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[A] VTDigger investigation published in April revealed a pattern of unlikely lottery wins by retailers and their relatives. Total payoffs for some individuals have reached into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Collectively, at least 117 retailers won nearly $1.8 million.
For reporter Katy Savage, tracking down those winners didn’t come easily. The Vermont Lottery Commission would name the towns, but not the stores, where prizewinners purchased their tickets. So Savage took to the phone, calling multiple lottery outlets near the locations of major claims, and connecting those wins to retailers.
Eventually, a second set of data, along with relationship mapping from genealogy websites, allowed her to confirm what she’d already determined: that dozens of Vermont Lottery winners were clocking statistically improbable sums.
The results led to an immediate response from the state. Gov. Phil Scott tasked Daniel Rachek, the director of the Vermont Lottery, with reviewing the system’s integrity. Scott told VTDigger this week that he’s reviewed an initial version of Rachek’s report.
“Are there improvements we could make? I believe there are,” Scott said. But he said the findings did not reveal apparent wrongdoing. Meanwhile, legislators are calling for a separate investigation led by a new, proposed department that would manage both liquor and lottery sales.
On this week’s podcast, Katy Savage talks about the year-long process of determining when lottery winners may have benefitted from more than luck.
