A handful of people seem to have been winning the Colorado Lottery a bit more often than the odds would dictate, raising the specter of possible wrongdoing, a state audit revealed Monday.
That audit showed that some individuals, including one licensed Lottery retailer, have won several high-dollar prizes over the past three years, raising concerns with the Colorado Auditor's Office that something could be amiss.
- One person won $600 or more from the Lottery's Pick 3 game 47 times over a three-year period, claiming $35,370 in prizes.
- Another individual won $600 from the Pick 3 game 26 times in nine months, claiming $46,210.
- A person who owns an undisclosed Lottery retail license won the Pick 3 game 24 times in three years, purchasing all of those tickets from the store the person owns, and claiming $39,750 in that time.
- Another person won the top prize for the Cash 5 game 12 times in the same drawing.
Auditors said that handful of people, none of whom was identified, won 18 percent of all high-dollar prizes and 20 percent of Pick 3 winnings from January 2015 to February 2018.
"Specifically, we identified 10 individuals who each won 15 or more times from the Pick 3 game during our review period," auditors told the Legislative's Audit Committee. "In total, these 10 individuals won 230 of the 1,276 high-dollar prizes and claimed almost $326,000 of the $1.6 million paid out in prizes from the Pick 3 game during this period. Since the Lottery does not gather information on individuals claiming prizes under $600, it is unknown how many of the lower-dollar prizes these individuals may have also won." Auditors said the odds of winning that many times is about one in 33 million.
"Although all of the individuals we identified through our analysis may have just been lucky and/or they purchased a lot of tickets, the unusually high number of wins for each of them, and the fact that one of them is a Lottery retailer, raises a question as to the legitimacy of the wins," the auditors said. "The Lottery had not looked into any of these individuals to verify the legitimacy of their wins."
The auditors said the Lottery doesn't routinely review prize winner data, and has no policy requiring its staff to do so unless there is a "reasonable" suspicion a crime has occurred. Lottery officials told auditors they did not believe the individuals cited in the audit rose to that level, auditors said.
Lottery officials have since said they agreed with the auditors' recommendation to look into the matter, and to create more definitive policies dealing with preventing future incidents.
Sounds like the Colorado Lottery thinks their shouldn't have been any Winners during the 38 month time period checked.
I wonder what the largest dollar figure that these folks won in each drawing ?
If CO is similar to most states, the tax dollars aren't usually taken out until the $5K mark. 47 times in 36 months sure is unique. I guess you could write that off with offsetting losses.
Now, if they were cashing the tix in for someone else ? I wonder what their cut was ?
IMHO it doesn't matter, the ticket was purchased by a legal distributor and matched the number drawn
Lottery retailers should not be allowed to play the lottery. It smells fishy.
Some of them might be "lottery win collectors" for people owing money to the state or money to child support and perhaps someone actually got a secret lottery system which actually works.
owing money to the state -- check
secret lottery system for scratch-offs -- possible (this is why lottery retailers should not be allowed to play)
secret lottery system for pick 3,4 -- slight possibility, not based on a system of picking numbers, but a lottery retailer who does something nefarious to the hardware
Another possibility for winning pick 3,4 so often is someone buys tons and tons of lottery tickets. I'm trying to figure out how they determined that the probability of winning this many times is 1 in 33 million. You would have to know how many lottery tickets were purchased.
That is, if you buy 1,000 tickets and 500 of them win, you are ridiculously lucky (or a cheating lottery retailer). But if you buy a million tickets and ONLY 500 of them win, you are unlucky.
No one keeps track of who bought tickets, only who won.
There was a woman who learned when to buy scratch offs in which stores using statistics. She became a millionaire.
Sounds like Tipton still has co-horts loose.
What if the retailers were buying winning tickets at .75 cents on the dollar? And some of the larger prizes could be 50/50.
It happens all the time at race tracks when for whatever reason a winner does not want the IRS or anyone else they owe money to found out about their win. What's fishy about this story is the lottery should know all about the "ten percentors".
Starting this year in 2018 the Oregon lottery takes the 8% state income taxes out of $1500 or higher in years past they would wait until $5000 and higher for both federal and state taxes. So Oregon wants their cut of the pie.-weshar75
Are you kidding me??? The first guy won 47 times in 3 years. That's 15 wins a year, avg win $752. The second guy won 26 times in 9 months. That's 3 wins a month. Avg win $1,777. The third guy won 24 times in 3 years. That's 8 wins a year, for an avg win of $1,656.
What in the world is so unusual about winning the Pick 3 just over once a month like the first guy did? Or 3 wins a month like the second guy did, or once every month and a half like the third guy did? It's unbelievable that the lottery is even investigating this.
Auditors said the odds of winning that many times is about one in 33 million.
We have two members, one with 18 hits on the Colorado pick-3 and the other with 15 in last 30 days so I'm guessing the auditor's odds for doing that is about 12 times higher?
WAIT! Why are the players playing tickets which will win over $600??? Pick 3 should ALWAYS be played at winning levels below that.
If ya ask me, that is not that many big wins over the period in question. It is pick three....it is called SKILL!
Maybe they will takes notes from NC and learn how to rig their lottery better so less people win.
This is not unusual before NC got stupid I won often like twice a week sometimes back to back and at least every other month now lucky if I hit 3 times a year
"raises a question as to the legitimacy of the wins"
The only question is whether or not the people claiming the prizes are the people who bought the tickets that are certainly legitimate winning tickets.
