$2million Lottery Scammer Gets 25 Years Sentence

(Photo: Anationofthinkers.info)

Iowa is one of the easiest-going states in the US when it comes to all forms of gambling, so it might come as a surprise that a massive lottery fraud involving a security chief, a former judge and a businessman emanated from the ‘Hawkeye State’ – resulting in a sentence of up to 25 years for the main instigator after authorities finally cottoned on to his scam.

Fifty-four year old Eddie Tipton was a longtime computer programmer in the Iowa offices of the Multi-State Lottery Association who installed software that allowed him to manipulate winning numbers in some of the nation’s most popular lottery drawings, according to the Des Moines Register report on Tipton’s sentencing this week.

Tipton’s rigging of supposedly ‘random’ lottery draws started back in 2005, court documents detailing how he then began construction on a ‘4,800-square-foot home outside of Des Moines that contained a movie theater and gym, overlooked a pond and sat on 22 acres’.

When his Iowa lottery manipulation proved successful, Tipton added Colorado, Wisconsin, Kansas and Oklahoma to his state-wide theft, bringing in his brother Tommy Tipton - a former Texas judge - and Texas businessman Robert Rhodes, on the scam.

With more than $2million netted from the software tampering, his greed was finally to be his downfall when he unsuccessfully attempted to ‘collect a $16.5 million Hot Lotto ticket that was purchased at a Des Moines convenience store in 2010’ – leading investigators to finally hone in on the massive fraud.

In court, his attorney Dean Stowers blamed lottery investigators for taking so long to identify the fraud committed by his client, stating:

"…  the lack of interest in actually examining the program being used to pick these numbers is kind of alarming, really."

Tipton himself told the Polk County District Court:

"I certainly regret it… it’s difficult even saying that with all the people I know behind me that I hurt, and I regret it. I’m sorry," as many of his co-workers sat behind him in the courtroom.

District Court Judge Brad McCall told him:

“It is indeed unfortunate that you did not use that intelligence to prosper by legal means. Instead you chose an illegal path," before handing down the 25 years sentence.

Eddie Tipton’s brother Tommy is currently serving a 75-day jail term for ‘conspiracy to commit theft by deception’ and the brothers have to pay back $3 million in restitution, while businessman Rhodes, of Sugar Land, Texas, ‘pleaded guilty to a computer crime and will be sentenced Friday’.