A man has won a multi-million dollar lawsuit after he discovered that the lottery games he played had been rigged by a former IT director of the company. Dale Culler was part of a larger group that took legal action against Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) after they found that the lottery game they bought tickets for had been tampered with.
Mr Culler spent $63 (£50) on tickets for two games back 2010, but lost out on the prize. He believes he was cheated because an ex-worker had manipulated the system in order to win it himself, the Mirror reports.
Mr Culler, along with a team of others, sued the lottery company back in 2017 and eventually settled the case for $4.3million (£3.46million) two years later. The settlement covered the cost of tickets bought by the group between November 23, 2005, and May 23, 2013, for specific drawing dates.
A judge also allowed Mr Culler to seek damages on behalf of hundreds of thousands of players in January. Mr Culler will receive a portion of the settlement to cover his legal fees, and the rest will be divided among other affected players.
The lottery scam was set up by MSLA's former IT director, Eddie Tipton, who tampered with the lottery computers to predict the winning numbers, before sharing his prize money with family and friends, as reported by Des Moines Register. He was accused of using a type of software on the random number generators, which allowed him to work out what numbers would come up on specific days of the year.
His crime was uncovered after he was captured on surveillance video buying a winning ticket worth $16million. Several states were affected by the scam, with Tipton winning a total value of $24million (£19.2million).
He pleaded guilty in 2017 and and served five years of a 25-year jail term before being released on parole in July of last year. The Multi-State Lottery Association claims that Tipton acted alone and that security improvements have been implemented since the scandal.
This lawsuit is the first potential class action to arise from the jackpot-rigging allegations, with another lawsuit filed by 'Lucky' Larry Dawson, who won a jackpot but believes it should have been larger if the prior drawing had not been rigged.
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