Slashdot Mirror
Iowa Computer Programmer Gets 25 Years For Lottery Scam (desmoinesregister.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Des Moines Register: Eddie Tipton, the Iowa brainpower behind a case of multi-state lottery fraud, will spend up to 25 years in prison for rigging "random" drawing jackpots. It's unknown how many years Tipton will actually spend in prison. He could be paroled within three or four years, his attorneys noted. Tipton, 54, was a longtime computer programmer in the Iowa offices of the Multi-State Lottery Association who installed software that allowed him to pick winning numbers in some of the nation's most popular lottery drawings. His scam began to unravel following unsuccessful attempts to anonymously collect a $16.5 million Hot Lotto ticket that was purchased at a Des Moines convenience store in 2010. "I certainly regret," Tipton said. "It's difficult even saying that. With all the people I know behind me that I hurt and I regret it. I'm sorry."
(Outside of deciding the break the law in the first place, of course)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
That's was my reaction. Take out just enough, in cash, that with your probably meager pay you're doing pretty well for yourself. Then I noticed where he's from: Iowa. If you lived in New York City you could cash a couple dozen lottery tickets a week an never visit the same lottery agent twice, but if you lived in Cedar Rapids you'd get noticed eventually.
Still, trying to take out over a million bucks is crazy. In most states you can't take a large lottery prize anonymously, which he should have known.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
There's a difference.
Killing someone or popping off a minimart isn't cheating the government out of taxes.
Rigging the lottery could impact lotto ticket sales which could cost the government millions in lost revenue from taking advantage of the poor and the weak.
Publicly flailing this guy for messing with the system builds confidence in the people that the government is out to protect their interests and guarantee their 1 in 292,201,338 (powerball) or as they say "The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 17.22" which means that since the vast majority of prizes is the cost of your ticket back, you would have to spend $17.22 to win $1.
I can't find ANYPLACE that explains Iowa State's Megamillions game play or odds. If they are similar to most others, then it's probably something like 1 in 7.1 million odds. The break-even chances are probably in the ballpark of 1 in 15 overall.
So that being said... the only people who would ever play this are people who are simply too stupid to figure out that that $5 a week they spend is really $260 a year or $5200 every 20 years which is a luxury cruise for two plus airfare when you retire. So, after 50 years of work, you can be guaranteed at least a little bit of the rich life... or you can pay the stupid tax and wonder why when you retire that you can't do those nice things.
The government will always punish harshly anyone who threatens their ability to tax the stupid.
Historically, whenever I've wanted to call someone stupid and embarrass them publicly, I ask them "What's your lotto numbers" and when they respond, I say "I don't know what's worse... that you're the type of person that plays lotto or that you think that by choosing your numbers it will increase your odds"
Although choosing your numbers won't increase your odds, it can improve the expectation value of your winnings (if you win a shared prize). For example, since many people choose numbers that have to do with dates, by picking random numbers that cannot be dates will decrease your expected loss value of playing the lottery. Doing this exercise once making them your "lotto number" is an efficient way to get this small improvement...
Anyhow, you can now return to your standard mocking program...
I wouldn't say that, but 25 years for rigging a lottery, when rape has been known to get a six month sentence and an apparently tearful statement from a judge upset about the damage he's doing to the rapist's life, seems... excessive. Even if he "might" be released after four years on parole it still seems ludicrously high.
I get that white collar crimes are often underrated, but did this hacker actually ruin anyone's life? He didn't steal people's homes, he didn't wipe out anyone's life savings, hell he didn't even make people less likely to buy the official Blu-ray version of a movie, he just interfered with a gambling game to change who'd win it.
25 years for that? That's absurd.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
So that being said... the only people who would ever play this are people who are simply too stupid to figure out that that $5 a week they spend is really $260 a year or $5200 every 20 years which is a luxury cruise for two plus airfare when you retire. So, after 50 years of work, you can be guaranteed at least a little bit of the rich life... or you can pay the stupid tax and wonder why when you retire that you can't do those nice things.
I think you're leaving out the desperation factor. If you know for a fact the wealth you need to do anything substantial with your life is based on chance encounters, who you know and how well you can sell out others without getting caught and you have a reasonable assessment of your life while not being born into a billionaire family, you know that's not you. It's a case of 0% chance of ever achieving anything of note vs a 1-in-a-few-hundred-million chance. The lottery is infinitely better odds than zero.