A state legislative audit of the Maryland lottery found that the same eight people are winning over and over, and since 2020, these individuals have won the lottery 2,305 times with winnings totaling $4.5 million.
And these numbers are only from prizes over $600 because the state does not collect personal information on prizes under this amount.
Of course, we're talking about the state-level games here, not national games like Powerball, but it's definitely suspicious. Plus, there seems to be an art in Maryland of hiding one's identity behind giant checks, probably to keep family and friends from finding out about the winners' good fortune, but now it's looking like it could be to keep lottery fanatics and the authorities from catching on to the repeat wins too.
The audit also revealed that the State Lottery and Gaming Control Agency had some irregular practices: their systems did not use two-factor identification and they were also not cross-referencing winners' identifications.
The audit came up because there was an allegation of nepotism in the agency, and it did in fact turn out that the agency had favored contracting and violated ethics laws. The report only suggests that this issue was related to salary and contracts, not that nepotism was involved in the suspicious winnings.
Obviously Maryland citizens are upset about the news. Christine Moore of Catonsville said,
"I want to know how did they cheat and do it because you have so many people who haven't won once."
The eight people involved are currently being investigated.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they might want to start by looking for the guy wearing the golden hat.
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