In twenty nineteen, a person walked into a Jamaican hotel wearing a long white robe, black gloves and a mask from the movie Scream.

They walked out with the equivalent of one point two million U.S. dollars. Then they disappeared. You're probably thinking, how did they steal it?

But they didn't steal it. They actually won that money in the lottery. They were afraid that if the public found out who they were, something terrible would happen.

Sometimes winning millions of dollars might be more trouble than it's worth. Today, we're looking at the top 10 lottery scams and scandals.

After you hear some of these, you'll understand why the person in the mask had every right to worry for their life.

Hey, all you weirdo's, welcome to the podcast Original Crime Countdown. I'm Ash and I'm.

Every week will highlight 10 fascinating stories of history's most engaging and unsettling crimes, all picked by the Sparkasse research gods.

Today's topic is going to be lottery scams and scandals.

I've actually never played the lottery like straight up played. No, me. I've I've done scratch tickets, but never like Mega Millions or anything like that. Same here.

And I'm not great at scratch tickets, so that's why I don't do it, because I always win like two dollars and I'm like I'm going to cash this in and win big like nope.

Another two dollars or I just go down to zero.

You win the two dollars and then the scratch tickets sits in your drawer for like ten years. Yeah, that's it. That's just waste. And you know what? It would be really strange though to suddenly win like a million dollars for literally doing nothing, for literally scratching a ticket. And obviously lots of scams have happened with the lottery because whenever free money is involved, people are going to bend the rules to get free money, always in scams, I mean loopholes.

And I feel like the biggest loopholes are like when a like when an office gets together like a small office building and they'll all play the lottery and be like, we're all going to go bang on it.

Right?

It's like, fine, but it's totally a loophole, right? Yeah. And of course, like we said in the title, there's going to be scandals. It never turns out that happy.

I feel like it's almost like money brings out the worst in people. It definitely does. So weird.

There's always family members coming out of the woodwork, friends coming out of the woodwork that are like, hey, I haven't heard any news about you, but like, I could use my house being saved. Can you help with that?

Or remember that time I loaned you like ten million dollars? Can I have that back?

And of course, a lot of them are going to end in murder. This countdown has all of that. The cool part about this show is Alana has five topics and so do I, but we don't know each other's. Let's start the countdown.

Ten. At number 10 on lottery scams and scandals, we have Tonda Dickason, it's a cautionary tale. In 1999, Dickerson was a waitress at an Alabama Waffle House restaurant, a thing just doing her thing, serving the waffles and extra syrup, you know, doesn't love a waffle.

I love waffles.

While a customer named Edward Seward left her a Florida lottery ticket and she ends up winning ten million dollars as the jackpot.

That's a hell of a tip.

Ten million dollars is more of a tip than I ever got as a waitress. A great tip, 100 percent.

Well, after she won the lottery, she and some of her family members, they were clever, they clever.

They set up a corporation and they called it nine mil, which is really funny. But it's kind of funny in Florida and that's where she put the money. So it's like you're kind that's like kind of illegal and a little shady. Not. Yeah, it's pretty. She's pretty shady. And it does lead to some tax issues with the IRS.

You don't want to mess with the IRS? No, they're scary beings. They are. Well, Tonda ran into that thing that we were just talking about, where you win all this money and suddenly all these people are like, oh, she said she was going to give me some.

Oh, yeah. How can you forget? Right. You promised you were going to buy me all these things. Yeah. You were so nice.

So her co-workers claimed that they had made an agreement that if one of them won, they were going to split the winnings.

Hmm. It's like we were going to split that evenly. We were all going to go get our nails done and buy new cars together. Don't you remember saying that we had a plan? This was an oral pact.

You are mistaken.

Well, a judge did actually order Tonda to share her winnings at first. Was this just based off of them being like she said she would? Yeah, I was an oral pact because I'm just going to walk around now and be like she said, she wished the judge was like, you know what sharing is caring Tonda.

