Lottery clerks get rich by stealing jackpots

Here's a little tidbit of information I don't expect to see in the next Ontario lotto ad campaign:

More than two hundred lottery “insiders” have won prizes of $50,000 or more in Ontario since 1999, and more than two-thirds of these wins may have involved the deception of a customer who bought the ticket.

It seems that ticket retailers and clerks have not been subject to a tremendous run of simple luck that rubs off on those who handle large volumes of lottery tickets.

The odds that the 214 insiders who claimed major prizes — $50,000 or more — since 1999 won as a result of pure luck, is one in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, said University of Toronto professor Jeffrey Rosenthal, who conducted the analysis.

It's a little hard to wrap one's mind around such a large number, but in layman's terms, it's roughly the same probability as Steve Guttenberg winning an Oscar.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to those who may have won life-changing amount of money only to walk away with just a free ticket or perhaps nothing at all. But what's frightening is that these numbers are only from Ontario. Extrapolate this fraud through the rest of Canada and the US and one can only marvel at the number of people incapable of comparing one set of six numbers to another set of six numbers for themselves.

Lottery 'insiders' win big bucks [globeandmail.com]

Recent Entries:
· Lotto Max Numbers Net Jackpot Win For Two
· Much Ado About Mats Sundin and PokerStars.net
· Misaligned Fruit Smash Scratch Cards Could Void Winnings