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Powerball Scandal: Is The Game Rigged? [Video]

By Toni Matthews
Published on: 20:26 PST, Jan 9, 2016

The Powerball jackpot just hit $1.3 billion dollars. The previous jackpot was a record-breaker by itself, promising over 900 million to the lucky Powerball winner(s). But this? This new Powerball jackpot is in a league of its own.

For the first time in history, this game could crown a billionaire.

Needless to say, the excitement is at a fever pitch. Even people who otherwise dismiss the Powerball game as a “tax on the poor” are shrugging their shoulders, saying “one ticket couldn’t hurt.”

But beneath all of the excitement and imagined plans for one’s life if they miraculously buy a winning ticket is a major scandal that almost everyone seems to be ignoring: That is, that multiple individuals are tied up in a Powerball fixing scandal.

Consider the following information as carefully as you’ll be considering your Powerball numbers: The Washington Post published a story yesterday that mentioned a five-year investigation into Powerball rigging that saw a security expert (irony, much?) sent to jail for a decade for fraud.

Even more interesting, the Associated Press reports that Charles Strutt, the “executive director of the association since its 1987 founding,” was stripped of his duties in October and placed on “indefinite leave” for his perceived failure to prevent the lottery-fixing shenanigans.

It’s incredible when you think about it. You have a multi-year investigation into Powerball jackpot fixing that resulted in at least one man going to jail and a top man associated with the lottery game being booted out of his position….and yet no one seems to be waving any red flags.

This news hardly garnered any attention outside of the Washington Post. Knowing that people are capable of fixing the Powerball game and that there’s quite possibly a method in place to keep it from being fair should make everyone save their money – or, at least, invest in a scratch-off ticket.

Why is it that despite the astronomical odds and a Powerball jackpot fixing scandal that we can count on tens of millions of tickets to be sold this week? You could probably blame it on the fact that the hundreds of millions of dollars available to a Powerball winner brings out something almost whimsical in Americans. Hardly anyone really buys a Powerball ticket expecting to hit it big.

Instead, they buy a Powerball ticket or two and dream about what they’d do if by some miracle they had the winning ticket. Then they return to their ordinary lives when someone else wins.

For those thrown by the scandal, they may choose to feel comforted by the repeated assurances of top lottery officials that Powerball drawings are “highly regulated.” Pennsylvania Lottery spokesman Alan Zieglar said, “The Pennsylvania Lottery has developed high-standard protocols, which are modeled by lotteries across the United States and around the globe.”

“By aggressively protecting the integrity of drawings, players are assured the fair outcome they expect and deserve.”

That’s quite the statement despite the Powerball fixing scandal, one which implicated lottery outcomes across multiple states. The situation could represent one of many that Powerball officials aren’t even aware of.

We can only hope that the Powerball scandal will encourage lottery officials to more carefully monitor these drawings in the future and the individuals that step forward to claim a chunk of the big prize. Of course, a more sensible alternative is to by-pass deceit and disappointment altogether by refusing to participate in the Powerball game. That’s only logical. Well, as already explained, playing the lottery is more or less an emotional impulse than a logical one.

Did you know about the Powerball jackpot-fixing scandal? If so, will it interfere with your desire to try and win the $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot? Share your thoughts below!

[Image via Upupa4me via Flickr | Cropped and Resized | CC BY-SA 2.0]

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