Lottery Fraud Mastermind Admits to Rigging Jackpots to Win Millions

[Suzanimal]

(DES MOINES, Iowa) — A man who helped write the computer code behind several U.S. lotteries, including some of its biggest, pleaded guilty Thursday to masterminding a scheme through which he rigged the winning numbers for jackpots in several states and collected millions of dollars.

Eddie Tipton, who worked for the Multi-State Lottery Association from 2003 until 2015 and was its computer information security director for his last two years there, appeared in a Des Moines courtroom, where he pleaded guilty to one count of ongoing criminal conduct and publicly acknowledged his lead role in the scheme for the first time.

"I wrote software that included code that allowed me to understand or technically predict winning numbers, and I gave those numbers to other individuals who then won the lottery and shared the winnings with me," Tipton said when asked by Judge Brad McCall to explain what he did.

Tipton, 54, said that when he wrote the code, he believed he was taking advantage of a loophole in the random number software and he didn't think it was illegal.

Investigators say Tipton installed code that let the computers work as should on all but three days of the year — May 27, Nov. 22 and Dec. 29 — when they would produce predictable numbers if the drawings occurred on Wednesdays or Saturdays after 8 p.m.

Tipton admitted in court that he provided cohorts with the winning numbers for jackpots in Colorado in 2005, Wisconsin in December of 2007, Kansas in December of 2010 and Oklahoma in 2011.

The group, which included Tipton's brother Tommy Tipton and a friend, Texas businessman Robert Rhodes, also attempted to collect a $16.5 million Hot Lotto ticket in December 2010 in Iowa, but Iowa lottery officials refused to pay it because the men tried to cash it anonymously. Iowa rules require the buyer and owner of the ticket to be made public.

That led to an investigation into a potential lottery fraud. Once Tipton was identified as a possible suspect, investigators began checking for connections to other winning games and zeroed in on winnings connected to Tipton, his brother and Rhodes in the other states.

Tipton's plea deal resolves his legal situation in all of the affected states. He could get up to 25 years in prison when he's sentenced. A date hasn't been set and he remains free on bond.

Immediately after Tipton's hearing, his brother pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit theft by deception.

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http://time.com/4840355/mastermind-l...alflow_twitter

[oyarde]

Guy is in his 50's , why is he pleading guilty to get 25 yr.'s ?

[RonPaulIsGreat]

So, the states are going to refund all money for the fraudulent lotteries I presume. Oh nevermind they'll just keep it.

[Brian4Liberty]

I suspect most "lotteries" are not random.

[timosman]

https://www.cjr.org/watchdog/lottery...-reporting.php

SEPTEMBER 15, 2017

LAWRENCE MOWER OF THE PALM BEACH POST in 2014 filed a public records request for 20 years of data on Florida Lottery winners.

After analyzing the data, he found something unusual: A small number of lottery players were winning hundreds of times at almost inconceivably long odds. A statistician compared one frequent winner’s feat to picking one star out of 50 galaxies and “then having your friend guess the same star on the first try.”

Mower’s subsequent exposé led to fraud investigations and major reforms in the Florida Lottery. His reporting found, among other things, that some players were “cashing” tickets for other players to help them avoid paying debts and taxes that would be deducted from their winnings.

Intrigued, we wanted to chart new territory: to find out whether these repeat winning patterns exist across the country. We decided to submit public records requests in every state with a lottery—an adventure in itself given that FOIA laws vary significantly by state. In all, we sent more than 100 public record requests to lotteries for information about their winners, game odds, and investigative reports. Getting those records wasn’t simple, as we outline below.

But first, a quick rundown of our findings: In total, we analyzed 11 million lottery prize claim records covering 36 of the nation’s 45 lotteries. What we found astonished us:

• In the past seven years, nearly 1,700 Americans were frequent winners—which we defined as having claimed 50 or more lottery tickets each worth $600 or more.
• Clarance Jones of Lynn, Massachusetts, the nation’s most frequent winner, claimed more than 7,300 tickets worth $600 or more in only six years.
• Jones would have had to spend at least $300 million to have a 1-in-10 million chance of winning so often, according to a statistician we consulted at the University of California, Berkeley. (Jones did not respond to requests for comment.)
• The odds are extraordinary even for winners with far smaller win tallies. According to the analysis, Nadine Vukovich, Pennsylvania’s most frequent winner, would have had to spend $7.8 million to have a 1-in-10 million chance of winning her 209 tickets worth $600 or more.
• Of the nation’s 45 state lotteries, 10 states (Kansas, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Connecticut, California, Idaho, Minnesota, Washington) say they don’t systematically monitor frequent winning.

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