Posted on 05/04/2009 8:04:42 PM PDT by arbooz
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Some of the same people who sell North Carolina Education Lottery tickets are also winning -- and winning big -- $100,000, $300,000 and almost $500,000 prizes.
And some are winning significant jackpots repeatedly -- dozens of times a year. Is it just dumb luck? Or do these insiders have some kind of inside track? And what is the state doing about it?
A regular lottery player first brought the pattern of retailers winning the lottery to the attention of the NewsChannel 36 I-Team. Since then the I-Team has pored over thousands of records of lottery winnings in spreadsheets obtained from the lottery under the Open Records Act. Some winners clearly stand out.
Brenda Pope lives near Salisbury, N.C., and plays the lottery every week. She closely watches the list of winners updated daily online.
"I noticed that the same names seemed to be popping up all the time," Pope said.
Some retailers -- the same people selling the lottery tickets -- are winning multiple jackpots.
"It's kind of like being struck by lightning five, six, seven times," she said.
One case in point -- the B&S Variety store -- a small convenience market located just off Interstate 40 near Morganton. The owner of the store, Becky Ozmun, won a dozen jackpots in about 13 months, including a $10,000 payout and a $150,000 prize.
"There's no secret," Ozmun said from behind the counter. "I just scratch 'em off."
Ozmun says it’s just luck. When asked if it's fair for owners to play the game, she replied, "My money's as good as anybody else's."
She flatly denies owners have any advantage over any other player.
It's perfectly legal for retailers like Becky Ozmun to play the lottery in North Carolina and every other state in the U.S., which collectively rake in billions in the name of education. And she's hardly the only store owner who sells tickets who has won big jackpots.
Since January 2008 -- when the NC Lottery began asking winners to declare whether they were retailers or employed by retailers -- at least 462 retailers have told the state they won jackpots over $600 each. At least 70 won more than once according to state records.
But these numbers depend on how forthcoming owners and clerks are when they answer the form. State lottery officials can check owners' forms against a database of social security numbers -- unavailable to the public -- but it's harder to pin down just who's working behind the counter at a convenience mart selling lottery tickets.
Repeat winner Becky Ozmun says it's a pretty simple process, "You just fill out a form. They ask you what you're going to do with the money."
Buried in thousands of records of winners are other retailers, store owners winning $100,000, $300,000 and almost $500,000.
And the reports show multiple winners. One employee of a store selling tickets in eastern North Carolina won 10 times in a little over a year, including a $100,000 jackpot.
An employee at a retailer south of Asheboro -- himself the son of the owner -- won 27 times, mostly the "Pick 3." Another family member at the same store won 39 times, all at the family’s business.
Tell that to Brenda Pope -- the tipster who first raised the question about retailers winning in North Carolina -- and she says, "I can't believe someone is that lucky."
But mention repeat winners to Tom Shaheen, the executive director of the North Carolina Education Lottery, and he says, "Anything in life can happen." Shaheen doesn’t see a big problem. "If there were thousands of cases of this I would say yes there is a problem."
But Shaheen says retailers win a lot because they play a lot. "We have had retailers that have won multiple times but no different from other players," he said.
Shaheen says the lottery investigates complaints to its complaint line. But unlike some states, North Carolina does not conduct stings to catch dishonest clerks. In an infamous case in Camarillo, Calif., security camera video records the moment when a store clerk sets aside a ticket worth $500,000, never informing the customer in front of him that he's just won.
"That clerk tried to claim it," said Bill Hertoghe, chief investigator for the California Lottery. "Because of video evidence we're able to determine it was a theft."
But when Shaheen is asked about North Carolina clerks who pay the wrong amount on a ticket, he says, "We pay the player the difference and we charge back the retailer." California more aggressively pursues such cases for possible prosecution.
As Becky Ozmun answers questions about her winning streak, her husband Shelby chimes in about what can happen if clerks pay the wrong amount on a winning ticket. "What are they going to do if they catch you? 'Oh, I'm sorry -- I misread it or whatever.'"
Both Ozmuns say they're honest, won every jackpot fair and square, and will even alert winners to jackpots they haven't noticed. They say that's why B&S Variety is the No. 2 lottery seller in the western region, which includes Asheville.
But Shelby Ozmun's comment -- "What are they going to do if they catch you?" -- speaks to the enforcement climate in North Carolina.
California scrutinizes repeat winners. When asked what he would do if he saw a store owner in California win a dozen times, investigator Bill Hertoghe says, "We would subject that person to a claims investigation every time they submitted a claim."
There's little evidence Becky Ozmun has been through such an investigation. When asked if lottery investigators ever came to her store to verify she was the one that bought the winning ticket, Becky Ozmun says, "No. Just sign the paper over in Raleigh."
It's enough to make a regular player like Brenda Pope suspicious.
Zot me if I’m wrong, but as far as scratch-offs go - if you scan the bar code on the back it will tell the prize amount, if any.
If that’s right, it’s very easy to scan a roll and find the winners.
Is that correct?
I live in NC and have yet to play the lottery.
