets. It amounts to a tax on foolishness and stupidity.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you have to go to a casino to play blackjack and it takes quite a bit of time and the stakes are higher. Apples and oranges. I can buy 5 bucks worth of lottery tickets at a gas station in under a minute and then daydream. It takes no effort or knowledge. It's much more comparable to slots, but even then you are still talking casino gaming in most states. I don't understand the hate for the lotto. If you don't like it, don't play it. Quit trying to tell other people how to live you bunch of psychos.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[houghi]

I play the lotery for entertainment. I know I will loose. Yet I find it emotinally (not rationally) satisfying that I could win. Makes me dream.

It is expendave money. Rationally I know I will not win. I would encourage people NOT to play, unless they are aware that they arer trowing out their money.

I see it as a wishing well. Entertaining and you need to think about what you wish, nothing more.

Back to the rigging of the system. I am amazed that such a thing is possible. Where I live (Belgium) Lotto emplyees are allowed to play. This because they are sure it is not possible to mess with. I have no knowledge of a computersystem. They are all either scratching games, or lottery with balls.

To me this shows that if one person can rig the system, they can rig the system. Meaning that if they do not like that weeks winnings or winner, they can alter it. For all I know, the NSA uses it to pay out illegal operations.

The reason this is possible is most likely the same reason we still use computers for voting: Money over securoty and fuck the consequences.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

A co-workers' dad once won $15k in the lottery, which she was very happy about. We were talking and I asked if he played it regularly, and she said he played $40 every week, and had done since he moved here 13 years before.
She wasn't too pleased when I pointed out that he had only just won back about what he'd spent and should quit now.
I really don't think that anyone else had done the math on it.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[ceoyoyo]

If the odds are 276M:1 to win $300 million on a $1 bet then you're not stupid for playing.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the odds are 276M:1 to win $300 million on a $1 bet then you're not stupid for playing.

That's just it. If no one ever won, I wouldn't ever spend a dollar, but people win. Not the smartest reason, but like others, I like to dream.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

My odds may be 1 in 28,633,528*, but those are still the best odds I have of ever getting $50 million. I'm willing to invest $5 occasionally for that slim (and only) chance.

Sure I can make a few million in my life by working hard and investing smart, but $50 million--not going to happen without the lottery.

*http://lotto.bclc.com/lotto-max-and-extra/prizes-and-odds.html

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to include taxes and the possibility of multiple winners . . .

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

bobbied, I generally agree with what you said, but I think rhazz is in the right here. First you said, "'So you're calling lottery players stupid.' If he's not, I will."

Second "The only valid reason to play, IMHO, is for entertainment value, which is pretty limited."

I expect your real opinion is more nuanced ("if you know all the facts including the poor ROI and short time horizon of enjoyment and still enjoy it, then have fun doing it"), but I think rhazz is very correct in taking offense at your "judgemental generalizations" as portrayed in your post.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

> If the odds are 276M:1 to win $300 million on a $1 bet then you're not stupid for playing.

You would be stupid if you buy 1 ticket. You might not be so stupid for buying several hundred million tickets.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the odds are 276M:1 to win $300 million on a $1 bet then you're not stupid for playing.

Unless someone else has the same logic.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Jack Griffin]

If you want to bet for entertainment, hit the blackjack tables after you learn the rules of how you play. Blackjack is a better deal because the entertainment lasts longer for the same cost, on average.

Blackjack is boring, and when you win only double your stake. The Lottery requires as little as a few dollars, takes no effort, and gives you the high of dreaming about being a multimillionaire. I only buy lottery tickets when it gets huge, the idea of winning tens of millions of dollars is worth the minimal cost. And I don't have to hang out at a casino with a bunch of deadbeats.

Re:a gross perversion, no doubt.

[Anonymous Coward]

thats $300 million before taxes, and only if you are the only one who wins. still dumb

Moron...

[__aaclcg7560]

His obvious mistake was going for the jackpot. If he rigged it for smaller payouts under $500 over a long period of time, he might have escaped detection. Big numbers attract attention, smaller numbers seldom do.

