Slashdot Mirror
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.
No, he was an idiot for buying the ticket himself.
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.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
> 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.
Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
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.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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.
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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.
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.