More State Lotteries Possibly Rigged ...

[Monroe]

Maybe some of you remember the earlier story about the guy rigging a lottery computer to win a large jackpot with a root kit that destroys itself.

 

Now it looks like he may have been doing this with other states ... at least the investigation is widening.

 

Jackpot-Fixing Investigation Expands to More State Lotteries

 

Dec 18, 2015

 

https://www.lotterypost.com/news/297188

 

DES MOINES, Iowa — The allegations read like a movie plot: a lottery industry insider installs an undetectable software program in the computers that pick winning numbers so he can know them in advance. He enlists accomplices to play those numbers and collect the jackpots. And they enrich themselves for years until a misstep unravels their high-tech scheme.

 

Eddie Tipton, former security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, has been accused of tampering with drawings in four states over a six-year period, and investigators are now expanding the inquiry nationwide to determine if the number could be larger.

 

State lotteries in Colorado, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma have confirmed they paid jackpots worth $8 million to Tipton associates, including his old college roommate, Robert Rhodes. Investigators are looking at payouts in the other 37 states and U.S. territories that used random-number generators from the Iowa-based association, which administers games and distributes prizes for the lottery consortium.

 

The inquiry is sending a chill through state governments that receive $20 billion annually in lottery revenue, and that depend on public confidence in the contests. Tipton installed software or had access to machines for national games such as Hot Lotto and some state-based games. The most lucrative ones, Powerball and scratch tickets, weren't part of the scheme, according to lottery officials.

 

"It would be pretty naive to believe they are the only four" jackpots involved, said now-retired Iowa deputy attorney general Thomas H. Miller, who oversaw the investigation for 2½ years. "If you find one cockroach, you have to assume there are 100 more you haven't found."

 

Tipton, 52, was convicted in July of fraud in the attempt to claim a $16.5 million jackpot in Iowa. He was sentenced to 10 years but is free pending appeal. He is also charged with ongoing criminal conduct and money laundering involving the other three state lotteries. Rhodes, a businessman from Sugar Land, Texas, is charged with fraud in connection with the Iowa jackpot, and is under investigation in Wisconsin.

 

Tommy Tipton, Eddie's brother, who bought a winning Colorado Lotto ticket in 2005, resigned his position last month as a justice of the peace in Flatonia, Texas, 100 miles west of Houston, but hasn't been charged. Colorado authorities are investigating.

 

Eddie Tipton's attorney, Dean Stowers, says his client is innocent.

 

"There's just absolutely no evidence whatsoever that he did anything to alter the proper operations of the computers that were used to pick those numbers, absolutely no evidence. It's just all speculation," Stowers said.

 

Rhodes' attorney did not respond to messages and Tommy Tipton did not return calls.

 

The scheme allegedly continued for years. Prosecutors say Eddie Tipton installed software known as a root kit that enabled him to manipulate numbers without a trace. Tipton was tripped up, investigators say, by the audacious move of buying the winning ticket himself at a service station near where he worked in Des Moines.

 

"This is kind of an eye opener," said Oklahoma Lottery director Rollo Redburn. "It reaffirms the fact that we've got to be constantly vigilant against people trying to defraud the system."

 

Iowa launched the investigation in 2012 after a lawyer representing a trust tried to claim the $16.5 million Hot Lotto jackpot, turning in the ticket hours before a one-year deadline. The trust — which said it benefited a corporation in Belize — eventually withdrew the claim rather than identify who purchased the ticket. Investigators initially suspected it was merely someone trying to hide winnings from a creditor.

 

The case took a dramatic twist when authorities released surveillance footage from the service station showing a stocky, hooded man buying the winning ticket and hot dogs in December 2010. Stunned lottery colleagues stepped forward to say the man looked and sounded like Tipton — a man with access to their computers.

 

Eddie Tipton had worked at the association since 2003, after a career in information technology, including at a Rhodes-owned firm in Houston called Systems Evolution. He was promoted to lottery security director in 2013.

 

Investigators allege that he passed the winning ticket to Rhodes, his University of Houston classmate, who then worked with associates to try to collect.

 

At Eddie's trial in July, brother Tommy insisted the man on the video wasn't his sibling, who he said was larger than the person shown.

 

In the Wisconsin case, authorities said, Rhodes hired a law firm to claim a $2 million Megabucks jackpot for him in 2008, and took legal action so the $783,000 cash payout could go to his limited liability corporation instead of him. Wisconsin Lottery spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said nothing seemed suspicious and that other winners have done the same.