This would seem to be impossible, but have mathematicians figured out how likely it is that there has been cheating or some other integrity problem (like a supposed random winning number generator which isn’t)?
Lots of poorly supervised money always draws the scammers. Grant money, public aid, foreign aid, tithes at megachurches, state lotteries or what have you, it’s all just a trough to feed at for some.
It’s as simple as telling a customer that their scratch-off or ticket is not a winner when it is, or telling them the payout is lower than it actually is. No special skills outside of dishonesty required.
I’d think this data only shows the price and potential winning of the scratch-off, not whether it actually has a win under the opaque ink.
The bar code is on the front
beneath the mysterious green scratch-off goo.
That could be done, but can’t any customer call up the lottery HQ and personally verify the win if any?
I do know locally an owner's wife got mad at him and scratched nearly a thousand dollars worth of tickets-- she won $5,000 and left him responsible to pay for the tickets she scratched while she was enjoying spending the winnings. Part of the answer might be that owners can't resist scratching a lot more tickets than the average player- but they do have to pay for the ones they scratch.
“If that’s right, it’s very easy to scan a roll and find the winners.”
Could be done easily. However, even if it’s scan as a query only, the machine records the time and date.
I think the easy way to do this is when an illiterate person comes in with a winning lottery ticket is for the clerk to agree... “Wow! You just won a $1000!” Pay him a grand from the till and then claim the $10,000 or $100,000 ticket for yourself. This would only work on illiterate gamblers I would think... but it might even be tried on others. The worse that could happen is the victim merely says: “No... that’s doesn’t say $1000... it says $10,000.” The clerk looks closer and says “Golly Gee! You’re right! This glare is terrible. Let me get you the paper work to claim your winnings.”
This can be explained so simply it’s not even a scam:
the store owners are just thinking logically:
they know (they must) that every new supply of tickets they get have a certain amount of winners, big and small.
So as not to attract attention, they must continually sell
SOME tickets to regular lotto playing customers. But here’s how they do it: unlike the usual lotto degenerate who comes in with their daily or weekly 5,10,20 dollar purchase, the store owner just scratches off ticket after ticket until they have a winner. Say they scratch off 20 tickets, and finally hit a $100 winner. THey pocket $80 and put $20 in the till. They don’t have to make an upfront investment like most players, who have a set limit in mind: they simply play for free until they win.Inevitably they are going to hit bigger jackpots, which of course will pay for all those losing lotto tickets. And even if they WERE paying, the thing would work out the same way: what difference would it make if they took $50 out of the cash register, and set it aside
“in escrow” until they won $100. The only way to stop this would be for lottery officials to demand that , say, 95% of the tickets be sold to the public, on a first come, first served basis. But that’s the prerogative the storeowner thinks is his own.BTW, this would ONLY work with scratch off tickets, regular pick 5 or pick 6 lottery numbers games, like state lotteries, are a much different animal, impossible to defeat without obviously larcenous
insider information, or a confederate inside the room where the numbers are spit out.
If you are right, something smells in NC. I don’t believe people can get that lucky and why hasn’t the Lottery looked into this? They have records and there is always a pattern.
I remember back in the 60’s the ‘Tiger in your tank’ chain gave out scratch-off cards to customers. One attendent showed me a stack of cards from the side. The winners were all marked! Not very apparent when separated but they stood out like sore thumbs in the stack. He would give the winners to good looking girls and have them fill out the form giving him their addresses and phone numbers.
Most people aren’t that aware, and trust the store clerk. Filling in your name and address on the back before you hand it over to be scanned would probably put a stop to it, too.
Most likely, what you have is a retailer who sells lottery tickets to people who can’t legally claim the major prizes, such as illegal immigrants. (C’mon, this is FR... no one has made this an anti-illegal0immigrant thread yet?)
So, when one of them hits a big prize, they go back to the store, where the boss or an employee working there pays them a certain amount and then cashes the ticket themselves.
Essentially, a money-laundering scheme.
Until they are unlucky enough that all the tickets they were most lately supplied from the state are losers. Then they are stung.
I was thinking the same. I believe there’s information in the bar code that indicates whether a ticket is a winner. But if that’s the case you’d think lottery officials would be extra suspicious of multiple winners.
Don't ever buy a scratch off ticket, period. It has already been scanned.
Some retailers likely buy a lot of tickets. It’s like being stuck in a casino all day, every day.
I notice that everybody's a suspect. Don't win a scratch off too often, you might be cheating. Better to donate your winnings back to the state.
do not seek the treasure
If you play, check your own tickets.
They ask you what you’re going to do with the money.”
Pay for the hundreds of scratch offs you haven’t paid for yet.
Good thinking. In Ontario, Canada the whole lousy business was brought to a head when a man asked the clerk to check. He got ten dollars (whoop de doo). Later, he checked his regularly played numbers, they had ripped him off. He lost 250,000 dollars. The local police shamed the clerk/owner into giving the man 150,000 dollars.
The lousy lottery company fought the man for two years when he asked them to make up the 100,000 dollars he lost. Finally he won, an elderly man. Oh, one big piece of advice they now give, when you buy your ticket.
