DOJ Sends Musk’s PAC Warning Over $1 Million Voter Lottery
The sweepstakes aims to boost voter registrations
Dad is in the dark that he won $1 million jackpot until detectives explain to him that his lottery ticket had been stolen
A Tennessee father had no idea that he had won a $1 million jackpot until the moment detectives told him that his lottery ticket had been stolen, according to authorities.
A lucky dad recently purchased two scratch-off lottery tickets at a Shell station in Murfreesboro. He reportedly asked the clerk to check if the tickets — $20 Diamond and Gold tickets — were winners.
'The feel-good side of this story is the [Antioch father] never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him. That is absolutely life-changing money.'
The clerk — identified by authorities as 23-year-old Meet Patel — allegedly told the dad that he had won $40 on one ticket, but the other ticket was not a winner.
Lt. Detective Steve Craig told WTVF-TV the ticket the dad was told was not a winner ended up "on top of the trash." Then when the dad departed the store, Craig said Patel "took the trash outside, and if you follow him on camera, you can see him grab the ticket and put it in his pocket."
However, the "losing" ticket was a million-dollar winner — and Patel allegedly attempted to claim the prize.
Craig noted, "He went to the lottery commission to claim the ticket as his own, but there were red flags, and they held onto the ticket."
Tennessee Lottery officials reviewed security footage from the Shell gas station and determined that the winning ticket was stolen.
Detective Dennis Ward told NBC News, "Mr. Patel is then seen later in the video celebrating in the store after scratching off the front of the ticket and learning it was a $1 million winner."
Craig explained, "It's pretty obvious. Good enough to put in front of 12 jurors, and they'll reach the same conclusion."
Patel was accused of stealing the million-dollar lottery ticket — a Class A felony — and was being held in the Rutherford County Jail on $100,000 bond after his arrest. Patel is scheduled to appear in court July 30.
Craig added, "The feel-good side of this story is the [Antioch father] never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him. That is absolutely life-changing money."
The dad requested that his identity not be revealed.
Craig gave some advice to those who play the lottery: "If you scratch off the front bar code, it will tell you if it’s a winner or not, regardless of whether you scratch off everything showing how much you won."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Couple allegedly tries — and fails — to con Florida lotto out of $1 million jackpot
A Florida couple recently met up with agents from the state lotto, apparently expecting to receive a massive payout, only to be arrested for alleged fraud instead.
On March 1, 36-year-old Kira Enders walked into a Florida Lottery office in Pensacola and handed an employee there an allegedly winning 500X The Cash scratch-off ticket with a grand prize of $1 million. She even filled out the back portion of the ticket, which reportedly notes that any falsifications on the ticket can result in criminal prosecution.
It appears that agents immediately suspected a problem because the ticket was later declared a "non-winner." Whether the agency initially intended to investigate the problems with the ticket is unclear. However, when Enders called less than a week later for an update on her alleged winnings, she likely forced the agency's hand.
Enders was invited to meet with a lotto special agent on March 11. She and her 32-year-old boyfriend, Dakota Jones, then drove to the designated meeting location. Rather than walk out with a hefty check, the two were quickly separated and interrogated about the ticket.
Apparently, the winning ticket was actually two separate tickets that had been taped together and then laminated. Escambia Sheriff Chip Simmons indicated the "two tickets" had been put together "crudely" to try and create "a million-dollar winner."
It seems that Enders and Jones also gave drastically different explanations for the ticket pastiche. According to reports, Enders initially told police she couldn't remember where she purchased the ticket. She then must have had a moment of clarity because she later stated she bought it at a Winn-Dixie but that it had fallen out of her car in the rain and tore in two when it became wet.
She explained that she taped the two pieces together to rectify the problem, not to deceive anyone, the affidavit indicated.
She then allegedly expressed bewilderment when the serial numbers on different sides of the ticket didn't match. "What, they don't go together?" she allegedly stated. She also called the revelation about the mismatched serial numbers "insane" and that her "mind" was "blow[n]," the affidavit said.
By contrast, Jones reportedly told investigators that the couple had randomly stumbled upon the winning ticket while walking down the street. He claimed that the ticket was already torn when they found it, but he advised his girlfriend not to tape it together or to submit the taped ticket to the lotto agency because it looked "jank," the affidavit said.
