A group of state lotteries has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a jackpot winner who argues he was shortchanged by millions of dollars because the prior drawing was rigged by one of its employees.
In court documents filed this week, the Multi-State Lottery Association argued that Iowa resident Larry Dawson does not have legal standing to sue because his "claimed injury is merely speculative and hypothetical, and therefore cannot be redressed."
Dawson, of Webster City, filed the lawsuit in February. It is the first stemming from jackpot-fixing allegations against former lottery association security director Eddie Tipton.
(See First lawsuit in state lottery-fixing scandal seeks millions, Lottery Post, Feb. 4, 2016.)
Tipton has been convicted of rigging a $16.5 million jackpot in December 2010 by tampering with the computer that generated Hot Lotto numbers at the Urbandale, Iowa-based association, then purchasing a ticket with the winning six-number combination himself. That money was returned to the 16 states that participate in Hot Lotto when associates of Tipton tried, but ultimately failed, to claim the prize a year later.
After the rigged jackpot, the Hot Lotto prize reset to its $1 million base. Dawson won the game's next jackpot, worth $9 million, in May 2011. He argues that, under the rules of the game, the money from the rigged drawing should have rolled over and created a $25.5 million pool for the jackpot he won rather than being shared by the states as an unclaimed prize.
In a legal brief, the association argued that Dawson's claim that the prize money would have continued to carry over until he won is "complete speculation and conjecture."
"Had the December 29, 2010 Hot Lotto game not been allegedly rigged, different numbers would have been drawn on that date and may have resulted in a different jackpot winner," association attorneys wrote. "Moreover, had the jackpot continued to progressively increase following the December 29, 2010 drawing, the player pool for all drawings would have increased as well, resulting in more number combinations being purchased for each drawing, until a jackpot winner was chosen."
Therefore, the likelihood of someone winning the jackpot before Dawson would have increased and the $9 million jackpot he won "may very well have been less," they wrote.
One of Dawson's attorneys, Nicholas Mauro, said Thursday that Dawson's injuries weren't hypothetical.
"There is nothing speculative about the fact the December 2010 drawing was rigged, or the fact Mr. Dawson was the next legitimate winner," he said. "According to the rules of the game — in which the lottery asks the public to put its faith — his jackpot should have included the December 29, 2010, prize money."
Nothing ventured- nothing gained.
See all the problems you caused Eddie!
Eddie proved that the musl lotteries are #fake
Yea sometime when get a few minutes go to Tn lottery .....look at all the $5000.oo payouts on pick 4 ...but they say ours is generated...yea right.
"See all the problems you caused Eddie!
"
LMAO.... Loved your post!
While it's debatable whether that jackpot winner was short-changed, players who bought tickets in the fixed drawings certainly were! Players should get refunded and/or receive coupons for future play.
Though, that may be impractical due to many players tossing their tickets. Thus, the next best thing would be all participating Hot Lotto lottery jurisdictions offering millions of dollars in free added play for players. Ie. Buy 1 $5 instant ticket, get 1 free, etc. Basically, the participating lotteries should make it right for players and not profit from the rigged drawings. That means giving back all the wagers from the rigged drawings plus the forfeited jackpot funds too via extra prizes / coupons, etc - the lottery jurisdictions shouldn't be getting any of that money, players should!
Why any sane player would buy a Hot Lotto ticket is beyond be, but many still do. Heck, in my view, all regional RNG games, especially those involving MUSL, are suspect at this point, and best avoided; played sparingly with the understanding that there's a real probability of the game being fixed.
Fortunately, some regional games don't use RNG for drawings, such as Cash 4 Life - balls are used, and is telecast / webcast, from my understanding, in near real-time. Not sure about Lucky for Life, but may be similar. So there are alternatives to Hot Lotto that use tried and true ball drawings. All lottery numbers games should.
So Glad this Lawsuit is bringing to light the fact that he is right. The game was rigged and they went after the person and now someone is going after them. They lied got caught and now they are looking for the Judge to help hid the Facts!!!
What's going to happen to the jackpot money? I think they should add it to the current Hot Lotto jackpot.
The money was probably returned to the participating states, but Larry Dawson is arguing because he was the next jackpot winner, he should get the money. The MUSL is arguing Dawson does not have legal standing to sue because his "claimed injury is merely speculative and hypothetical, and therefore cannot be redressed."
It's easy to say that Dawson was "merely speculating" because every player that buys a ticket in any lottery game is speculating they will win the jackpot. MUSL proved the 1/29/2010 drawing was rigged and they are saying it was possible for other players to choose Tipton's numbers and still had a chance to win that jackpot.
