California gas station manager allegedly kept winning lottery scratchers

Jan 13, 2015, 8:45 pm (38 comments)

California Lottery

The former manager of a San Bruno gas station has been charged with cheating people who purchased California lottery scratchers after he figured out a way to secretly check which tickets were winners.

He would then sell the losing tickets to gas station patrons.

Most people who bought the scratcher tickets probably never noticed something was odd, but one customer did notice her ticket had been tampered with.

At the bottom of the ticket there were markings as though someone had scratched it with a pin or other sharp object.

It's what the California Lottery Commission calls "pinning," a way retailers can secretly check whether tickets are winners or losers, and then keep the winners and sell only the losing tickets to customers.

The California Lottery Commission sent undercover investigators to the gas station and the manager sold them four more altered tickets.

"We've had theft of lottery tickets, we've had a variety of manufactured, but this is the first time we've had this new thing called 'pinning' of a lottery ticket," San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe told KTVU.

Wagstaffe said the gas station manager, 27-year-old Shoiab Muhammed Mustafa of Pacifica, was arrested November 17th. He faces five felony counts of computer fraud and a misdemeanor charge. Investigators said he stole at least $300.

While it is not a large sum of money, they do not know when the alleged fraud might have been started or how many people might have been victimized.

"Think of the fraud that exists out there if we don't crack down hard on this. We'd have people out there who are taking total advantage. We don't know the extent that was done by this defendant Mr. Mustafa," Wagstaffe said.

KTVU reached the gas station owner Reza Mahmoodi, who says Mustafa was let go after staff checked surveillance cameras inside the store and saw some suspicious behavior. He had been an employee about one year prior to his arrest.

The Lottery Commission said the business will be allowed to continue selling tickets, since the investigation did not reveal any wrongdoing on the owner's part.

The defendant Mustafa told KTVU by phone that he had no comment and would have his defense attorney respond to any questions.

Wagstaffe said this case reveals a potential need for state lottery officials to better safeguard the scratchers.

"What they need to do is to change the system so that the ability of the people who deal these tickets, to see, 'Hey, do I have a winner or a loser?' is eliminated. They need to be as much in the dark as anybody else," Wagstaffe said.

Mustafa has been released from jail and has a court date set for January 15th.

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San Francisco Chronicle

Comments

Sherita's avatarSherita

'Another one bites the dust!'Rant

Enigmas

thats an old '27'...

maringoman's avatarmaringoman

Thumbs Up good job California lottery. I used to love watching that show "To catch a lottery thief" by Chris Hansen. Lots of Asians and Middle Easterns were getting busted. I think NY Lottery denied him permission to do NY episodes because NY is a hotbed of....um..never mind Shifty

TnTicketlosers's avatarTnTicketlosers

Another peice of scum of the Earth

HaveABall's avatarHaveABall

Ah, this man found a way to be cleaver and deceitful at the same time.  May this man embrace living an honest lifestyle, instead, for the remainder of his life.

Note.  Why only $400 received from this cleverness, had it been short-term? Thinking of...

noise-gate

Quote: Originally posted by maringoman on Jan 13, 2015

Thumbs Up good job California lottery. I used to love watching that show "To catch a lottery thief" by Chris Hansen. Lots of Asians and Middle Easterns were getting busted. I think NY Lottery denied him permission to do NY episodes because NY is a hotbed of....um..never mind Shifty

I Agree!..This State does not screw around when it comes to nailing these underhanded Owners or store clerks.Chris Hansen had a " Great Time" out here, l miss those shows myself M.

rubync's avatarrubync

amen

RedStang's avatarRedStang

They should of had one of the undercover investigators scratch a 100k winner in front of dum dum and watch his reaction.

Stack47

All that for just $300. I guess he thought he would not get caught.

lottolaughs's avatarlottolaughs

Yeesh, the more of these stories I read, it makes you wonder if there's one honest lottery retailer left in the country!

Buy from the machine when you can! Until someone starts "rigging" those too, I guess.

mjwinsmith's avatarmjwinsmith

Quote: Originally posted by lottolaughs on Jan 14, 2015

Yeesh, the more of these stories I read, it makes you wonder if there's one honest lottery retailer left in the country!

Buy from the machine when you can! Until someone starts "rigging" those too, I guess.

They can load the machines with losing tickets you know, so not safe there either.

 ~Michael

mypiemaster's avatarmypiemaster

Since the Cal Lottery were aware that their scratchers are subject to "pinning", because of their weak-ass security, why didn't they rectify it?. Both the thief and the lottery, are equally responsible. You leave your keys in the ignition, with the doors wide open, chances are somebody will try to steal your vehicle.

Ron5995

At least the instant ticket seller had to put some effort into it. Was a time in Pennsylvania, and presumably in other states that used similar systems, the ticket serial number was plainly visible - no scratching needed / no security codes. All the ticket seller had to do was enter that number, and the terminal would tell them if it was a winner. It became a widespread and publicized problem. Eventually, most lotteries switched to tickets with additional, covered security codes (and later, the entire serial number), which had to be scratched off, for them to be validated.

Sad to say, there are many shady lottery retailers. Buying from machine can be safer, but isn't infallible. A sure way to detect instant ticket fraud is to look at the three digit number of the ticket in the pack (000 to high as 299; higher denomination packs have less; some few as 20 tickets) - they should be in sequential order (ascending / descending doesn't matter) with no skips. If there are skips, that's a possible sign of tampering. Question the transaction and/or report the ticket seller to the lottery.

A minor exception to be aware of is playing from a machine with the same ticket loaded in more than one slot. The machine may switch over to the other pack prematurely, if the number of tickets requested exceeds what's remaining in the current pack. A work-around is to buy less tickets than what's remaining to avoid the issue. For example, if I'm seeking to buy out the current pack, which is also loaded in another slot, and I know there's 10 tickets left, I'll buy 8 (leave a fudge factor, since sometimes the first / last ticket may be missing / not dispensed) and then one at a time until the machine switches over to the next pack. This is not always necessary depending on how the tickets were loaded, but I've occasionally run into this issue.

Gleno's avatarGleno

Another unscrupulous retailer caught  in the act of cheating players.

Disapprove

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