Yeah. And she said, you would you God, I believe these girls, they wait on me at the Waffle House all the time. They're the best. They give me extra, sir. I'm just going to say that. Well, so he did rule that she shared the money first, but then the decision was later reversed because gambling is illegal in Alabama.

Oh, that old chestnut. So it doesn't count. And also the oral contract, like you can't really prove that. You can't just be like she said, unless somebody recorded it, which doesn't seem like that. It doesn't seem like it. No. And then remember that customer who left this tip for her?

Obviously, he's going to be like, yo, I want some of that. And honestly, she should give him money. I would give him money.

Well, she wouldn't have this money if it wasn't for him. Exactly. Well, and all he wanted was a truck. That's all we all want. Yeah, that's all. I just want to transport a truck. You just got your F 150 and you want a cruise. That's all I want is to be able to move things well by truck. I know apparently Todd didn't want to give him a truck and he ended up suing her, saying that she agreed to buy him this truck if she had won this money.

I am on his side. Me too. But you know who wasn't the judge? He was like, yeah, no. In this case, sharings not carrying justice for Seward, justice was not served justice. Well, if fight if that all wasn't wild enough for you in 2002, Tonda Dickersons ex-husband ends up kidnapping her. Oh, OK. Just kidnapping her.

I don't know if you wanted the money or like what happened with all the what was her luck went real south. It was like slowly declining. That's no good. He was ultimately shot, but they both ended up surviving. Just, you know.

Yeah, well, it sounds like this ticket was like a really positive influence in her life. A lottery is Kersten's like it went awesome. Nine at number nine is the story of the lotto Super seven theft in 2003, Daniel Campbell won twelve point five million dollars on a Super seven lottery ticket in Canada. But he didn't know it because the store manager, where he bought the ticket and the manager's family stole the ticket and claimed the winnings. How did they even do that?

You're going to find out. Let me know.

So store manager Kenneth Chung and his dad, Jun Chu Chung, stole lottery tickets from customers for like an eight month period.

So this was like their little side business. Yeah, this was just their side hustle here.

Right there. Mega turds, apparently. That's not cool. Mega turd's winning Mega Millions.

I'm saying the father was convicted of stealing the winning twelve point five dollars million lotto Super seven ticket in December 2003 and was found guilty, luckily.

Oh, well, that's good. At least justice then it gets crazier. Kathleen Chang, his daughter, was also found guilty because she claimed the fraudulent ticket at the lottery office a couple of months later.

So everyone in the family was in on this. They just kept going. It was a family owned business. It was a nice family activity that they all did together.

So Kathleen, the daughter, she originally lied about, her own brother managing the convenience store with the ticket was bought. But then she eventually admitted it because her conscience was too guilty. And it's like, you can't hide that. Yeah. How are you going to get away with. That's just fact. That's going to come up at some point, figure that out.

Right. And it's like don't get in a business where you're selling lottery tickets to people daily if you can't stand the idea of someone else winning. Right. Like maybe just play it yourself. Yeah, well, do try try again. Yeah. You got to be happy for people, man. Now, in addition to jail time, the father's marriage went south.

It just completely broke down because, you know, who wants to deal with that? Well, that's really sad. But you know what? He well, he was the one who stole the tickets. Well, it's like instant karma. Yeah. Is damn it. Yeah. Break them and don't deserve love. He did it.

So the store manager, Kenneth Chung, lost his chance. Are you ready? This is real karma, OK? He lost his chance to buy a Tim Hortons franchise is not a real loss.

The ultimate punishment. They do have good coffee. No Tim Hortons for you, sir. None for you. Oh, good for you, Glynco. Good.

So the real winners did get their money, plus they got interest. So the total, they got over fourteen million dollars. But now I want to know what happened to them because I personally believe the lottery is cursed. I do too.

But I feel like this is kind of like second hand lottery. That's it. Now there's the loophole.

Yeah, there's the loophole. I feel it got diluted along the way. So the curse got diluted and now maybe they'll be OK. I mean, that makes sense.