Re:Moron...

[Anonymous Coward]

Peter Gibbons: Well those are whole pennies, right? I'm just talking about fractions of a penny here. But we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times.

Re:Moron...

[Nukenbar]

Perhaps, but the idea behind his sceme was the programs did what it did one time and deleted itself, so there would be very little to find later on. Very risky to have the program running of any lenght of time.

Re:Moron...

[jafiwam]

Peter Gibbons: Well those are whole pennies, right? I'm just talking about fractions of a penny here. But we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times.

Like Superman III.

Re:Moron...

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Not to mention beating the odds in the long haul is much more suspicious to me at least. The odds of hitting the lottery for one big payout is nothing compared with consistently winning the 3 digit lottery over the long run.

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[Anonymous Coward]

He should have watched the ending of Air America!

New tech fails again

[marciot]

This is why the lotto should stick to the time-proven technology of a giant cage of numbered balls rolling down a chute.

Re:New tech fails again

[Anonymous Coward]

... and voting should stick to the time-proven technology of marking a piece of paper with a pen.

Re:New tech fails again

[bobbied]

This is why the lotto should stick to the time-proven technology of a giant cage of numbered balls rolling down a chute.

Like that's never been rigged....

Re:New tech fails again

[jonwil]

It may well be possible to rig the spinning cage full of balls. But I bet its a LOT harder to do (and a LOT riskier in terms of getting caught or getting it wrong and not getting the numbers you thought you were going to get).

Re:New tech fails again

[bobbied]

I'm not so sure it's all that hard to do myself. I can imagine a number of ways which may allow you to take out a bit of randomness by adjusting the size and weight of things and stack the odds in a way you could profit from. How you could do such a thing without getting caught though is an issue, but I'm sure somebody is clever enough to work out that detail if they could engineer the necessary changes to the physical system.

Think of it as the same kind of gaming the system as card counting is in blackjack.. You don't rig the game to win all the time, you just want to win more than you loose over the long term. Win a little bit at a time... Just not so much you draw too much attention to yourself..

Re:New tech fails again

[Anonymous Coward]

This very thing was done where I live; although this particular scenario was caught.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Pennsylvania_Lottery_scandal

I wouldn't be surprised if there were others that got away with such schemes.

Re:New tech fails again

[marciot]

This very thing was done where I live; although this particular scenario was caught.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Pennsylvania_Lottery_scandal

I wouldn't be surprised if there were others that got away with such schemes.

Ha, ha! What morons! They might've gotten away with it if they weren't so "clever" as to use 666.

Thanks for the link. It was good for a laugh.

Why do you let a computer choose the numbers?

[tompaulco]

Why would they let a computer choose the numbers? That is subject to fraud. Why not have a random drawing like anybody with a shred of common sense would do?

Re:Why do you let a computer choose the numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

The obvious answer is that they don't want it to be truly random. He was busted because his numbers came up before someone else's ...

Re:Why do you let a computer choose the numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

The random drawings require a lot of security, and are just as subject to fraud. I particularly like the "weighing down the unwanted numbers with paint" fraud on the air blown ping-pong ball lotteries of the past.

Re:Why do you let a computer choose the numbers?

[subanark]

A well programmed random number generator is going to be better than kind of "random drawing". The problem was the lack of oversight in having the code be submitted. Any code changes that would hurt the reputation of an organization this badly should require multiple sign offs by code reviewers.

Now, it is possible that this got past the code reviewers, in which case I either congratulate the fraudster for some real underhanded coding, or I accuse the code reviewers for being inept.

It is also possible that this came from the IT angle, in which case I congratulate the fraudster on being able to understand the code, the deployment process, and the steps to hide it all.

Re:Why do you let a computer choose the numbers?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Why do we allow a computer program to count our election results with no oversight?

Re:Why do you let a computer choose the numbers?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

I just think the electronic voting should have a verifiable paper trail.

Re:Why do you let a computer choose the numbers?

