Nick Perry, a television show host, was implicated in a lottery scandal. In his program, the award winners were announced. What happened was that tampered balls were inserted into the globe used to draw the winning numbers and were chosen live on the program.
The owners of the award were the Maragos brothers. managed to collect one $3.5 million prize, however, they never received the money. That's why lottery officials were suspicious since a series of similarly numbered tickets were purchased throughout the state where the drawing was being held.
As the investigation began, hypotheses arose of a connection between Nick and the Maragos brothers. A kind of award-winning delation, the Maragos brothers were spared from life behind bars. However, Nick spent seven years in prison. Others Reported officials involved were sentenced to two years or less.Nick, until his death in 2003, was said to be innocent.
Edward Putman won the UK national lottery jackpot of £2.5 million in 2009.
As a man convicted of rape, his victory sparked controversy. This occurred in 1991, when he was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 17-year-old pregnant woman. But it was in 2016 that Edward made headlines again. That's because an anonymous tip to the Camelot Group, organizer of the lottery, revealed that the man had never actually won. After that, investigations showed that the man had used fraudulent tickets to win.
Despite this, Edward could not be charged with fraud as Giles Knibbs, an employee of the Camelot Group who allegedly helped him organize and carry out the crime, had committed suicide. Giles was supposedly responsible for informing Edward of the winning numbers.
In 2005 in Massachusetts, a Mathematics student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed an almost foolproof way to play the lottery. Scholar's studies revealed that the lottery was designed to pay US$ 1.20 for every US$ 2 of tickets sold.
As a result, James teamed up with 50 other MIT students, and together they bought $1,000 and won $3,000. In 2010, he and a partner started Random Strategies Investments, which aimed to get more investors for the business.
Despite this clever and strategic tactic, it was soon discovered that James was receiving confidential information and guidance from the lottery.
Joan Ginther is an American who has won the Texas lottery four times. He alleges that she uses her knowledge in mathematics and statistics to win the prize. However, there are those who think that she may have won other times, using other people. Such an assumption cannot be confirmed as Joan does not grant interviews or reveal her secret formulas.
Some say the woman may have monitored tickets sold in lotteries to determine her likelihood of winning.
In 2005, a Chinese man used his cleverness (or not) to his advantage. Zhao discovered a loophole in the three lottery system. What happened is he bought tickets with winning numbers 5 minutes after the announcements were made. Drawing from it made the Chinese earn 28 million yuan (approximately US$3.76 million) in two years.
But since not everything is flowers, Zhao was discovered. The idea of using friends and neighbors for their fraud system aroused suspicion. That's because the lottery organization discovered that the people claiming the prize were not the ones who bought the tickets. After having his scheme exposed, in addition to having his assets confiscated, Liquin was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Remmele Mazyck was deputy director of a lottery, which made his scheme easier to pull off. In the lottery where the man worked, it was common to distribute free scratch cards for promotional purposes. However, Mazyck never distributed them. He scratched himself and won several prizes of about $500, since larger prizes required one to show up at the lottery office.
Investigations revealed that Mazyck redeemed prizes of approximately 22,000 scratch cards, valued at $478,000, between 2009 and 2012. The scam surfaced when he tried to redeem scratch card prizes sold in a store that had already closed. The man was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay over $482,000 in restitution.
A criminal gang manipulated the result of the prize in 1998 in Italy. At the time, the draw was selected by blindfolded children who collected the balls in a metal basket. On that occasion, children were bribed and trained to choose special balls, which were softer and bigger than the others. Furthermore, most of the children had some sort of relationship with Ministry of Finance officials who supervised the lottery.
The scheme was revealed at the time when a ministry official, who managed the scheme, was transferred to another department and announced the end of the fraud. The participating group refused to finalize the actions and began coercing him to get someone else to take the lead. In view of the threats, the employee's wife called the police and revealed the scam.