I like it. Eight, number eight on our list of lottery scams and scandals, the state lottery, Serbia drawing surrounding the number 21.

So in 2015, a supposedly random state lottery, Serbia drawing the number 21, appeared on the TV screen prior to the fifth and final number being drawn. You want to guess what that number was? I just can't imagine. It wasn't 22. It wasn't nose 21. Oh, it's fixed. Well, the state run lottery company said that this was just an error, just an error. It happens, you know, HIAS, it's just like so weird that that happened.

Just an error, though. Their pants are on fire, on fire blazing heat.

Well, they said the number it's going to remain as it is because it was twenty one. We're not lying. Yeah, that's fixed. But still nobody won that jackpot because it's fixed. Exactly. You can't win if it's fixed.

That triggered mass outrage, including many Serbs, especially the unemployed, because they look to the lottery as a way to come into money, you know?

Yeah, I'm outraged for them. Me too.

While an investigation was launched, obviously, because this was real, such and good and this investigation zeroed in on a handful of people, were many people involved?

Well, the prime minister said that anyone involved was going to be brought to justice. What happened? What happened? So the head of the national lottery did end up stepping down on, quote, moral grounds. Sounds like an admission of guilt to me. It sounds like you were involved.

Sounds like this created a backdrop of distrust from the people in a government with already a history of corruption, dirty, dirty, dirty laundry, dirty government is not number 21.

It's not number 21. It was number eight. Maybe that's the number that it was supposed to be. I think it was.

Seven. At number seven this week, the Massachusetts cash windfall, where, surprisingly no one did anything illegal, they did it, but hey, another hometown scandal was going to say you always got the mass once.

My my sacrifice of a Boston cream pie to the research gods. I guess that's it. So over the course of several years, the cash windfall lottery was hacked by three different groups who figured out how to beat the odds and win tens of millions over the years.

But I bet that didn't turn out well for them. It didn't. So the windfall is unique. If no one wins a perfect match and the jackpot hits two million, the prize money is then divided among the people with the highest the next highest matches.

That sounds pretty fair. Yeah, it just rolls down to the next people. Now, people realized they were looking at this. And since this is unique, they were like, all right, so the odds of winning are way better in a roll down week when they roll down that money. And so people bought more tickets on those weeks.

Right, because they're like, this is how we're going to get that money. Like we get this now. So here's the scandal, OK?

Organized gambling groups formed, obviously, and they bought a ton of tickets to up the chances of winning more for the trickle down payout.

OK, I mean, it's just seeming smart to me. I was this is an algorithm. I feel. I mean, scandalous. Sure. But I think it's also pretty clever. Scandals are clever. Typically, I feel I don't know why I just turned into like nineteen forty.

So, hey, it was pretty like Mae West over there. I don't know what just happened. I just got possessed by a great spirit.

So professional gamblers reportedly won. Forty eight million dollars in total. Oh my God. So they, they were clever. Yeah.

But now the Massachusetts government found out about what was going on in 2010 or possibly earlier.

Oh. But they did nothing about it because it was bringing in a lot of money to the state. They're like, you know what, the economy isn't doing so well right now. And this just really gave it the boost it needed. What up? Massachusetts? We're into it. We're doing Marty Walsh, somebody Walsh.

So Massachusetts State Treasurer Steve Grossman stopped the cash windfall game in 2012. He also apologized to everyone who played it. So sorry. Sorry about it. But he was he said anyone who played who wasn't part of the scam, super sorry, because I don't know what to tell you before.

Sorry about this. Just really ended up being a huge scandal. Yeah.

Six. Also on our list at number six is the Jamaican lottery scam after a North Dakota woman in her 90s, in her 90s, this is going to break your heart. Oh, no. Her name was Edna. Schmidt's name was Edna. Anoush meets a lover already. Well, she claimed that she had been robbed of roughly four hundred thousand dollars. That's a robbery. I'm like, Edna. What was your job like? Get it.

