Man Wins State Lottery 5 Weeks In A Row

[matcom]

:wow:

<snip>

MADISON, Wis. -- When Jeffrey Hintz won the state lottery's second-chance drawing five weeks in a row, some people in state government got a little suspicious.

Turns out, Hintz just got lucky, an investigation has concluded.

Investigators with Wisconsin's Department of Revenue found no signs of fraud in his five-week winning streak in March and April.

Hintz and his wife, Lisa, have won almost $73,000 in cash prizes from the state lottery since 1999. More than $65,000 came from drawings.

But the couple's good fortune in the lottery's weekly second-chance drawing raised suspicions of fraud and prompted Rep. David Cullen to request the investigation.

Given how many tickets they were sending in for the drawing, the odds of their winning five times in a row were 1 in 14,397, auditors said.

Jeffrey Hintz told auditors he spent thousands of dollars on lottery tickets every week and countless hours stamping envelopes with the lottery's address so he could enter losing tickets in the weekly drawings. He submitted entries in his wife's name, too.

People are allowed to enter the drawings as often as they want, but each entry must include at least $5 worth of tickets. That means Hintz was sending in at least $2,500 in tickets a week, and postage alone would have cost $185 a week.

"It doesn't necessarily surprise me that that someone would be that lucky," Cullen said. "It surprises me that someone would (enter that often). They're spending a lot of time and resources on the lottery."

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/4764780/detail.html

[derby378]

1. Drinks on his tab, bartender!

Salud!

[rooboy]

2. I won't hear ONE WORD of criticism for those Diebold Lottery systems...

:)

[northzax]

3. he's spending that much?

so is he up or down for the year?

[brainshrub]

4. How much do you want to bet that this guy will blow all his winnings

on more lottery tickets.

I don't like the lottery: It legally entitles the state the encourage irresponsible behavior among it's citizens.

[RPM]

5. he spends thousands each week on lottery tix?

:wtf:

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. That's not "luck", that's tipping the odds.

Not to mention amazing stupidity, if he's been spending $2,700 a week since 1999 to win $75,000...

[zbdent]

7. I bet that he really doesn't "spend" that much money on lottery tickets

when you consider how often you can find abandoned lottery tickets lying in the corners of vacant lots in almost any location.

In the early 1990s, the Ohio Lottery commemorated an anniversary with having a promotion where you could send in X number of non-winning lottery tickets per envelope - X number of winners would be picked each week.

Watching me, a co-worker ridiculed me for picking up bunches of "instant-win scratchoff" tickets that people just tossed aside.

Until I got the notice that I had won $1000 from the "second chance" drawing . . .

My take is that this guy did something similar. With those odds, I could see how his chances were greatly increased . . .

BTW, they didn't repeat this promotion - there was a scandal where the people making the selections didn't mix up the mail - they just drew an envelope off the top of the mailbag . . .