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Literature-South t1_j9zdh8r wrote

Reply to comment by NewCanadianMTurker in California Lottery stands behind $2 billion Powerball winner despite claim ticket was stolen by ILikeTalkn2Myself

My guess is that they have the time and place the winning ticket was sold, and they have him on camera purchasing the ticket at the time and place. No one's going to give 2 Billion to someone without some verification on their part.

My guess is that this is 100% legit.

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scrivensB t1_j9zosrl wrote

How do they even verify this stuff.

Since most places (I think) won’t sell lottery tickets via CC/debit card, they can’t verify a transaction that way.

And I assume most places have a security camera these days, but the quality is likely garbage a ton of the time, and I’d be surprised if they keep video footage for more than a few days before recording over it.

I guess in the last few years camera and cloud storage have problem improved that, but liquor stores/gas stations aren’t exactly known for keeping up with technological advancement.

This makes me wonder what the process is of during verification they see that the person who purchased the winning ticket and the person who has the winning ticket after the drawing are not the same.

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stoneasaurusrex t1_j9zq4nc wrote

The lottery system is pretty extensive in itself, even tho cash purchases are the main way for lottery they still track it by the machine it was printed from, serial number, an individual number assigned to each ticket, and the bar code printed on each ticket. (I'm sure there's other ways I'm not privy to but these are the major ones I know)

And with every gas station now being able to load their feed up to the cloud instead of individual hard drives. It makes it easier to find out who purchased at ticket based on the info gathered from the ticket.

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Dythiese t1_j9zx1uf wrote

Seriously. Remember the last big powerball drawing not even two months ago? They postponed the drawing for almost a full day because of an error with one state's lottery system being out of sync.

Any possible irregularities will launch so, so many lawsuits. They run an extremely tight ship to prevent that nightmare scenario.

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SidewaysFancyPrance t1_ja0ppjk wrote

The ticket seller gets a percentage of the win, so it's in their best interests to help resolve this ASAP.

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[deleted] t1_ja1v9f9 wrote

[deleted]

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stoneasaurusrex t1_ja2pkcm wrote

I guess you haven't heard of these cool new things called video cameras. Theyre these cool little things that record images of whats going on in gas stations and other establishments that allows them to check the timestamp info gathered from the ticket to be able to track down who bought it and when.

And luckily gas stations and other businesses no longer need to keep tons of video tapes or even their own hard drives because you can upload this neat video to the cloud to be reviewed later.

Not sure how you seem to be the only one unable to sus that out but there's your explanation

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[deleted] t1_ja36z0y wrote

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thetasigma_1355 t1_ja3aywu wrote

You are also going to have vehicle information in most situations. So if he drove to the gas station, they also have his vehicle info which would be easily verifiable as a vehicle he owns, which he got out of and bought the ticket.

Also the fact that zero other people are claiming the ticket is fairly significant.

And this is all a huge assumption that the camera doesn’t clearly show it’s him.

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washington_jefferson t1_ja3pphz wrote

Oh, I wasn’t talking about this case. The Reggie guy does not exist. I was arguing against the user who said investigators have tons of ways to verify it was certainly a specific person even though they used cash. I was just adding that they could be walking (not sure why everyone keeps mentioning gas stations- normal corner markets are common), and that the camera might show the person looks and dresses like most people in the area.

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stoneasaurusrex t1_ja3eeii wrote

There's tons of ways to verify the info besides seeing someone's face on the camera, theres license plates, you can identify clothing if you wanna go the covered face route, you can check multiple cameras in the area if they say they walked and didn't take a car, and those are just the obvious ways I personally can think of, so I imagine people whose actual job it is to investigate these things has other ways besides the obvious.

The lottery system isn't afraid to do an investigation to verify things it's literally their job, and the fact that not only the lotto winner, but also the convenience store it was sold from gets a cash prize. It's not that hard figure out who's lying about what based on how easily everyone involved would cooperate.

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washington_jefferson t1_ja3nmp2 wrote

I’m just saying there are plenty of street corner bodegas in my area. Cash only for lotto. Many people that buy lotto tickets are poor, and they don’t even have cars. Sometimes there are no neighboring businesses- just old houses that definitely don’t have Ring cameras. Lots of these junkies that buy lotto tickets look the same- baggy clothing, and wearing a hat with a hoodie on top. Probably even wearing sunglasses inside the market no matter the time of day. Basically Jesse Pinkman prototypes from Breaking Bad. No snitching culture is rampant.

Not a big deal though. If you possess the ticket, and you at least match the profile- you should obviously get the money. Any other scenario is just speculation or hypothetical. No entering of a debit pin, no use of a credit card, no license plate, generic profile that matches 70% of the street profile, cash payment- no DNA 🧬!

