A husband and wife from Spain who schemed to swindle a lottery winner out of over €11 million (US$12 million) have been handed a three-year prison sentence by a judge in Valencia.
The couple, who have not been identified by Spanish media other than by the detail that they own a bar in Pedralba, a small town near Valencia, were also ordered to pay the misappropriated funds to the victim in restitution.
The victim, also unnamed, was a regular at the couple’s bar, which was where she purchased her weekly lottery tickets. On March 12, 2017, she bought three tickets for Spain’s Lotería Nacional Father’s Day draw and handed them back to the bar owners for safekeeping, a common practice among the regulars.
Quirky System
The victim would always buy three tickets, two of which would have the same number each week. 10,123 and 12,396. The third would always be a random number.
This week she chose 39,813, which happened to be the same number picked on a joint ticket by the bar owners and one of their friends. In addition, the same number was chosen by another regular at the bar, who also entrusted their ticket to the owners.
Unusually, Lotería Nacional draws are based on tickets that have five-digit numbers, from 00000 to 99999. Since this model only produces 100,000 unique ticket numbers, each number is printed multiple times, in several “series.” Each series has its own unique number – which essentially acts as a bonus ball.
To win the big jackpot (el gordo), players need to match their ticket number and the series number with the balls drawn. Tickets that match the winning number but fail to match the series (bonus) number win smaller prizes.
Coerced into Split
The draw took place on March 18, 2017, and 39,813 was a winner for all four players at the bar. However, only the victim’s ticket had the right series number for the €14.8 million (US$16 million) jackpot. The other two tickets won €130K each.
The couple called the victim and asked her to come to the bar. When she arrived, they locked the door so no one else could enter and showed her the three winning tickets, according to court filings.
Although they realized she had won the jackpot, they claimed the tickets had been mixed up, and it was impossible to know who the real winner was.
The couple insisted that the fairest solution would be to split the prize four ways. Confused, the victim agreed. The couple then contacted the other two winners, who were unaware of the scheme, to inform them the prize would be split.
The couple had a lawyer draw up a formal agreement outlining the four-way distribution of the prizes, which was signed by the victim.
After convicting the couple of fraud, the judge ruled the victim had been “led to believe that she did not know which ticket was the winner” and was entitled to the full prize.
Lawyers for the victim criticized the length of the case, which lasted six years, as “remarkably excessive” considering its “low complexity.”
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