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Lottery worker caught on surveillance trying to jack the jackpot

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An Iowa lottery worker is set to stand trial this summer for allegedly gaming the state’s Hot Lotto game in an attempt to fraudulently collect a $14.3 million jackpot.

Eddie Raymond Tipton of Norwalk, Iowa, was arrested in January and was charged with two counts of fraud, according to a statement from the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation. He was scheduled to stand trial for the charges on Monday, but the trial has been pushed back to July at the request of Mr. Tipton’s defense team, according to media reports.

Mr. Tipton was security director for the Urbandale, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, and was not allowed to play the lottery as an association employee, according to an affidavit posted online by the Iowa public safety department. Surveillance camera footage showed him purchasing a winning Hot Lotto ticket at a Des Moines, Iowa, store in December 2010.

Mr. Tipton allegedly created a computer program that controlled the winning number selected in Hot Lotto’s drawing, according to reports. He was identified by a lottery association employee after the Iowa Lottery released surveillance footage in October 2014 in order to find out the identity of the winning ticketholder, the affidavit says.

Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich said in a statement last week that the lottery and the Multi-State Lottery Association have introduced updated security procedures in light of Mr. Tipton’s case.

“There will always be someone trying to beat the system,” Mr. Rich said in last week’s statement.

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