[burbilog]

A well programmed random number generator is going to be better than kind of "random drawing". The problem was the lack of oversight in having the code be submitted. Any code changes that would hurt the reputation of an organization this badly should require multiple sign offs by code reviewers.

Then add random from hardware truly random generator to random number from physical lottery and use the result. It's going to be very difficult to rig both systems (handled by different teams) to work together.

Why did he tell them he changed the program?

[tompaulco]

All he was in trouble for was playing the lottery as an employee. Then it comes out that he monkeyed with the program. Did he give them that, or did they find evidence and confront him?
Also, didn't this all happen like a year ago? I seem to remember hearing about it a long time ago. Is slashdot just hearing about it now?

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[meta-monkey]

Have dirt on them? Threaten murder?

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[FlyHelicopters]

Yea, I have to say, anyone willing to steal 14 million dollars and involve me in the process... expects to get their cut of 7 million...

I wouldn't put it past them to not think about killing me...

I'd rather have 7 million and know that the person who knows WHY I have 7 million also has 7 million and is happy, than to have 14 million and look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

When you're committing a crime, don't screw your partner who can expose you.

Crime 101 I suppose...

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[bobbied]

So when this trusted friend claims the $14m and then decides to keep it all, what do you do then?

Find somebody else you trust and do it again.... Eventually you will find a honorable criminal to share the wealth with... Better yet, blackmail the winners by threatening to turn yourself in if they don't keep you flush with spending money.

He was going to get caught anyway, it was just a matter of time. ANYBODY who won the lottery who started transferring large sums of money to someone who currently or even used to work for the lottery is asking for a real close look by authorities.

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[neilo_1701D]

You're going to threaten murder on the guy with $14 million and who already has demonstrated his loyalty?

Seems to me he's the who could organize a professional hit...

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[neilo_1701D]

When you're committing a crime, don't screw your partner who can expose you.

Crime 101 I suppose...

I refer you to the opening heist of The Dark Knight, where each of the gang members shoots the gang member who has just done his bit.

"So do you kill me?"
"No, I kill the bus driver."
"Bus driver?"
(Bus crashes through wall, killing the first gang member. Second gang member shoots the bus driver)

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[Bob the Super Hamste]

That was one of the best crime sequences I had seen in a long time. It was very imaginative unlike so many other ones.

Evidence of CA lottery rigging?

[BoRegardless]

I buy a donut and a $1-2 lottery ticket a couple times a week in CA at the same bakery.

Over several years it is obvious that the "Mega" number on each pick in that particular store is not random!

Approx 80% of all Mega numbers are in the range of 1-13. Someone has rigged the California Lottery, judging by what I see. Let the CA operator refute it.

Re:Evidence of CA lottery rigging?

[Anonymous Coward]

Approx 80% of all Mega numbers are in the range of 1-13. Someone has rigged the California Lottery, judging by what I see. Let the CA operator refute it.

You're right, that is odd. I'd expect it to be closer to 86.66% (13/15) (rolls eyes). data here

Arrogance.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of arrogant comments here about the lottery being a "tax on stupidity" etc. The sad truth is that for many people that 1 in 500 million chance of winning millions of dollars actually IS their best chance at escaping the miserable condition of their lives.

Free tickets

[CanadianMacFan]

I wonder if everyone that played that week could get a free ticket since it wasn't a fair draw. Probably a class action suit in there somewhere.

Better idea

[CanadianMacFan]

He should have found someone, ideally a close family member who would have shared the prize, who had been playing the same numbers every week for years and had those number drawn. No need to go out and buy a ticket specifically for that draw himself and the pattern of the other person would have looked good too.

Wait what, a COMPUTER picks winning numbers?

[Spy Handler]

what kind of retarded shit is that? I'm surprised it took this long before someone tampered with the computer to win.

California state lottery used to show their winning lotto numbers on live TV with a bunch of ping pong balls in a clear plastic chamber. High velocity air was pumped into it so that the balls bounced around like crazy. Then they would open a slot (also made of clear plastic) and 6 balls would fall in and those were your winning numbers. It was a very transparent setup (literally) and it was obvious to anyone looking that it was pretty random.

