Lottery Employee Accused of Hot Lotto Fraud Has Trial Delayed

A former lottery worker accused of tampering with a number generator to win $14.3 million has had his trial pushed back until July after prosecutors presented more than 500 pages of new material, along with videos and recordings. Eddie Raymond Tipton was arrested and charged with two counts of fraud in January after he was accused of purchasing a Hot Lotto ticket, which he was barred from doing by law as a lottery employee.

Tipton worked as the information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) when there was a mystery Hot Lotto winner appeared in Iowa in December 2010. The winning ticket was not claimed for almost a year and then, hours before the expiry date, a New York attorney named Crawford Shaw came forward on behalf of a corporation supposedly based in Belize. The ticket was valid, but Shaw was not paid because he refused to name who had bought the ticket, and he later withdrew the claim, saying that he didn’t know the identity of the winner.

The customer who is thought to have purchased the winning ticket in Des Moines can be seen wearing a dark hood in surveillance footage released last October, but following a tip-off police were able to analyse their voice and match a licence plate in the parking lot of the convenience store to Tipton. As Tipton couldn’t claim cash prizes, it has been alleged that he approached two men in Texas to ask for help in claiming the jackpot anonymously.

In court documents filed last week ahead of the trial, prosecutors have now accused Tipton of allegedly entering a locked room at the lottery association which contained the random number-generating computers. It is alleged that he went into the room on November 20, 2010, a month before the $14.3 million was won, and used software on a thumbdrive to infect the computers and control the winning numbers.

According to prosecutors, cameras on the day in question did not run continuously like they would normally and instead recorded only one second per minute. “Four of the five individuals who have access to control the camera’s settings will testify they did not change the cameras’ recording instructions,” prosecutors wrote in court documents reported by the Des Moines Register. “The fifth person is defendant. It is a reasonable deduction to infer that defendant tampered with the camera equipment to have an opportunity to insert a thumbdrive into the RNG tower without detection.”

Tipton has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his attorney has dismissed the computer tampering theory as not ‘factually viable’. Jury selection was set to begin on Monday, but Judge Jeffrey Farrell has now allowed Tipton’s defence more time to prepare, and the trial has been rescheduled to restart on Monday 13th July.

EuroMillions Results for Tuesday 17th March 2015

The EuroMillions jackpot has rolled over for the third time in a row last night, bumping the value of the top prize to £32 million (€45 million) for the game scheduled for this Friday. The last time the jackpot was won was on Friday 6th March, when a Portuguese ticket holder scooped the £72.1 million (€100 million) Superdraw windfall straight out of the gate.

Last night’s winning numbers were 11, 23, 26, 38 and 44 with Lucky Stars 1 and 8. Four ticket holders missed just one number, matching all five main numbers and one Lucky Star, to win £209,614 (€273,703) each. Another 17 participants are celebrating after snapping up £16,440 (€21,466) for matching the five main numbers drawn.

Other prizes distributed to lucky winners in the main game were worth between £2.90 (€3.80) for matching two main numbers and £3,583 (€4,678) for matching four main numbers and both Lucky Stars. A single UK ticket holder has just won £1 million on Millionaire Maker after matching the winning code of GQF136093. Visit the Results page Euro-Millions.com to learn more about last night’s draw.

If you think that winning an eight-figure windfall would be the perfect way to start your weekend, make sure that you buy EuroMillions tickets before sales stop at 7.30pm GMT (8.30pm CET) on Friday. You can snap up entries online by clicking on the banner to the right of this article, or you can visit an authorised EuroMillions retailer in your area to buy tickets in person. Have fun and good luck!

Three Ticket Holders Split Massive Powerball Jackpot

A mind-blowing Powerball jackpot worth $564.1 million has been won by three ticket holders from North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas. The top prize for one of America’s biggest lottery games had been rolling over since Saturday 29th November 2014, and when its value surpassed $450 million last Saturday, ticket sales exploded. The jackpot was re-valued at $485 million on Tuesday, $500 million during the day on Wednesday and finally hit $564.1 million on Wednesday evening.

According to Powerball officials, there were 125 million tickets purchased for the big game on the day of the draw alone, which enabled them to push the jackpot up to its final value. State lottery officials were telling a similar story, as ticket sales in some areas averaged out to thousands per minute. Players across the United States were grabbing entries, starting syndicates and dreaming big.

The prize is the third largest ever for Powerball and the fifth largest in U.S. lottery history. The Puerto Rican ticket holder is the first player outside of the continental U.S. to win a Powerball grand prize. All that is currently known about the winning ticket from Texas is that it was sold at the Appletree Food Mart in Princeton, Texas. Information about the winner from North Carolina is not currently available.

There were 5,971,080 prize winners created last night as lucky participants matched some – or all – of the winning line, which was 11, 13, 25, 39 and 54 with Powerball 19 and Power Play 3. The Match 5 prize tier saw an amazing 33 players win $1 million each, with another player in Pennsylvania clinching $2 million for matching five main numbers with Power Play. Visit the Powerball Results page of Lottery.net to learn more about this amazing draw.

As it stands, each of the three grand prize winners would receive $188 million before taxes if they choose annuity payments. If they receive their prize as a lump sum, they would receive approximately $127 million before taxes. No matter what, that’s more than enough to buy a mansion, a fleet of sports cars and a holiday home on some sunny Caribbean island!

Saturday’s Powerball jackpot will be worth $40 million, with a cash option of $27 million.

EuroMillions Jackpot Won by Spanish Ticket Holder

A series of EuroMillions rollovers was brought to a halt last night after a ticket holder from Spain grabbed the £31.4 million (€39.5 million) top prize. The top prize for Friday 19th December will now be worth £11 million (€15 million).

The winning numbers were 3, 7, 12, 13 and 25 with Lucky Stars 5 and 8. Five players matched five main numbers and one Lucky Star to grab themselves €222,312 each and another 11 participants won £23,584 (€33,683) each for matching five main numbers.

There were 131 ticket holders who bagged £990 (€1,414) when they matched four main numbers and both Lucky Stars while 1,889 players have just won £60 (€85.80) for matching four main numbers and one Lucky Star. The remaining participants who won prizes have picked up amounts worth between £2.20 (€3.20) for matching two main numbers and £30.80 (€44) for matching four main numbers. The winning Millionaire Maker code was ZGL268466.

If you think that you can pull off a repeat performance on Friday and grab the top EuroMillions prize, then make sure that you buy your tickets by clicking on the banner to your right or by visiting an authorised retailer to purchase them in person. Good luck and have fun!