I don't think that Dawson should get more money.
Had the lottery not been rigged, different numbers would have been drawn on later draws and he probably wouldn't win anything. So ironically, Dawson actually has to thank Tipton for inadvertently making him win.
What the lottery should pay however, is a refund on every loosing lottery ticket that they sold for rigged draw. Rules of the game state that the draws are random, therefore, the lottery house was in violation of its own rules. People didn't get what they paid for, so anyone who can prove that they bought a loosing ticket for the rigged draw should get a refund with interest.
"Had the December 29, 2010 Hot Lotto game not been allegedly rigged ..."
So it's safe to believe that the official position of MUSL is that Tipton isn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? I'm sure his attorneys will be very glad to hear that.
If the only winning ticket was produced by the Tipton scandal, then yes it would have rolled over, and he is due the amount it was at and the roll over...Tipton isn't the only crook here....
Did anyone else have a winning ticket? I don't see that....
This is really good that they are bringing this suit. I helps show the implications of what Tipton did. The more legal eyes we can have on this case (Tipton's) the better.
It also shows every other lottery what happens if they allow a Tipton to infect them.
I would like to see the court award him the money! That would REALLY make the lottery's stand up and listen.
Just pay the man and quit your crying.
Hey, Dawson! Ya got $9 Million. Don't be greedy!
I agree about the speculative part. No one can know what would have happened had Tipton not fixed the draw.
You have to appreciate both sides of this story.
Larry Dawson wins $9 mil jackpot, but feels cheated when they disclose that the $16.5 mil jackpot won before the one he won was rigged and feels that he is entitled to that amount since he would have won $25.5 mil instead.
The lottery is saying that if the $16.5 mil jackpot had not been won by fraud, it might have been won by someone else before Dawson won.
As far as giving refunds for non-winning tickets.....WHY? Who knows what numbers would have been drawn if the drawing had not been rigged, but the numbers that were drawn did match some tickets that had been purchased for that drawing. Besides...do you still have your non-winning tickets from 2010?
$9 mil is a lot of money and he should be thankful for having won that amount.
It's impossible to know what would have happened if that drawing wasn't rigged.
Actually, it might have been even higher than 25 million since higher jackpot would have boosted the sales even further. Which is also the reason why someone might have won before. Hence, speculative case. It's even more speculative and even bust in my opinion because if it weren't for the rigging, different numbers would be drawn on latter draws.
The reason why the lottery should refund loosing tickets is because the rules say that draws are random, yet that one wasn't. Whether it makes a difference or not is irrelevant unless players don't object (which those that won something obviously won't). But is does make a difference since a lot of players wouldn't buy tickets if they knew that the winner is guaranteed, and even if they win themselves, there is a 100% chance that they will have to split the advertised prize.
There's a whole lot of conjecture going on and I don't think any presiding judge is going to get sucked into all the "what ifs" being thrown around.
The main issue should be whether Hot Lotto had the right or legal standing to absorb that $16M once they knew about the fraud and number manipulation. If they had the legal right to do so then everything else is moot and all the endless conjectures are meaningless.
The Iowa Lottery knew something was wrong when the New York lawyer showed up to collect the jackpot on behalf of a trust, but withdrew the claim. From there they investigated the person who bought the ticket that never identified themselves. The $16 million is not the cash value and while the MUSL has rules on how to distribute unclaimed winnings, I doubt they have rules that cover an employee rigging a drawing.
How the court rules will be interesting.
That money was returned to the 16 states that participate in Hot Lotto when associates of Tipton tried, but ultimately failed, to claim the prize a year later.
Hot Lotto is a multi-state game based in Iowa. There was no actual proof the game was rigged and a jury found it was "beyond reasonable doubt", but their verdict could be reversed in the court of appeals.
The Iowa Hot Lotto players have the same complaints as all the players in the other 15 states and because of the time between when all the tickets from that drawing expired and Tipton was convicted, it's doubtful anyone still has a ticket proving they were in the "alleged" rigged drawing. Compare this to when the Tennessee Lottery's brand new RNG was programmed to have no double digits in their twice drawn daily pick-3 and pick-4 games.
Most couldn't prove that they were in the rigged drawing but some could. So refunds should be at least available for them. Besides, some paid with bank cards, so proving should be possible even without having the ticket anymore. But it's doubtful that anyone would find it worthwhile to go through this process just for a couple of bucks.