 

In Oklahoma, investigators have alleged a $1.2 million Hot Lotto jackpot claimed in 2011 is linked to Tipton but haven't spelled out details.

 

Miller praised the Iowa lottery's skepticism about the suspicious jackpot but wonders whether other lotteries would have been as careful.

 

Prosecutor Rob Sand, who is now leading the case, said investigators want to talk to anyone who has been asked to claim a prize on behalf of someone else. They are focusing on jackpots that involve tickets in which the numbers were specifically requested by winners rather than chosen randomly.

...

Edited December 19, 2015 by monroe

[gotenks98]

I am not even sure how this is supposed to work. How would a computer get the numbers of some random ball thingies that they get out of the dispenser on tv?

[Tommy]

Maybe the dispenser is just a ploy to make it look randomly generated, I think they know right off the bat what the numbers are going to be.

[Monroe]

Here's additional news on rigged jackpots in Kansas.

 

Prosecutors say Tipton rigged two jackpots he purchased tickets for in Kansas

Dec 21, 2015

 

https://www.lotterypost.com/news/297278

 

MUSL computerized drawing scandal now confirmed in 5 states, still looking for more.

 

The former security chief for a national association that operates lotteries personally bought two tickets that won jackpots in Kansas, investigators said Monday, bringing to five the number of states where he may have rigged lottery drawings.

 

Investigators recently linked Kansas jackpots won in 2010 to Eddie Tipton, the former security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, Iowa assistant attorney general Rob Sand disclosed in court documents. The evidence will show that Tipton associates who claimed the prizes returned half of the money in cash directly to him in early 2011, he wrote.

 

Tipton allegedly purchased two winning tickets to the "2by2" game at separate locations while he was traveling through Kansas on business in December 2010, the Kansas Lottery said in a statement. Each was worth $22,000, the prize for any player with the day's winning numbers, and were claimed by individuals from Iowa and Texas, the statement said.

 

As chief of security for the association managing lotteries for 37 states and territories, Tipton managed random number generators that pick winning numbers for some national games such as Hot Lotto and games played in individual states.

 

Kansas Lottery officials said they were asked to look into those jackpots by Iowa investigators earlier this month. The alleged manipulation of those tickets happened at the association headquarters in Iowa, not on any Kansas Lottery equipment, the statement said.

 

Prosecutors believe that Tipton, 52, used his access to those machines to surreptitiously install software programs that let him know the winning numbers in advance before disappearing without a trace. They say he worked with associates such as his brother Tommy Tipton — a Texas judge — and Texas businessman Robert Rhodes to play those numbers and collect prizes dating back to 2005.

 

Earlier this year, a jury convicted Tipton of fraud for fixing a $16.5 million Hot Lotto jackpot dating back to 2010. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but is free while he appeals.

 

After fixing the winning combination, Tipton went to a gas station near the lottery association to buy those numbers and then passed the winning ticket to Rhodes, who unsuccessfully tried to collect the prize with associates, prosecutors say. Rhodes is fighting extradition back to Iowa to face charges in the case.

 

Since Tipton's conviction, Iowa prosecutors have charged Tipton with ongoing criminal conduct and money laundering for allegedly fixing jackpots valued at $8 million in Colorado,Wisconsin and Oklahoma. The Kansas jackpots were added to the charges in that case on Monday.

 

Tipton's attorney, Dean Stowers, laughed out loud when told of the latest allegations on Monday by The Associated Press. He repeated his longstanding contention that there is no evidence that Tipton tampered with the computers, and argued that any charges related to the old jackpots should be barred by the three-year statute of limitations. Sand is fighting Tipton's motion to dismiss the case, saying the additional jackpots were only recently uncovered.

 

Stowers said the new information was a publicity stunt designed to bring more attention to the case, which is set for trial next month but likely to be delayed.

 

"If you look at what they are claiming they have found after the first trial, you would think these investigators must be completely incompetent," he said. "They apparently are telling everybody that they never looked before the first trial."

 

Stowers said that claiming the games were rigged was a risky strategy for state lotteries.

 

"If that's their claim, what is their obligation to the players? Obviously they were running games that weren't legitimate and collected all this money from people and spent it," he said.

...

[ROTS]

In all honesty I do not care. All Lotteries are rigged on purpose. In my area when somebody wins, it is some misfortune person, bare ever a person from a busy area. Places in USA are like 3rd world nations inside our imaginations and feed the children commercials.