As for the hold up in payment, there is no disclaimer that says you can’t buy a lotto ticket in cash, while walking, while obscuring your face on camera, and look like a certain profile.

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MaxillaryOvipositor t1_ja0eev9 wrote

You can use debit but not credit. In Colorado, anyway.

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Bouric87 t1_ja1je0m wrote

I don't think it's a legality thing it's just store policy. The profit on selling lottery tickets is only 5.5%. Many credit cards charge more than that as a service fee to the store. It's just a financial decision.

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5zepp t1_ja2yq02 wrote

Most states don't allow credit purchases of lottery products because of gambling addicts going into debt.

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gmen6981 t1_ja0shtp wrote

Here in Ohio it's store by store. Some places allow any method of payment, others are cash only. It's usually the smaller "mom and pop" type stores that require cash because retailers are required to keep a certain amount of cash available in order to cash winning scratch offs etc.....

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Morat20 t1_ja0hlpq wrote

As mentioned in the article -- store cameras if they have it -- I think some of the self-serve machines have cameras and snap stills like ATMs do as well.

Then some simple stuff like --- where you even in that area geographically at the time the ticket was sold, etc. Like if you're Bob from Newark claiming you won a ticket in Sacramento, they're gonna be more skeptical than if you live 6 blocks from the store it was sold at.

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DefinitelyNotAliens t1_ja0ixpl wrote

Cameras. Even if the cameras suck they can look at it and go, 'okay, that is a late model white Accord at time of purchase, you drive one.' Boom. Done. Bob claims he bought the ticket - look over and there's no car of his there, or anyone remotely close.

Debit cards can buy them. Sync transactions, etc.

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fishrunhike t1_ja30eej wrote

Man, banks aren't even known for keeping up with technological advances lol I see local PD posting suspect photos from bank robberies around the region and they're still terrible quality. The cost must not outweigh the costs of losing money in a robbery

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Bodach42 t1_ja064ci wrote

Is it their place to even care shouldn't this be more a police investigation first if there is an allegations of it being stolen and they'd look into it.

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DefinitelyNotAliens t1_ja0ih00 wrote

They vette the ticket winners pretty thoroughly when the prizes are that big. They don't care if nobody contests it. They don't hand over hundreds of millions without confirmation, first.

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Trance354 t1_ja8lb71 wrote

Having been employed at a store where a large jackpot was won, I can tell you that the lottery commission has gone over the footage with a fine-toothed comb.

Did you know the lottery machines have a camera in them? I didn't know, either. They caught one of our employees stealing from customers.

"One ticket for the customer, one ticket for myself..." He charged the customer 2x and said the fees went up.

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Literature-South t1_jaa0w7n wrote

Insane. Also sounds like your coworker was a real idiot. That lie is easily disproven by a simple google search.

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Trance354 t1_jaa9qhh wrote

Old customers. My company was waiting for him to cross the felony threshold, after which he was escorted from the building to a waiting squad car. Misdemeanors can be left off his next job application. Not so much for felonies.

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Literature-South t1_jaaly7g wrote

Unpopular opinion, but that seems pretty unethical to me, regardless of how unethical this guy was. Hurting the guy's ability to support himself or a family for his whole life... Sure he's a piece of shit now, but people change.

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Trance354 t1_jab406c wrote

I don't make the policy.

I also did made sure everyone knew their actions were being recorded. There were 6 more cameras in plain view, all you had to do was look up, and see they were pointed at you.

Also, one of those cameras was how I found out just how far my bald spot went.

"Who's the bald guy?"

"You." -Loss Prevention

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Literature-South t1_jab7fgw wrote

Yeah, none of that addresses the issue I raised.

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Trance354 t1_jadyty1 wrote

There were warnings. LP knew what was going on, and chances to stop were given.

He was restricted to using a specific register, only. If that was in use, he was put to work on menial tasks until that register was available, lines or no lines. In one instance, we pulled the person who was working, audited her till, and brought it back for him to use, while putting the previous employee on a different register.

Cameras were adjusted to have better line of sight of that register. He watched them make the adjustments.

A policy sign-off was circulated having to do with theft, grift, and consequences, as well as the consequences for lottery fraud.

He was essentially told, "We're watching, don't do it again."

Missing all those hints was ... self-destructive, at best? It was this or rob a bank for the rush, I guess.

The warnings might as well have been in neon lights, and he still ignored them.

As for ruining his life? The world still needs ditch diggers.

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igankcheetos t1_jac5una wrote

I think that it is more unethical that they let him bilk more customers by double charging them.

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