How do you have that much money? Let me know your secret. Well, an investigation was obviously launched and they found out that this guy was running a lottery scam from his home in Jamaica.

What it's like he was just sitting on his couch and he was like, Edna Schmitt's, let's go to her. Let's take her money. Let's take it all.

And he was targeting not only Edna, but many of the elderly. Oh, that makes me sad. Robbing them of over six million dollars.

You have to be true evil to target old people 100 percent. Really do. Like, really, what do you need, six million dollars for a job? What are you going to use? I mean, come on, it's not that much.

You know, it's important to point out lotto and prize scams occur all over the world and a lot of times they do target the elderly. It's also important to note that people are the worst thing to happen to planet Earth. Yeah, humans are like, not great. That is very important. Can't we just, like, help the elderly cross the road? Yeah, we're the worst. Well, this is how the scam works. I don't know.

Don't take notes because that's just don't do it. But the scammer calls the person. They're like, hey, you won all this money. And they're like, but to get that money you got pay these fees.

Whenever they say in order to get money, you got to pay money. No, no, no, no, no. That doesn't make any sense to me. Free year. It's nothing. That's why I'm trying to win the money, because I don't have any to give you a little whippersnapper.

I paid you anything in. Well, you can say that you don't have the money, but they're just going to keep calling you. That's not like that's how they do it. That's part of the scams, part of the scam.

They call you repeatedly and they just keep getting money out of you. They're like, oh, those fees went up.

Actually, no, they didn't know. Actually, they didn't at all. And even if you change your phone number, sometimes they're able to get your phone number and keep calling you. I hate these people. I do, too. One scammer threatened the victim's life and went as far as to send people to her residence to intimidate her into giving more money this week.

Elderly woman Yeah. These scams get violent sometimes. The scammer is a straight up turd, a horrible, horrible person. Oh, give me their address.

I just want to talk. I know Sam well. Pretty close to Massachusetts, a Rhode Island woman received four years for her role in the scam and she was helping send money from the U.S. to Jamaica.

Who hurt you in your life that you end up being this shitty of a person? Like, can you just get a real job and not a scam job? That's just me right there. Elderly people. I just don't get how you do that. Yeah, we got we got to love them. I know.

Well, to date there have been thirty one defendants in this case and victims across 31 states like. Gosh, yeah. So this is like this is running rampant. Yeah. That's no joke. I had no idea the lottery got so shady.

Neither did I like I knew there was some scams and some sort of like, you know, some murders happen because you like money. Of course, this for shadiness going on.

I got real sad when the elderly got brought into this. Yeah. As soon as the elderly got brought in, I'm like, I'm out. We are about.

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Five. All right, let's jump back into our list of lottery scams and scandals with number five, number five, blindfolded children drawings. Oh, in 1999, nine people were arrested for an Italian lottery scam in Milan.

Blindfolded children would choose the winning numbers in an effort to avoid any potential cheating. But they were apparently coached and lottery balls bearing certain numbers were marked in various ways, but they didn't see that with their blindfolds Alina.

Well, like I said before, we as a species are the worst.

Now children are getting brighter. And this is not do. What are we doing, guys?

So the winning balls would be known to the blindfolded children by cooling or heating them.

And then some of them would be polished with like a shiny varnish so they could be able to feel them. I got to say, that's real clever. It's clever and like the worst way. I know we've already given them a couple of points for being clever, but like, I had to point that out. It's one of those things like when we say it with like serial killers, like that was really smart.

Hate that you used it for the clever and a cunning way to, like, use it to, like, invent something awesome. Right. Cure cancer. And it's like just let children go kick a ball or play outside like they don't want to be blindfolded. I am you. I'll stop coaching babies. Get your lazy ass free money. What are you doing. So they also learn to sew. They also taught these little kids that are blindfolded, mind you already is a very unsettling thing to think about.

Don't like it.

They taught them to squint through the blindfolds to pick out any of the balls that have been tampered with. Why? So they literally taught these kids to squint through a blindfold. They were like work.

