After learning that the lottery games he had been playing were rigged, Dale Culler filed a claim for $4.3 million. The lottery player joined a group in filing a lawsuit against the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) in Iowa, US. The game manipulation was part of a broader scheme orchestrated by a former IT director of an American non-profit organization.
In 2010, Mr. Culler bought lottery tickets for two games for $63 but came out empty-handed. Because of this, Culler believed the former IT director had tampered with the lottery system. He filed the case in 2017, which was ultimately resolved for $4.3 million in 2019.
The lottery association, popularly abbreviated as MUSL, is a federation of 36 lottery operators, including the Iowa Lottery. The company's leadership has already confirmed that they no longer use the software that Eddie Tipton created. It's believed that Tipton rigged the lottery computers in the company before sharing winnings with his friends and family.
The settlement directs the company to reimburse the price of tickets bought for particular drawing days between 23 November 2005 and 23 May 2013. In January this year, a judge permitted Mr. Culler to ask for damages on behalf of millions of other affected players at the licensed lottery operator.
Mr. Culler will receive a share of the settlement to cover his legal expenses, and the remaining sum will be shared among other affected players.
Tipton was charged with installing external software on the lottery's random number generators (RNG), allowing him to predict the winning numbers for particular dates throughout the year. While he did this undetected for years, Tipton was finally caught on surveillance footage purchasing winning tickets worth $16 million.
The con involved numerous regions in the United States, denying unsuspecting players winnings of up to $24 million. Court records show that the scam affected players in Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. Tipton got 25 years in prison in 2017 after pleading guilty, although he was released in July last year on parole.
The Multi-State Lottery Association asserts that Tipton acted alone and that security measures have since been enhanced. This complaint is the first class action to result from the alleged lottery jackpot rigging.
'Lucky' Larry Dawson also filed a lawsuit after winning a jackpot, feeling the winnings could have been higher if the previous drawing were fair.
