Since 2016, the Michigan Lottery Bureau has suspended or revoked the licenses of five retailers where employees allegedly have collected and cashed winning lottery tickets, while the actual ticket holders received nothing, according to a report by the Detroit Free Press.
Suspensions for stealing customers’ winning tickets are rare, the report indicated, and make up less than 1 percent of the 269 Michigan lottery suspensions that have occurred since last year. Most retailers are suspended for not paying the lottery bureau its share of ticket sales.
Nick’s Party Stop in Clinton County was suspended over an incident that occurred last year. Store employee Don Kallo redeemed a winning ticket he kept from a customer, collecting $2,517. Kallo claimed he was not wearing his glasses at the time and thought the customer’s winning ticket was his.
The customer believed he had a losing ticket.
The Michigan Lottery Bureau offers a strong incentive to keep retailers from doing anything that could cost them their license. According to the Free Press, besides bringing in extra customers, lottery retailers get a 6 percent commission on ticket sales and a 2 percent commission on prizes they redeem.
Still, the number of Michigan retailers suspended for cashing in on someone else’s winning ticket and the amount of money they have collected is unknown. An “NBC Dateline” investigation about a decade ago indicated lottery retailers, clerks and their relatives were among the top winners of 10 state lotteries reporters researched. For example, Dateline found that four employees of a store in Illinois and their relatives had cashed more than 500 winning tickets totaling $1.6 million.