Yo, 20/20 vision while you can. Can you imagine coaching this like little child know this for you. Like it's upsetting to me. Glad you're home from school. Get your blindfold. Sit down.

We're going to practice squinting. Yes.

Oh, the children later were interviewed and they said that it was very difficult. They didn't like it obvious that they were paid based on accuracy. Oh shit. So you even had to be good at this job. Exactly. And now I'm like, what happened if you weren't good at this job? I don't really. What makes me upset? Let's let's forget that. Let's just keep on past. Don't even put your brain in there. So members of the finance ministry were involved, which is a big deal.

I feel like they always are. It's always an inside job. So big hats are always involved. The big hats, I don't even know what that means. I love it. I work with the big hats are involved. You know, all this all those important people wear big floppy hats are in on it. Whenever I see a large hat like a ten gallon hat, I'm like, you're important. What are you in on?

What are you doing? So one ministry member cried, quote, I'm a broken man who got caught up in a game that was much bigger than me. He offered to give part of his winnings back to which I say, Shut up, sir.

Oh, you don't feel as though he was reformed. No, I don't feel bad for these people. Get out of here. I mean, I don't either you're blindfolded children and coach them to get your free money. It sounds like she might have been blindfolded and coached into this, too. Well, you know what he sounds like? He said, shut up, sir.

That's what I have to say. He he also you can tell who's like this is the empath of the show. It's me, obviously. So he also alleged that the scam began with a small, tiny, like, you know, intimate circle. But then organized crime families got involved and threatened him.

And that's when it spun out of control. That's when I got much bigger and floppy had ear than him.

But but what I say is like maybe don't do this shady stuff to begin with an organized crime. Families won't get involved.

Then you won't be over your head. Yeah, I thought you were just going to tell them to shut up again, to which I say shut up, sir. It's believed that the group managed to basically cheat to win a hundred and seventy four million dollars by using tiny little children. I mean, wow, just using tiny little children to win a hundred and seventy four million school.

It's a well-paying job. But you know what? Don't worry to reassure. The public knew safeguards were put into place, including live broadcasts of lottery drawings. Good. And they now had retired police officers select the boss.

See, that's much more charming. Yeah. That I'm like, you know what? Go right ahead. Don't broadcast those blindfolded kids. I don't feel bad about that. Sounds like that's fine.

Wow. For. Taking the number four spot, a rouge con, a Chicago man who in 2012 won a million dollars on a scratch off lottery ticket, guess what ends up dead before he can collect his winnings?

Oh, that's like from big high to low. Low, big, high, low, low.

Well, so he ran a dry cleaning business and he said this money was going to help him grow his business. I think I remember reading about this once and he and it was like adorable.

Yeah. He's just like a very honest guy and he just wants to make his business a little better. And he's not even trying. He's not trying to scam the older. There is nothing. He's not trying to blindfold children that I know of. So he's a very nice man, it seems. Well, at first his death was ruled natural, but then his brother was like, no, I don't believe that at all. He just won all this money and then he died.

Maybe look into it. I now, please, sir, if you could. Well, luckily, his brother was able to get like the authorities to run further blood tests that were done and they revealed he'd been poisoned with cyanide.

See rule of thumb. When a lottery winner dies, it is never natural. Honey, try to smell the burnt almonds. Is is hey, fun fact. Cyanide smells like burnt almonds or does growth. His death was then ruled a homicide because cyanide is not a natural death cause they were like he definitely didn't just that accidentally. Nope. And then a full investigation was launched. Oh good. So the people closest to him, they were not about to tell you what happened.

They were not forthcoming with any information. And this slowed down the investigation.

Obviously, seat money makes people turn into diamonds. It's called hush money. It is Dayman. Well, his father actually had substantial debts to the IRS, who I think we talked about earlier, scared people.

So that's scary. Don't want that money. Don't do it. And his wife cooked dinner that night. Now, the entire family ate this meal. But like, who's to say that she didn't just sprinkle it on top of his eggs? Because if you cooked, you probably dish it out as well. Yeah. And it's like I feel like you were in on this.