"Sounds like the Colorado Lottery thinks their shouldn't have been any Winners during the 38 month time period checked."
How did you reach that conclusion?
it is obvious that 99.4% of these "wins" are being claimed by people cashing tickets for others for a fee. it used to happen in every racetrack until they abolished the 600.00 tax withholding limit. if all these "wins" are over 600.00 people seek out others to cash it to avoid child support payments, back taxes and other reasons.
maybe that states lottery feels no one should EVER, be so lucky.lol
It could be the cashier takes the slip to check it for the player and keeps the winner, telling the player it was not a winner. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened.
I thought that's what happened too, but if players want to avoid paying taxes on large pick-3 winnings, all they have to do is buy separate tickets on each $1 straight bet. I saw a player cashing 12 pick-3 tickets worth $500 each without signing anything.
In total, these 10 individuals won 230 of the 1,276 high-dollar prizes and claimed almost $326,000 of the $1.6 million paid out in prizes from the Pick 3 game during this period.
The highest pick-3 prize in Colorado is $500 and the most 230 tickets could collect is $115,000. Maybe the real problem is with their auditors?
So the Colorado lottery paid out $1.6 million in Pick 3 winnings over three years. Divide that by 1,095. (365 days /year, times 3 years.) That comes out to $1,461 a day. Sounds like no one in Colorado wins the Pick 3. That wouldn't be because they use computer draws would it?
BTW, the top prize on any Pick 3 wager there is $2,500 according to the Co lottery website.
"The highest pick-3 prize in Colorado is $500 and the most 230 tickets could collect is $115,000."
As with most lotteries, the payout for a $1 pick 3 straight bet is $500 but you can bet as much as $5 on a single bet. That's why a single ticket can be worth as much as $2500. That some of the tickets are obviously bets for more than $1 and therefore result in payouts bigger than the $600 threshold is strong, though not irrefutable, evidence that the tickets weren't bought by the people claiming them. People who claim a dozen or more prizes almost certainly know that it would be a lot smarter to place multiple $1 bets to stay under the radar.
"Maybe the real problem is with their auditors?"
There's probably nothing wrong with the total amounts reportedly won by that number of tickets, but I find it amazing that the pick 3 payout could average only $1461 per day. The 23 tickets that won a total of $326k were worth an average of $1417, suggesting that a daily payout of $1461 indicates daily sales of about 1430 tickets. It looks like CO has 2700 or so retailers, so that would mean retailers sell an average of about 1 ticket every two days. With a population of about 5.6 million it would mean that on a typical day no more than 1 in 4000 CO residents buy a pick 3 ticket. By way of comparison lottoreport .com says CO sold about 450,000 megamillions tickets last week.
It depends on how many tickets were bought. If that first guy bought only 47 tickets, you'd be suspicious, right?
Instead of just suggesting the real problem is with the auditors, I should have done the homework. In the fiscal year 2017 that ended in June 2018, the Colorado pick-3 game had revenues of $10,995,867 and paid out $5,509,525 in prizes. Whoever said the lottery paid out $1.6 million in pick-3 prizes over three years was mistaken.
A few years ago when I asked for a pick-3 number straight for $1 ten times on separate tickets, a clerk told me I could get a $10 bet on one ticket and pay no taxes. I told the clerk to either give me ten separate tickets or I'd go somewhere else. In Kentucky and other states with 4 minute Keno, players can wager $20 on one combination and another $20 on a multiplier and as far as I know, they can as many $40 bets on the same combo as they can.
There is an aggregated limit on the payout and Colorado's limit is 1000 $1 straight tickets.
Stack, It was in the article.
"Specifically, we identified 10 individuals who each won 15 or more times from the Pick 3 game during our review period," auditors told the Legislative's Audit Committee. "In total, these 10 individuals won 230 of the 1,276 high-dollar prizes and claimed almost $326,000 of the $1.6 million paid out in prizes from the Pick 3 game during this period.
Your homework says the auditors don't know what they're talking about.
The article refers to "high dollar prizes" (presumably the ones at least worth $600). Your numbers might include all prizes.
Didn't you read where KY Floyd noted over $460K was wagered on PB on Wednesday after betting over $501K on MM?
"Your numbers might include all prizes."
Seriously do you really believe a lottery with two pick-3 drawings per day has on average only $730 in paid outs every drawing?
The Kentucky pick-3 paid out almost $275,000 just today and the Colorado yearly pick-3 revenues are found on page 15 and the payoffs are on page 17.
It looks like someone didn't proof read their story and made it look like the auditors were making a mountain out of a moe hill.
I can't post links but the actual audit report is here: (I removed the http...)
leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/audits/1753p_colorado_lottery.pdf
Exhibit 2.1 shows the Pick 3 winnings for 2017 as $543,170. Multiplying by 3 (as an estimate) gives $1.6 million. My guess is they are only counting wins of $600 or more and that most people don't bet high enough (or specify an exact order win) to win more than $500.
There are more interesting details, including a statistical analysis of the likelihood of the wins.
And some interesting bits like this:
Winner #1 purchased 46 of their 47 total winning tickets (98 percent) from one retailer location. Based on Lottery data, this individual was the only person to win $600 or more from a single Pick 3 drawing at this store during the review period.