Jones also allegedly insisted to investigators that he and Enders are "honest people" who had no intention of trying to pull a fast one on the lottery. "When they looked at the ticket, they thought it was legit," he indicated, according to the affidavit
Enders and Jones have both been charged with three crimes: forgery/alteration of a lottery ticket with intent to defraud, passing a forged/altered state lottery ticket, and larceny-grand theft of $100,000 or more. Enders was released on $20,000 bail, and Jones was released on a bail of $17,500. Both have a hearing scheduled for May 10.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Iowa Lottery posts incorrect Powerball numbers — and those who claimed prize before mistake was noticed can keep the cash
Some lucky players in Iowa received an early Christmas present this year after the state lottery posted the wrong Powerball numbers earlier this week but still allowed some of those with winning tickets for the wrong numbers to keep their prize money.
The confusion began with the Powerball drawing on Monday night. Even though the Iowa Lottery requires two people in two separate locations to record the winning numbers before those numbers can become official — a process that an Iowa Lottery blog post called "redundant reporting procedures" — the numbers somehow became garbled, and the lottery website accidentally posted the wrong Powerball numbers at around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
By 7:15 a.m. that same morning, some lottery staffers noticed the error and immediately suspended the Powerball results on lottery terminals, the blog post said. After about 7:30 a.m., anyone who attempted to scan a ticket received the following message: "Draw has not occurred, more draws remain."
During that nearly seven-hour gap, however, early birds who had a ticket with the incorrect Powerball results could have sauntered into a nearby convenience store or other self-serve kiosk to collect their money. The Iowa Lottery has since passively indicated that it will honor those erroneous winnings, perhaps because it has no choice.
"Prizes were paid for any of those tickets presented during the time period that the incorrect results were posted," the blog post admitted.
Meanwhile, the lottery scrambled to record the correct numbers across the state. By 3:30 p.m., the correct numbers — 2-21-38-61-66 and Powerball 12 and a Power Play® number of 2 — were posted, and players with tickets corresponding to those numbers were able to collect their winnings.
The Powerball may sound like a major prize, but payouts actually range from $4 to $200. Though individual winnings are relatively insignificant, the lottery reported that by Wednesday afternoon, nearly 4,000 ticket-holders with the correct Powerball numbers had already collected winnings, bringing the statewide total to almost $25,000.
In the blog post, the lottery apologized for the mix-up, claimed that it affected just a "small" number of people, and promised "to review drawing procedures with an eye toward improvements in the future."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Man claims winning $2.04 billion Powerball ticket was stolen from him
A man is suing over an allegedly stolen $2.04 billion winning Powerball ticket, TMZ exclusively reported Thursday.
"When it comes to the vetting process for big winners, California Lottery has the utmost confidence in its process for doing so," a California Lottery spokesperson told TMZ in a statement.
"California Lottery remains confident that Edwin Castro is the rightful winner of the $2.04 billion prize stemming from the Powerball drawing in November of 2022," lottery spokesperson Carolyn Becker told KTLA.
Jose Rivera says he bought the winning lottery ticket from Joe's Service Center on Woodbury Road in Altadena, California the day before November's historic drawing, according to legal documents obtained by TMZ.
Rivera says a person called "Reggie" stole the ticket from him that same day, but repeatedly refused to return it to Rivera after the numbers had been drawn, KABC reported.
Further, Rivera says "Reggie" threatened to destroy the ticket unless unless Rivera agreed to split the winnings.
Rivera reported the alleged theft to California Lottery and law enforcement.
When Edwin Castro was named as the winner, Rivera submitted his claim to lottery officials and asked them to investigate before turning over the lump sum prize of $997.6 million to Castro.
Castro, "Reggie," and the California Lottery are all named as defendants in Rivera's suit, KABC reported. TMZ notes Rivera is asking the court for damages and to declare him the winner of record-breaking $2.04 billion jackpot.
The named winner of the historic jackpot, Edwin Castro, came forward to claim aimed his prize earlier this month. Officials made the announcement at a press conference on Valentine's Day.
"This is a history-making day here at California Lottery," said Carolyn Becker, California Lottery's deputy director of public affairs and communications. "We are breaking news and setting records today."
Becker read the following statement on Edwin Castro's behalf the day of the announcement.
"As much as I am shocked and ecstatic to have won the Powerball drawing, the real winner is the California public school system. The mission of the California Lottery, which is to provide supplemental funding for California public education – both public schools and colleges – makes this a huge win for the state," the statement began.