Well, because of had no will in the place, the family just fought over the assets in court. Oh, that's the worst.

It's like we said earlier, it's like, no, he owed me this money like no he told me I could have this. And it's even worse when someone dies. It's like everyone turns into the worst versions of themselves. Right.

But he does well and everybody turns on each other, especially in this case. There was like a ton of finger pointing and like it was like, who done it? Like, no, you did it.

Oh, that's even worse. Like, this is a family that's really sad. But at the same time, it's like, hey, some relatives, I agree with you right there.

Like, actually, I do think Aunt Carol did.

Hey, you over there. I think what of you did do. But imagine like there's always that one aunt that everybody's after.

It's like when everybody conspires against her. Oh, that makes me sad, Nancy.

I know. Come on. Dance together. Well, some relatives did believe that one of the others had murdered a roug and the case received intense media attention as it unfolded over headlines. It was like a best selling Agatha Christie novel.

Yeah, it really was. And you know what? I just Googled it and it's still unsolved. Right. Which is why it's so sad.

I'm feeling personally victimized by the podcast research gods because they're giving me anxiety that I need to know the end of this case. I agree.

You did it. Was it the wife? Was it the dead? Was it. Nancy, I need to know, who do you think did it? I don't know.

It's I mean, it seems the the what was it? The father was owing money to the IRS.

I think he did a shady, shady, shady.

And then it's like maybe the wife wasn't on it. I don't know. I'm not going to point fingers. I don't know. She was just making dinner. She was I think she was just making dinner.

Three number three on our list of lottery scams and scandals is Stefan Mandel, an economist from Romania who legitimately won the lottery 14 times. That seems shady.

Well, Mindell figured out how to game certain lotteries by spending big on lottery tickets when he knew the payout would more than compensate for his investment.

That's pretty smart to me. I mean, I'm going to say it again. It's pretty clever.

Pretty clever. Very clever. Not good. Another algorithm. And he figured it out ethically. Not great. But it's total. It's clever.

Mandell's motivation at first was like noble and legitimate.

It was to win enough money to get him and his family out of oppressive Romania.

Oh, so he was working for a cause. It's a legitimate and noble reason, right? I'm not mad at it at first.

I'm like, all right, all right. All right, Stefan. So he attempted a number crunching scheme and won first place on his first try. Oh. So he was kind of like born to do this. He knew what he was doing.

That was it. And he was like, you know what, this is the sun. This is my destiny.

So he ended up moving to Australia with his family and this is where he really perfected this.

I could just picture him staying up all night, like just writing numbers over and over again. Literally, it's like goodwill hunting or that meem million numbers just going around her head.

Like that's what this is like. The square root of pi. Well, in Australia, he won until Australia made changes to the lottery laws. And that made it more difficult because they were like, this dude keeps winning. Yeah. Like he was doing great there. And then they were like, we should probably fix this. And then they did.

He was like, all right. So the lottery group he formed targeted lotteries all over the world, especially the Virginia lottery, which this is the one that gave them the best odds of winning.

So they really focused in on this one.

Now, in nineteen ninety two, he gathered over seven million dollars from thousands of investors to buy tickets. So people were investing in this scam. But I feel like that's not going to end well because not everybody is going to get paid equally. But they played every number combination. Whoa. Yeah. And this was every number combination in the Virginia lottery. It's insane. How do you figure that out?

Like, you have to be a genius again. It's like you have such a super brain. Just use it for good, man.

I mean, this isn't using it for I mean, this is using it for good for you, but it's like. Right. Use it to help mankind. So not every no combo ended up getting played, but they still had the winning ticket and it was worth twenty seven million dollars. I feel like all yours are like a ton of money.

I know they're all a lot of money that they're giving it to me because I'm worth it. That's all I'm saying.

I mean, maybe so after taxes and paying dozens off along the plan, because remember, he had to pay all these people. Right?

