A former Multi-State Lottery Association security director who used his position to rig jackpots for years and who lifted million out of the system will, under a plea agreement, testify to Wisconsin investigators how he and his brother did it between 2005-2011.
In return for his guilty plea, Eddie Tipton agreed to pay $3 million back and to serve a 25-year prison sentence. His brother, a former Texas judge, Tommy Tipton, faces less than three months in jail.
State Attorney General Brad Schimel stated: “Mr. Tipton’s actions defrauding the lottery were a gross violation of the public’s trust and confidence.”
According to his own statement Tipton wrote and installed code for software that generated random numbers for games that were used by lotteries. He designed it so that several times a year he could predict winning numbers, which he and his brother and others would then buy in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma.
Eventually Tipton was caught on video buying a winning $16.5 million ticket in 2010.
The lotteries in question can’t say that they weren’t warned—because they were. In 2004 the Lottery Post carried an article that spelled out how computerized drawings could be rigged through an inside software writer.
Tipton’s scheme was almost exactly the same as what the Post warned against.