Put your name on it right away.
Chuckle.
I’ve heard of people who have had tickets X-rayed, if the ink spot opacity was too good to allow the light scanning method to work. But never knew one. Attempting a few years ago to scan a local department store discount gimmick ticket (scratch off the correct spots and get X% off), I was not able to see anything with either a 300 watt lamp or the sun. How long ago was this I’m curious.
You can tell a customer that their ticket is not a winner, and if they’re semiliterate you may get away with it. There are some crooks in the retail business who may be doing this.
Should have arrested him for grand theft. $249,990.00 qualifies, even if it is in loonies, lol.
Well, they went about it deceptively to get the lottery passed in the NC Senate in the first place, so why shouldn't something smell. Still, I pick up a ticket once in a while though. :)
My dad always called it an ignorance tax. But, I’ll pick up a Powerball ticket when the payout gets up there. The odds are terrible, but it’s cheap entertainment on a Saturday night.
That isn’t correct, if the code is put into the machine a ticket comes up to pay the person, they can’t sell that ticket because if they did and a person bought it? it can be shown that the owner messed around with that ticket. Also on tickets there’s a number that has to be scratched off to enter into the machine.
As someone who had family members in the business? you definitely play a lot more lottery tickets then the average person.
If you play (I don't), check your own tickets.
The cheating occurred when the bar employees knew that say $500.00 of winning was still in the tip jar but that the entire jar could be bought for say $200.00. The employees kept count of the payoffs and occasionally there would be few payoffs and say over half the tickets were sold. They knew the appropriate time to buy the remaining tickets in the jar.
I talked to an Indian storekeeper in NYC who claims that he knows fellow storekeepers who scan whole rolls of scratch-off tickets using a simple computer scanner set to a certain level.
According to him they are able to pick about 20 winners a week this way.
Whether he was yanking my Obama I couldn’t tell but it was a good story.
What are the odds?
I’m a retailer of lotto tickets in SC. Odds vary but average about 1:3.15 for a $10 scratch off (that’s the odd that it’s a winner at all not the amount won), 1:3.75 for a $5 scratch and worse for the cheaper ones.
I don’t scan the tickets or anything but I do check the odds of each ticket and play accordingly. If I see a customer play 3 ten dollar tickets and not hit anything, I may throw down for a ticket myself seeing as unlike things like the powerball, scratch-offs are not independent events and each loser taken out of the pack increases the probability that there is a winner left in the pack.
In other states it may be different but in SC, you can be fairly sure that each pack of $10 tickets has at least one $100 winner. I’ve never one more than that myself but then again we don’t sell that many scratch offs.
Interesting side note, when NC introduced their lottery, they made a big point of saying, “If you have a problem gaming, please call this number...” posting it everywhere. This was done to help people who may have a gambling addiction, but they ended up taking thousands of calls from people who couldn’t figure out how to play their scratch off games.
I'm not sure how the scratch offs work in NC, but here in WI there is a 3 digit code on the front of the ticket that has to be entered into the terminal after the bar code is scanned. You have to scratch off the face of the ticket to find the 3 digit code. The tampering would be obvious.
If this is what it takes to kill off lotteries, so be it.
These states, like NY and NC, that try to cover up the fraud are destroying the lotteries for the honest states. It’s all good in the end, but I would be livid if I were running California’s lottery.
Because they don't care. As long as they take in the correct amount of money for the tickets sold, they don't care who wins. The addicted ("regular player Brenda Pope") will continue buying tickets no matter what, as well.
I used to get upset when I saw a welfare mom take her change from a pack of cigarettes in lottery tickets then I realized that it was one way to get the money back into the general funds with a small percentage going to the collection agent.
Agree and the lotteries are just another way to tax only you gladly throw your money at them.
We’re supposed to believe it’s somehow improving education results, in spite of (a) the negative correlation between education expenditure and outcomes and (b) the fine print that says the legislature can actually blow the proceeds on the usual graft and garbage, if they decide to.
Exactly.
I don’t buy lottery tickets. Church raffles are enough excitement, and I know where every dime of proceeds goes. (The “mothers’ support group,” in the case of the tickets I bought yesterday, but usually it’s the Building Fund.)
It’s the same scam United Way uses when you direct your contributions to a specific charity. They’ve already decided who gets how much money. Charities that get a lot of designated money don’t get any of the general contributions. Similarly, any lottery income that goes to education reduces the amount of general revenue funds that go to education. The total amount going to education remains the same.
Sign the the back of your winning lotto or mega or powerball tickets. There is a line for it. Otherwise it is a bearer certificate
There is no such thing as a random nuber generator. They are pseudo-random number generators ususally based on an algotithm that utilizes the computers clock.
I don’t buy them either.
When Texas first got a lottery (1990?) I bought a few $1 scratch-offs. Sometimes I’d win $2 or a free ticket. I probably “invested” $20 over five years or so, and lost $10. Eventually, my husband decided he doesn’t approve of gambling, so I haven’t bought any more. Church raffles are considered donations with no expectation of anything back!
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