The investors lost money. I mean. Yeah, but Mandele made off with one point seven million because he probably worked to his favor somehow. I'm assuming once again, pretty clever, right? I mean, I'm still worried about what happened to a Rousch, I know I feel like I understand what happened and I'm sad for him.

And I was going to say I'm sad for his family, but I'm like, kind of not because I'm like, were you all involved?

Yeah, I need to know. I need answers. I know. I really do. And you know what? We're coming up to the final two. And I mean, we've already had death. We've had blindfolded kids.

So creepy. What is coming? I don't know. Well, you have no one. And I feel like it's going to be like like the mega mind of the lottery.

I mean, you'll have to wait. I guess I'll have to find out.

Wow. To. A number two, it's the 1980 Pennsylvania lottery scam, also called the Triple six fix. I like the run. I know that's really fun to say. Fast you want try it triple six. I'm not going to do it again because I mess up. It's fun, though. Go out on top.

In 1980, the Pennsylvania daily lotto numbers came up six six six, which I'd be like, crap, what's going to happen today? I'm going back to bed. I'd be like very metal. I love it seriously. And this was on the evening of a record payout. It was three point five million dollars.

Not bad. A lot of money. So I mean, six six. If it's going to win you three point five, I'm down for roll with it. That's fine. Thanks, Satan. Authorities grew suspicious when they realized that a lot of tickets had been sold containing fours and sixes. That's a little small source. They're a little bit. Well, somebody gets convicted in the scam. Oh, goodness. Somebody is. Nick Perry, the host of the lottery drawing.

If you can't trust Nick Perry, who can you trust? Nobody. That's what I ask. Well, he was a Navy vet and a church choir leader. So everyone was like, he's real trustworthy. Yeah, of course. I put my full faith in him.

BTK ran his church, too. But I'm just saying, look, you put those fun facts cases. Well, he was chosen to host the lottery winnings, obviously. Yeah.

Enormous security precautions were taken to keep the game fair. But he had a way around them. Lab testing was done on the balls and the machines were locked away when they weren't in you. So you're like, how did he do this? He did.

The fact that they did lab tests on the balls. It's like this lottery is getting a little intense. Well, that's how you know that like a lottery scams are prevalent. Yeah. It's like maybe we should just call it a day on the lottery. Like, I think we have better things to do than to test a lot, but yeah, I'd say so.

Also, that sounds funny. It does.

Well, he figured out a way around this.

He hired an excellent director for the show to replicate the balls. You know, the commitment to this con is impressive.

Well, and also I'm like, well, is that worth three point five? Yeah. I mean, these are lotteries.

I feel like it's kind of awesome, though, that he went that far. I'm into it all the balls except the fours in the sixes were weighted down.

So obviously they want to come up to the top.

I you know, I want to hate Nick Parian friends, but like, again, you can pretty smart. You can't hate a clever mind.

They're kind of doing it all. You just got to get down with it or associate with it. So you got some of the money.

They got artistic. They used physics. I mean, let's do it. While they did have an enemy. Oh, the head of the illegal numbers ring who saw right through this. Oh, and they announced it is fake, but the lottery official was like, nope, that's false. The lottery safe and sound. All's well. Oh, the lottery officials said it was the lottery officials there also unbiased so far. So like probably in on this, they're probably fine.

Let's listen to them.

While the illegal numbers ring was not happy and an investigation was launched because he tipped off a reporter who did some digging, you know, that's the way to do it.

All told, seven people were implicated in the plot and Nick Perry ended up serving two years in prison, but he died maintaining his innocence. His commitment is truly astounding. Seriously on the deathbed. One, and that brings us to number one on our list of lottery scams and scandals, it's the hot lotto fraud already. This is a great number one just because of the name alone.

Sounds like Eddie Tipton worked for the Iowa based Multi-State Lottery Association for a dozen years, ultimately becoming the computer information security director. In that position, he could, quote, predict winning numbers for others and split the winnings with them, a.k.a. he was running a scam cheating. So the company provides computers and coding that randomly produce winning lottery numbers for several lottery games. And this is including some we all know, Powerball Mega Millions, the biggies. Yep, we know those.

