Dale Culler, 53, was one of three players who sued the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) after realizing his games were rigged.
He spent $63 on tickets for two 2010 games and didn’t match a number, yet a judge said he was tricked.
After a former colleague interfered with the lotto system, the Burlington, Vermont, insurance salesperson felt deceived.
“While I know the odds aren’t great, I never expected that the games were fixed and my chance was zero,” Dale told the Des Moines Register when he launched the complaint in 2017.
In January, Polk County District Court Judge Michael Huppert let him sue for hundreds of thousands of players.
Lawyers claimed that MUSL did not prevent games from being rigged or follow their own regulations.
The Iowa organization denied wrongdoing but settled for $4.3 million in 2019, according to the Des Moines Register. According to Dale’s attorney Blake Hanson, the gaming giant paid up to avoid costly litigation and trial.
The settlement would refund tickets for nine drawing dates for games sold in 33 states, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C.
Players who purchased tickets between November 23, 2005, and May 23, 2013, can obtain refunds for their faulty tickets.
Administrators can request proof of purchase, such as missing tickets, to avoid fraud.
Ticket value, proof of purchase, and a number of valid claims determine refunds.
The MUSL reportedly gave Dale 30% of the settlement, $1.29 million, for his legal fees, and a $20,000 “incentive award” for fronting the litigation.
Other participants who unknowingly bought tickets for rigged games split the rest. It concludes Eddie Tipton’s decade-long lottery scam at MSLA. He rigged lotto computers and shared the $24 million with family and friends over five years.
Tipton built “random” number-generating software to influence odds. It rigged lottery draws in Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma, lowering Dale’s odds. In 2005, the ex-lotto staffer won $4.8 million with his swindle.
Before being arrested, he won $24 million. In 2010, Tipton bought the winning ticket himself, starting the “Hot Lotto” scandal. Tipton instructed a friend to claim the $ 16.5 million award.
Investigators linked Tipton to the lotto affair after three years.
In 2017, he pleaded guilty to continued criminal conduct and was sentenced to refund $2.2 million in Colorado, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oklahoma lottery prizes.
At his 2017 sentencing, he informed the judge he “wrote software that included code that allowed me to understand or technically predict winning numbers, and I gave those numbers to other individuals who then won the lottery and shared the winnings with me”.
Tipton was paroled last July after serving five years of a 25-year sentence.
