"Lost" Lottery Ticket Saga

[B-Man]

Link to story on Foxnews.com

I truly hope they prosecute this woman (the one who claimed she lost the winning ticket) for filing a false police report. Did she really think she was going to get away with this scam?

[baggins]

correct me if i'm wrong. i didn't read the article you posted, but i did read a couple articles on the same topic.

in the article i read, i remember there being a statement that the police checked with the convenience store where the lady said she purchased the ticket and it was confirmed that the ticket was purchased there. is that true? did she in fact report having bought the ticket at the same place it was actually sold? is it just some freak coincidence that these 2 women who don't even live in the same state and yet the faker knew where the real ticket was purchased?

or am i making all this up and deluding myself?

[B-Man]

[slamdunkpro]

The head of the Ill. Lottery commission summed it up rather nicely in the paper today when he said "With lottery tickets possession is 10/10's of the law. The possessor is the winner"

[elwoodblues]

In general, they know (and announce) in a short period of time where the winning lottery ticket(s) were purchased.

[Rushmore]

All I can say is that it's a damned good thing that nobody here at 2+2 would ever be stooopid enough to actually BUY a lottery ticket.

I AM right, aren't I?

[Ulysses]

The lottery people can pay whomever they want, but their policy is not law. If I steal your lottery ticket, that doesn't change the fact that it's your property and I stole it.

This recent court case was similar in nature to this conflict.

Recent similar story

As for the current lottery claim, I just read CNN's article on it and based on the limited number of facts in the article, I have no idea who's telling the truth here. All I know is that if the woman really did lose her purse w/ that ticket in it, it sure does suck to be her.

[B-Man]

Sure, if her story were true, I would feel bad for her, but I am 99% sure she is lying.

For one thing, the woman who turned in the ticket had a receipt from the store where the winner was purchased, at the same time the winning ticket was purchased. She also had a lottery ticket from the previous drawing with the SAME numbers.

The woman who claimed to have "lost" the ticket has absolutely no evidence to back up her claim, other than her own word. Considering she is a convicted felon (convicted for fraud), I don't think her word should carry much weight.

It's pretty obvious to me she is trying to pull a scam. This falls under the category, "Don't believe everything you hear, especially when money is involved."

[J.A.Sucker]

Why not? There are a lot of us who enjoy -EV gambles on occasion, whether it's the craps tables when you're piss drunk in Vegas on vacation, or playing lotto. I don't buy a lot of lotto tickets (maybe 5 a year) but I get ample entertainment out of them. There's that split second when you're buying them and you think about what you'd do with 100 million that's pretty damned fun. That's definately worth my lost cash.

Plus, it is possible for lotto to be +EV, and this has been discussed before. However, these situations are fairly rare and obviously the variance is terrible. There's a lot more to gambling than just winning and losing. Sometimes, it's fun to just have fun - the same reason I buy into 5 dollar SNG's and repeatedly push all-in. It's fun.

[thylacine]

These stories are not similar at all. In fact they are about as opposite as you can get.