So this guy wrote the code that let the computers work normally on all but three days of the year.

And these three days were May 27th, November 22nd and December 29th. OK, but why those dates on these dates?

The computers would produce predictable numbers which Tipton gave to others who would then claim the winnings and then they would all split it all together. So that's why it was those days. And it's like this is making it's another one that makes you feel really dirty for being so impressed by it.

But you have to be impressed by this because I'm figuring out you're like, wow, what am I doing day to day? Seriously? I'm like, what? How did your brain get? I can barely calculate what my Starbucks total is going to be.

I got one side of a Rubik's Cube done the other day that I've ever done in my life. And I was like, well, I'm done for the day and done for I don't need to learn anything else.

Kick your feet up and relax on it. Yeah, I've achieved. So he did this for Jackpot's in Colorado in 2005, Wisconsin in December 2007, Kansas in December 2010 and Oklahoma in 2011.

A long term deal. Merry Christmas. So his downfall came when an attempt to anonymously collect.

I love that he's anonymously trying to collect me. He anonymously tried to collect sixteen point five million dollar hot lotto ticket. And this was in December 2010 in Iowa, as if like no one's going to be there when you collect them.

And this immediately caught the attention of lottery officials. Obviously, his brother was involved and was ordered to pay more than eight hundred thousand dollars, essentially wiping him out and taking all his assets.

That would take more than just my assets. That would just take my whole life. That would take my soul with it. Yeah, that would take my very being everything, my fingernail polish to take it all. Yeah. It would take my my hair dye out of my hair, fake everything. So again, is it worth it bro. No.

Is it worth. No. So Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich said information learned in the Tipton case has actually helped improve lottery security. So I guess, yeah, a silver lining.

That's the good thing about all these scandals. I bet they like. Right, all these things down there, like, well, let's not do that next time they have it on a big board in there, like what not to do. So the good news is Tipton pled guilty and in 2017 he was sentenced to twenty five years. That's a long time. Do not scam the lottery kids because it does not pay. If you learned any very much and if you learned anything in this in this countdown, just don't scam the lottery.

Don't do it. It never works out it maybe you don't even associate with anybody like that wins the lottery. Yeah. If somebody's near you, here's my advice. If somebody close to you wins the lottery, just cut them out of your life just like you know what?

It was so great to know you and I'm so happy for you. I have to go like, mom, I love you.

But, Grandma, you've been so good to me. See you later.

It's just not worth it. So what do you think? Do you agree with the rankings? OK, so I do, but I feel like maybe one was missing, but I could be wrong. Wasn't there like a McDonald's lottery scam, was there? I think there was.

And I would have loved to tell the tale because I love me some McDonald's. I don't know about the McDonald's. I think it was like a peel off scale, but I don't know if that that counts as a lottery. So that was just me wanting to talk about.

I think that it's just the McDonald's like Monopoly game. Yup, you're exactly right.

I just wanted to talk about the same thing. So they didn't say anything. But you know what? You'll love it. That's why the parking lot research guys are like, you know what I mean? If you take the Massachusetts wants to not give it will buy her a Big Mac later.

And, you know, so. So you believe no one should have been the McDonald's monopoly? I mean, I do.

I stand by that choice here, that podcast research gods to condemn her. You done messed up. I think they did a great job personally.

I agree. Well, thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with another great episode. You can find all episodes of Crime Countdown and all other cast originals for free on Spotify. Spotify has all your favorite music and podcasts all in one place. They're making it easier to listen to whatever you want to hear for free on your phone, computer or smart speaker like the letter.

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At a morbid podcast, Countdown was created by Max Cutler and as a podcast studio original it is executive produced by Max Cutler, Sound Design by Kristen Acevedo, produced by Jon Cohen, Jonathan Rateliff and Kristen Acevedo. Crime Countdown Stars Ashkali and Ilina Irka.

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