[T]he head of the Senate has proposed an amendment that would require the commissioner of the new liquor and lottery commission to conduct a review of the state’s lottery following a VTDigger expose that examined winnings that were “just too lucky.”
The amendment to H.571, which merges the liquor and lottery commissions into one body, was proposed by Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden. It would require the yet-to-be-named commissioner to review a number of findings central to a VTDigger investigation published on April 29.
“You generally don’t want to legislate by news story,” Ashe said in an interview on Wednesday, “but the issues raised in the story definitely have the effect of undermining the confidence about how things are being administered.”
The amendment asks the commissioner to investigate whether a disproportionate number of winning tickets were purchased by owners or employees of convenience stores, or their immediate family members.
It also asks for a review of the sales, fraud prevention and security practices of each lottery agent to determine whether “those practices are sufficient to preserve the integrity of the Lottery and to avoid the occurrence or appearance of illegitimate winnings by the owner or employee of the agent” or their immediate relatives.
A written report on the findings would be due on or before Oct. 1.
Daniel Rachek, the director of the state lottery commission, and Sabina Haskell, the commission’s chair, both shrugged at the findings of the initial investigation.
“If you estimate how much we gave out in value in that time period, I don’t think we’re talking about a high percentage,” Rachek, the former top FBI agent in Vermont, said of the remarkable success of some store owners, clerks and their relatives.
Several store clerks won more than $200,000 from scratch tickets.
“That doesn’t strike me as odd,” Haskell said of the findings.
Ashe said the apparent lack of concern from lottery leaders was part of the reason why he believed an official review was necessary.
“The reaction from those who are responsible for managing the lottery did not seem particularly concerned about restoring whatever bits of trust are lost by the story,” Ashe said, noting that the responsibility would fall on the person appointed to the combined body.
“It will be a fresh set of eyes and ears on the integrity of this system, rather than the incumbents,” Ashe said.
“Maybe there’s some good answer, in the meantime I think the story has had the effect initially and will continue to have the effect of reducing some of the confidence in the way the system is being administered,” he added.
Gov. Phil Scott has also called on Rachek to “verify and confirm the integrity of our Lottery is intact” in response to the investigation.
“Vermonters who choose to play the lottery in support of our education fund have a right to know it is fair,” Rebecca Kelley, the governor’s spokesperson, said in an email Monday.
Rachek did not return two voicemail messages requesting comment on Wednesday and previous calls this week. Lottery staff in Barre told a reporter who stopped by the commission office that he was not available to meet in person.
The Attorney General’s office said on Wednesday that they were waiting for Rachek to respond to the governor’s request before taking any potential action.
VTDigger’s investigation, published on Sunday, found that at least 117 retailers, or those close to them, had won a major lottery prize — defined as $600 or more, between 2011 and 2016. Collectively, they won nearly $1.8 million.
In addition, employees at 29 convenience stores claimed more than $1.4 million in prizes from stores they worked at, or formerly worked at, or from neighboring outlets. At least five of the state’s 25 most prolific winners over this stretch were current or former convenience store employees or owners.
While there has been at least one case of an employee being prosecuted for gaming the system by inflating bottle redemption receipts to buy lottery tickets, in most cases VTDigger did not find direct evidence of wrongdoing.
A number of states, however, ban store employees from purchasing tickets to remove the temptation of cheating. A nationwide project by PennLive sought to explain how certain individuals were gaming the system.
In some jurisdictions, cashiers were ringing up sales for popular items like beer and gasoline as lottery purchases and then grabbing a corresponding amount of tickets. Other players were found to be cashing claims for others to help them avoid paying child-support judgments or other government debts that would wipe out their winnings.
One woman, Penny Durant, made at least 111 claims worth $500 or more from 2011 to 2017 and won more than $300,000 during a period when she or family members worked at stores in and around Hardwick.
In the case of Durant and others, the odds of their repeated winning was so low that it seems something more than good fortune was at play, according to experts who reviewed lottery data compiled by VTDigger.
“It’s just too lucky,” University of California-Berkeley statistics professor Phillip Stark said of the winning ways of Julie Messier, who won at least 30 instant tickets of $500 or more from 2011 to 2016.
Stark found that Messier and everyone else in Vermont would have to spend $363,000 to have even a one-in-a-million chance of winning as often as Messier did.
“It’s not very likely you’ll get a big prize,” said University of Toronto statistics professor Jeff Rosenthal. “Winning $100 more than once is very unlikely.”
Some of Vermont’s most successful players have claimed at least $1,000 on numerous occasions.
Xander Landen contributed reporting.