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Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

money.cnn.com

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Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#111

Post by [deleted] »

Swizec wrote: post #66
ransom1538 wrote: post #53

Ok. Do these guys that commit white collar crime not know how a passport works? If you have millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts WHY are you in the US? Why are you buying estates and testing out a new bmwI8 and spilling champagne all over? Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? wtf. Even the guy running silk road was hanging out in SF now lives in a 4x6…

> Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? Why don't people in poor countries just move to better countries? Why do people stay in the rust belt instead of moving to the coast? Why do people on the coast whine about rent instead of moving inland? Leaving everything you know is hard. To quote a famous quote > I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same pl…

[deleted]

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#112

Post by cm2187 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #99
cm2187 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a country really wants to get you, there aren't many safe places in the world. The terrorist Carlos got abducted by the French intelligence service. Eichmann by the Israeli services. There are less famous cases (like the Kalinka Bamberski case). What's interesting in that in all of those cases, these illegal means of grabbing the suspect abroad didn't invalidate the case against him and in all of those examples…

We're not talking about terrorists or Nazis here. Do you really think we'd be sending Seal Team Six to get some guy who scammed the lottery? He didn't even catch federal charges.

Against a Madoff perhaps, yes. But the point is rather that the FBI probably doesn't need to respect the rules outside of the US.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#114

Post by anonacct37 »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #38
rdtsc wrote: post #7

> "It's difficult even saying that with all the people that I know behind me that I hurt." It is interesting to think about who he considers he hurt. The potential winners who relied on lottery winning to secure a future for their families? The lottery workers? He is a criminal surely, but isn't the whole lottery system a tax on lack of education and it just gives false hope to people and encourages gambling. He redu…

While I support the idea that lottery and gambling is for 'entertainment purposes only', if one never buys into the lottery, they can never obtain the winnings. Buying exactly one ticket per drawing at least places one in the pool of potential winners, despite the odds being rather long. Although the expected value is still minuscule, it's an unquantifiable improvement (since we can't divide by zero). And before you…

The expected return is not minuscule.

It's a reasonably sized negative number.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#116

Post by humanrebar »

kibwen wrote: post #75
temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I support the idea that lottery and gambling is for 'entertainment purposes only', if one never buys into the lottery, they can never obtain the winnings. Buying exactly one ticket per drawing at least places one in the pool of potential winners, despite the odds being rather long. Although the expected value is still minuscule, it's an unquantifiable improvement (since we can't divide by zero). And before you…

> Although the expected value is still minuscule, it's an unquantifiable improvement (since we can't divide by zero). This isn't how it works, because the expected value, in monetary terms, is negative once you factor in the cost of the tickets. Statistically, it is a quantifiable unimprovement. That said, lots of activities have negative expected monetary value, like going to the movies, or going bowling. And it is…

> Statistically, it is a quantifiable unimprovement.

What's the probability that someone on SSI will be a millionaire before they die?

What's the probability that someone will become a millionaire by playing the lottery?

Which is a larger probability? It's possible that many people aren't as dumb as we think.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#117

Post by jwhitlark »

arcanus wrote: post #58
ransom1538 wrote: post #53

Ok. Do these guys that commit white collar crime not know how a passport works? If you have millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts WHY are you in the US? Why are you buying estates and testing out a new bmwI8 and spilling champagne all over? Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? wtf. Even the guy running silk road was hanging out in SF now lives in a 4x6…

I've also always wondered this. But people seldom run. I think Snowden had seen enough of the sausage being made to realize that hiding in the USA was impossible, given the security apparatus' capabilities.

Part of it is the psychology of it. The fraud triangle is opportunity, rationalization, and pressure.

Many people have convinced themselves that they're not doing anything wrong, or that they deserve it. If you're not doing something wrong, why flee?

Others get greedy. I had an accounting professor who used to say, "If you're going to steal, steal big and steal once."

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#118

Post by foldr »

cm2187 wrote: post #112
School-Cotton wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about terrorists or Nazis here. Do you really think we'd be sending Seal Team Six to get some guy who scammed the lottery? He didn't even catch federal charges.

Against a Madoff perhaps, yes. But the point is rather that the FBI probably doesn't need to respect the rules outside of the US.

The FBI don't operate outside the US. It would be the CIA if anyone.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#119

Post by Spooky23 »

ransom1538 wrote: post #53

Ok. Do these guys that commit white collar crime not know how a passport works? If you have millions of dollars stashed in bank accounts WHY are you in the US? Why are you buying estates and testing out a new bmwI8 and spilling champagne all over? Why not get on a plane go to Morocco (a country with an extremely complex extradition process)? wtf. Even the guy running silk road was hanging out in SF now lives in a 4x6…

Good luck. It's pretty difficult with the various capital controls in place to get lots of money out of the US without attracting attention.

The Governor of NY was run out of office and nearly prosecuted when some bank compliance officer when transferring a few thousand bucks to a escort service.

Re: Ex-lottery worker who rigged winnings gets 25 years in prison

#120

Post by twothamendment »

lazerpants wrote: post #22
huebnerob wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially with a frankly embarrassingly poor attempt to place distance between himself and the payouts. He picked his own brother and a close family friend? Might as well have walked up to his boss every other week with a spot of feigned surprise and a new jackpot winning ticket to cash out, figuring they could direct deposit it along with his paycheck. Really makes you wonder how many moderately intelligent people…

As a thought exercise, what do you think the minimum distance between the cheater and the payout would need to be in order to avoid detection?

I don't know if distance matters. Let's say he found the perfect stranger who agrees to this. I think the bigger problem would be how do they exchange $7,000,000 in a way that nobody will notice?
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