Eddie Tipton won lotteries in 4 different states, using associates to collect the winnings.
A class-action lawsuit was filed this week on behalf of lottery players in Iowa. The lawsuit claims consumer fraud on the past of the Multi-State Lottery Assocation, because it failed to prevent games being rigged in the Eddie Tipton case.
Eddie Tipton was a former security director for the Multi-State Lottery Assocaition who installed software on the game’s random number generators which allowed him to predict winning numbers on three select days of the year.
Rigged Lottery Contests
Tipton worked with two associates to collect millions of dollars of winnings in lottery games in five US states — Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin — from 2005 to 2011. Tipton eventually was caught on surveillance camera buying a winning $16 million Hot Lotto Ticket on December 2010. A year later, an associate of Tipton’s tried to cash the winning lotto ticket, tipping off officials that a criminal conspiracy was underway.
The class-action lawsuit, filed this weekk in a Des Moines district court, alleges that the lottery should have prevent Eddie Tipton’s cheating. Instead, says the suit, the Multi-State Lottery Association failed to properly audit its results over a 6-year period, in which Eddie Tipton and his confederates cheated the lottery. The scam might still be in operation, if outside sources not caught on to the scam.
Dale Culler Lawsuit
Dale Culler of Burlington, Iowa is the man whose name is on the Multi-State Lottery lawsuit. The 53-year-old insurance salesman is the representative of a class of gamblers who were cheated by Tipton, and thus by the MSLA, claims the lawsuit.
Mr. Culler kept the $45 in tickets he bought in the 2010 Hot Lotto drawing. He said the numbers he picked had a 0% chance of winning, so those drawings were fraudulent. Culler said of the multistate lotteries, “While I know the odds aren’t great, I never expected that the games were fixed and my chance was zero.”
Nicholas Mauro: The Facts of the Case
Nicholas Mauro, the lawyer representing Dale Culler, said he is asking the court to find the Multi-State Lottery Association liable for the rigged results first. Later, he’ll ask the judge to recognize the class of gamblers who were affected by the rigged results.
Mr. Mauro said that investigators in the Eddie Tipton case found that four different games were affected: Hot Lotto, Wisconsin Megabucks, Kansas 2X2, and Colorado Lotto. He argue that the association is responsible for the cheating which took place in all four games.
How Eddie Tipton’s Scam Worked
The software Eddie Tipton fed into the lottery RNG produced honest results 362 days a year. On three specific days, Tipton could learn which numbers were going to be produced. Those days were May 27, November 22, and December 29.
On those days, Eddie Tipton would select a winning card and have a friend or family member pick up the winnings. Since he was not associated with the winning jackpot, the lottery officials did not notice the connection. Whether an audit of the RNG’s software would have turned up evidence is another matter.
Eddie Tipton’s Accomplices
Eddie Tipton’s brother, Tommy Tipton, is alleged to have been involved in the same. The other man named in the scam is Robert Rhodes, a Texas businessman with a solid reputation before the arrests. Investigators found index cards with winning combinations on them, along with instructions to play them on the Dec. 29, 2007 drawing of the Wisconsin Megabucks lottery.
Such evidence likely will be used in the prosecutions of Eddie Tipton, Tommy Tipton, and Robert Rhodes.
Previous Eddie Tipton-based Lawsuit
This is not the first lawsuit stemming from the Eddie Tipton’s criminal case. In 2011, Iowa financial planner “Lucky” Larry Dawson filed a lawsuit, claiming his $9 million prize should have been worth $25.5 million, because a Tipton associate won a previous jackpot which reset the pot amount. A judge ruled that that case can proceed, so it is still active.
Also, the Multi-State Lottery Association appears to have assigned blame to MSLA executives themseleves. Association founder and executive director Chuck Strutt was fired from his position in the wake of the Tipton arrests.