"As someone who received the rewards of being educated in the California public education system, it’s gratifying to hear that, as a result of my win, the California school system greatly benefits as well," the statement concluded.
Lottery officials displayed a ceremonial $156.3 million check to "California Public Education" alongside Castro's ceremonial $2.04 billion check during the press conference. The service station that sold the winning ticket received $1 million, CBS reported.
Watch KABC's coverage below.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Now the lottery is apparently another form of 'systemic racism,' critics allege
Is the lottery yet another example of "systemic racism" in America? Some researchers who recently spoke to CNN said "yes."
The allegations come after a single Powerball ticket won the biggest jackpot — more than $2 billion — in Powerball game history this week. The ticket was sold in Altadena, California, beating the astronomical winning odds of 1 in 292.2 million.
What are the claims?
Lottery critics allege lower-income communities are scammed with marketing that claims playing the lottery means getting rich quick.
The result, critics say, is that lower-income people spend more of their discretionary income — which they already have less of — on the lottery, often leading to losses or small wins that keep them playing, but ultimately resulting in transferring more wealth out of their communities.
Les Bernal, national director for Stop Predatory Gambling, even alleges the lottery is a form of "systemic racism."
"State lotteries are the most neglected example of systemic racism in the United States than any other issue or problem, I should say, in our country," he told NPR last week.
In his interview with CNN, Bernal explained the on-the-ground reality.
"[People are] hoping to pay their rent at the end of the month or pay an outstanding medical bill or put their kids through college or they just lost their job and they’re just trying to find a way to make ends meet," he said. "And here you have what is a government program encouraging citizens to lose their money on rigged games."
At least one study, conducted by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, has shown that lottery retailers are disproportionately placed in lower-income communities, luring nearby residents with the dream of getting out of poor economic circumstances.
In fact, while state lotteries are billed as helping with education and other public works, what actually happens is that people from poorer communities do not benefit.
"You have low-income people, essentially paying for college scholarships for middle-class and upper-class families to go to college. It's the American dream, completely in reverse," Bernal told NPR.
How much is spent on the lottery?
Americans reportedly spent more than $105 billion lottery tickets last year.
Raising Cane's drops another $100,000 in lotto tickets after Mega Millions pot swells to $1.1 billion
All 50,000 Raising Cane's employees are once again financially invested in the Mega Millions lottery drawing to be held Friday night at 11 p.m. E.T., marking the second time this week that owner and co-CEO Todd Graves has shelled out $100,000 for lottery tickets on behalf of his employees.
Graves originally made headlines earlier this week when he dropped $100,000 of his own money to buy 50,000 Mega Millions tickets, which are $2 a piece, for the drawing last Tuesday night. However, since there no winning ticket was printed, the pot swelled from $810 million to $1.1 billion, and Graves decided to give his crew another shot at a winner.
"Our crew members were so stoked the last time," said co-CEO AJ Kumaran, who originally came up with the idea to buy lottery tickets for struggling employees. "So we decided to try our luck again. And now we're all just excited, waiting and crossing our fingers for a win."
Kumaran gave two main reasons for making such a sizeable investment that has such a small chance of succeeding: fun and hope.
"Look, I hear from our crew members all the time, and things are really tough out there," he explained. "This was an opportunity to have fun but at the same time, hopefully make a little bit of extra money for our people."
While some have suggested that Raising Cane's could have distributed the $200,000 amongst all the employees rather than purchasing lotto tickets on their behalf, doing so would have added just $4 to each employee's wallet.
However, should one of the 50,000 tickets hit and Raising Cane's opts to take the $648 million lump sum rather than the 30-year payout, each employee would garner nearly $13,000.
As fun and exciting as the lottery may be for Raising Cane's employees, employees at the local 7-Eleven likely weren't pleased to hear this news, as the logistics of purchasing 50,000 lottery tickets can be rather complicated. Last time, Graves spent nearly eight hours acquiring the necessary funds from various banks and then waiting at two separate 7-Eleven locations for all the tickets to be printed.
In the event the lottery doesn't work out again — and with odds at about 302 million to one, it probably won't — Raising Cane's has still worked hard lately to provide for employees during the tough economy. The fast food giant increased the wages of most of its employees by 15% last year, according to Kumaran.
Today's top stories
www.theblaze.com
freebeacon.com
Lottery Myths Debunked | @Stu Does America