Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich released the following statement today following Eddie Tipton and Tommy Tipton’s guilty pleas in Polk County District Court in the long-running lottery jackpot investigation:
“Today’s plea agreement is a crucial step in bringing to a close one of the biggest lottery mysteries in history. The details we’ve already learned through this long-running investigation have allowed us at the Iowa Lottery to develop security enhancements across our games and procedures, and we remain mindful of the need to continually review our operations to make improvements.
It was important to us to hear Eddie Tipton acknowledge in court today that he wrote malicious computer code, then used that code to predict winning numbers in lottery drawings and passed those numbers to others, including his younger brother, Tommy, multiple times in years past to fraudulently claim prizes. This information will be invaluable to the Iowa Lottery and the lottery industry as a whole to help us safeguard our games and protect our players.
We understand that this agreement is part of a package of plea deals that will resolve the pending criminal court proceedings relating to the attempt to claim the 2010 Hot Lotto jackpot prize in Iowa, as well as to the other lottery prizes paid in Wisconsin, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado.
We’re thankful for the extensive work in this nationwide lottery investigation by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and authorities from around the country.
We have said all along that the Iowa Lottery will follow the facts of this investigation wherever they may lead. I’m pleased to say we are one step closer to the end of that road today.
I continue to have confidence that Iowa Lottery games offered today are fair. Our lottery has strong layers of security in place to protect lottery players, lottery games and lottery prizes. And we will continue to make important necessary updates to maintain our safeguards.”
History has taught, that if you develop a pile of money, there are those who will work to steal those funds.
Just look what Congress has done to the worker & employer paid Social Security Trust Fund, which has been raided on several occassions for over two trillion dollars, with no recourse by taxpayers! A true crime!
It would seem, a set aside for theft & fraud would end up with the same problem that SS faces. So, the public would be the guarantor again and with no recourse! So, it would have to come from government, who fails to again, protect the integrity of gaming and the public, because of their malfeasance to police management. I see your delema, but financial penalties must be applied and deep pockets must be taxed for the open risk.
Posted by: Bob Young | June 29, 2017 at 07:53 PM