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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.
" 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.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
and could not manage to find a stand up guy to buy the ticket for him?
_________
Only if villains could shoot straight
In his master plan to steal 14 million dollars, he forgot to tell his accomplice to not blow him in?
>> 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...
Hi user:sexconker (1179573), we know it's you, you forgot to check the "Post Anonymously" box earlier:
http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
...everyone should learn to program. :)
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
First clue something was wrong was the winning number was 1-2-3-4-5-6.
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.
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
> 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
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.
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?
The infrastructure to launder this type of asset is well established and readily accessed
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is why the lotto should stick to the time-proven technology of a giant cage of numbered balls rolling down a chute.
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.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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.
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?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Have dirt on them? Threaten murder?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Stupid? No. Bad at math? Very.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
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..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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...
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.
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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...
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)
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
That was one of the best crime sequences I had seen in a long time. It was very imaginative unlike so many other ones.
Time to offend someone
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
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
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.
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.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
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?"
If the odds are 276M:1 to win $300 million on a $1 bet then you're not stupid for playing.
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....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.