Lottery fraud

[4] During the 1960s, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's early petty criminal activities included selling fake lottery tickets.

Authorities noticed that an improbably large number of lottery retailers in Ontario were winning major prizes, from $50,000 to $12.5 million.

Evidence emerged that certain retailers were failing to inform customers of their winnings when they presented their lottery tickets in-store, and then fraudulently claiming prizes for themselves.

[7] An investigation found evidence of widespread insider fraud among lottery retailers, including collusion with employees and family members.

Perry's accomplices then purchased a large number of tickets around the state corresponding to the predicted draw results, enabling them to claim approximately $1.8 million in prize money.

[14][17] In 2009 an employee of Camelot — the company that operates the UK National Lottery — conspired with a member of the public, Edward Putman, of Kings Langley in Hertfordshire, to claim a jackpot prize using a bogus ticket.

The employee, who worked in Camelot's fraud department, found a way to forge lottery tickets bearing winning numbers.

He bought a ticket with winning numbers and claimed a prize of $3.76 million, but eventually he was caught and sentenced to life imprisonment.

[4][23] In Vietnam, lottery fraud has occurred on many different scales, from small to large, causing great damage to the state and the people.

David Baldacci's 1997 novel The Winner follows an impoverished young woman who is approached by a mysterious man that offers to arrange for her to win a $100,000,000 national lottery on the condition that she leaves the United States and never returns.

[34] In Class Warfare (2001), two high school students plot to murder a classmate to gain possession of his winning lottery ticket.