The drawing was over 5 years ago, all the tickets expired over four years ago so there is no reason for anyone to keep their "losing" tickets including for IRS.
Bank statements don't expire. And some odd person might still have the ticket. Even if you can't help all of them, you can still repay the few.
LOL!
Unfortunately for Dawson, he doesn't really have a case. The reason being is that if Tipton had not allegedly tampered with the computer, someone else (such as myself), may have won that drawing that Tipton won.
There was a high probability that there would not have been another rollover. The jackpot was over $16 Million. - A rather high jackpot for Hot Lotto.
I am upset and feel that The Lottery owes me $1000, the amount I played and was cheated out of!
The difference between my claim and Dawson's is my loss is real, his is only speculative. Besides, by going on to win, he got back every dollar he's ever played on the lottery.
I think that Dawson needs to stop gambling his winnings on lawyer fees right now, on a case I believe he's going to ultimately lose and, change his attitude from greed to gratitude.
If you have to pick between Dawson, unknown players that might have won, or the the states keeping the money for themselves, my vote would have to go to Dawson. As far as I am concerned, his is the only legitimate claim, even though it is unlikely he would have won it if it had rolled over past the jackpot hat Tipton cheated on. How can any other person or entity claim any part of it? The states didn't earn the right to keep it. It should have gone to a player. Dawson is the only one with a logical claim.
There are more logical solutions. Giving the money back to cheated players who participated in the rigged drawing for example (those that can provide proof of purchase). If the argument here is that those can't be found and they had to give it to someone anyway, then giving it to charity is another solution.
To say that any money that no one has a legitimate claim on should go to the already rich is a non sequitur. Unless of course if that rich person actually does demonstrate that the money would be his if it weren't for the rigging (which he didn't).
Why would he have a more rightful claim to the money than players who were cheated and provided that amount of money for the rigged drawing in the first place?
"my vote would have to go to Dawson."
As has been explained over and over, the problem with that is there's nothing to prove that Dawson won less than he would have if the drawing hadn't been rigged. There's absolutely no question that drawing a different set of numbers might have produced a legitimate winner, in which case Dawson won what he should have, because the jackpot would have been reset as a result of the legitimate winner. There's also absolutely no question that if the jackpot hadn't been reset there would have been more tickets sold, in which case there might have been a winner between the rigged drawing and the one that Dawson won, which would have resulted in his prize being smaller.
While it can't be proven, chaos theory suggests that Dawson might not have won at all if any of the things that happened before he won had been different. That not only included everything directly related to the lottery, but even whether or not some guy in Detroit supersized his lunch at McDonald's. Had the drawing not been rigged it's possible that Dawson would have been hit by a bus instead of won the lottery.
The one thing that is certain is that there was prize money that should have gone to one or more lottery players, but didn't. That's a reason to distribute that amount of money to players in some fashion, but not to just give it to Dawson. The sensible thing would be to pay it out as increased prizes for Hot Lotto.
The MUSL should have used the money to pay for switching to ball drawings at the very least.
Well considering that MUSL is allowed to exist in the states so that money raised is given towards education, healthcare and/or the maintenance of vital infrastructures, then your request that the money be given to charity is (one could argue) what was done. He can't prove he would have won had the drawing not been rigged and MUSL did what policy dictate they do with unclaimed winnings.
Except that he doesn't have a legitimate claim. That's like saying that the lady who allowed Gloria to skip the line has a legitimate claim to Gloria's winnings.
There are too many hypotheses that would have to hold true for him to have a legitimate claim, and he can't prove any of them. The most he can say is that out of fairness of the game and its players, he is deserving of both jackpots.
Well ok if that was what the policy was. But then I don't understand why the policy is the way that it is. Usually if person A steals money from person B's bank account, and the police uncovers person A and returns the money to the bank, I would expect that the policy dictates that of course the bank now gives this money back into person B's bank account. Only if person B can't be found anymore, should charity come into consideration.
So the money went back to the states like the policy dictates, but why does it not dictate that the states should now try to return this stolen money to all these B persons first?
It's like I get robbed, the police finds my money, but the bank then instead of looking for me gives it to charity, because it says in the statutes of this bank that it is non profit or something and is to forward all earnings to charity. What difference does that make? My money is not already their earnings. My fees from this money will be their earnings. Unless of course I can't be found. But the policy apparently doesn't dictate that they should at least try to find them first. Even if you can't find more than 5% of those players it's still better than nothing.
"MUSL did what policy dictate they do with unclaimed winnings."
The problem is that there were no unclaimed winnings. There was prize money that wasn't won.