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Lottery Losers Lottery Winners Strange

Store clerk sees opportunity, ends up in prison

It’s a typical scene:  customer comes in convenience store and hands the clerk a lottery ticket from the previous day’s drawing to see if it is a winner.  Clerk says it is not a winner, and customer is not all that surprised.  But what if the ticket was actually a big winner, and the clerk just keeps it and claims the big prize?  That is what happened recently to a man in Baton Rouge.

The store clerk, Melissa Trahan, told him the ticket was no good. 

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Prank fake lottery ticket

There are fake scratch-off tickets that you can buy and give to an unsuspecting victim. Of course they are all “big winners” until they read the back of the ticket and see that it is a joke.

As much as I love a good prank, I think this is just going too far. It’s sad to see this girl so happy to win $50,000, knowing as you watch it that she is just being pranked. She took it well though.

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Lottery Losers

Richie’s Randazzo’s counterpart

Remember Richie Randazzo?  He’s the guy that used to work as a doorman in New York City – until he won the lottery, kept his job, got a little lazy about showing up, and got fired.

Ray Otero can’t stand to hear that story.

Otero is the building superintendent at an apartment complex across the street from where Randazzo used to work.  Randazzo, the guy that won, hardly spent any money on lottery tickets.  Otero, on the other hand, spends $500 to $700 per week. 

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Lottery Losers

Another lottery winner goes to prison

Thomas Turnour won $10 million in the California SuperLotto game.  Unfortunately, becoming wealthy doesn’t prevent you from doing stupid things.

Turnour was driving his pickup truck, drunk, and smashed into the back of a car that was stopped at a red light.  The impact of the crash pushed the car into two other vehicles, and three people were killed.

Turnour pleaded guilty gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, and also to the charge of causing injury while driving intoxicated.  He was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison.

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Lottery Losers

From Lottery multimillionaire to federal prisoner

Rhoda Toth’s life has been like a roller coaster.

First, she won $13 million in the Florida Lottery.  Then she behaved seemingly without benefit of the thought process; she and her husband filed false tax returns for several years to avoid paying federal income tax on the winnings (Toth’s husband, Alex, has since passed away).

When charged with the crime, Toth was determined to have no assets.  The only electricity she had was from an extension cord hooked to their car engine (how does that even work?).