Come to think of it, they don't actually do that anymore and the live TV show is gone. Maybe nowadays CA also picks winning numbers in a back room somewhere with a computer algorithm. Wouldn't surprise me, common sense seems to be disappearing from the world.

Re:Wait what, a COMPUTER picks winning numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been linked elsewhere on this thread, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Pennsylvania_Lottery_scandal

Ping pong balls can be hacked, too.

Easy, have them pay it in Bitcoin!

[Anonymous Coward]

DRP would be proud

Story makes ZERO sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

He isn't a coder, yet had the 'skillz' to INVISIBLY introduce a 'computer program' that subverted code designed to not only be proof against such an attack, but record evidence of any attempt. Yet ZERO actual proof was produced in court of a computer attack- and circumstantial evidence was required instead.

Let's think rationally. Organised crime develops a software method to fix a lottery computer, and needs a BENT insider to introduce the code (almost certainly of Israeli origin) into the computer. This scenario is VERY BELIEVABLE. Yet the same experts don't then handle the simple part- buying a ticket in the least suspicious way- properly. This makes ZERO sense.

An alternative is that the convicted bozo paid someone responsible for the original lottery code a lot of money for a 'trojan' payload, and that the convicted bozo was at least decent enough not to sell out the programmer. But programmers at this level tend to be smart AND highly paranoid, so I'm hard pressed to believe said programmer would not have wanted a much more fool-proof method of ticket buying before going along with the scheme.

I know a lot of really smart crime goes wrong because of one very stupid and totally avoidable mistake- well actually NO, the smart criminals are the ones who tend to get away with it. Here the CLAIMED (but not proven) computer hacking was too smart and the ticket buying mistake too dumb. My guess is that this lottery has been rigged for ages by real, non-prosecuted, criminal master-minds, and that suspicions had grown to a level where a PATSY was recruited to purposely fall flat on his face.

The successful prosecution of idiot Eddie Tipton will KILL all previous investigations into suspicions that this lottery has been rigged (by others) in the past. Job done.

Re:Story makes ZERO sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he heard someone else talking about how easy it would be to do the hack described, and he worked out that it could be done only once a year, when the boss and the head code reviewer were on holiday at the same time (separate holidays, but always in early summer, so they usually overlap). So he had years to work on the code, and only 48 hours to put it in, buy a ticket, and take it out. So he had everything planned up to the put the code in, but didn't think about after until it was in and he had only hours before it was discovered. So he ran out, got a ticket, and figured he'd figure it out later. He never did.

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[Jack Griffin]

So when this trusted friend claims the $14m and then decides to keep it all, what do you do then?

Well by definition he isn't a trusted friend. You can only begin if the trusted friend is actually a trusted friend.
If it turns out you have poor judgement in choosing friends, then threats of violence can sometimes help. Either way you go in a little more prepared than this guy did.

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[Jack Griffin]

I'd rather have 7 million and know that the person who knows WHY I have 7 million also has 7 million and is happy, than to have 14 million and look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

As would most people. That scenario when the friend stabs you in the back in the name of greed might happen in the movies a lot, but it not a likely outcome in the real world. Besides, what better way to have fun with $7million than having your best bud, also with $7mil along for the ride?

Re:Need to find a co-conspirator BEFORE you do thi

[Jack Griffin]

When you're committing a crime, don't screw your partner who can expose you.

Crime 101 I suppose...

I refer you to the opening heist of The Dark Knight,

You know that's a movie right? Most of the time, gang members get away with it, share the loot and live happily ever after. It just you never hear about these stories because you don't even know it's happened.

I do not think that this is the first case

[WindBourne]

If you go look at powerball PRIOR to the change to the new management company, few of the wins were in the west. And in fact, only a couple of the major wins were in the west. They were always in the east. Technically, it is possible. Statistically, it left a lot of questions.
Since the new company took over, wins have gone out all over the place. As such, it appears that this group is being honest.