{"id":923420,"date":"2024-11-08T06:03:09","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T11:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/bar-owners-conned-lottery-winner-out-of-12m\/"},"modified":"2024-11-08T06:03:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T11:03:09","slug":"bar-owners-conned-lottery-winner-out-of-12m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/bar-owners-conned-lottery-winner-out-of-12m\/","title":{"rendered":"Bar Owners Conned Lottery Winner Out of $12M"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A husband and wife from Spain who schemed to swindle a lottery winner out of over \u20ac11 million (US$12 million) have been handed a three-year prison sentence by a judge in Valencia.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_335414\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-335414\" data-style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-335414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Spain-Lottery-858x483.jpg\" alt=\"Loter\u00eda Nacional, Spain, Pedralba\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Spain-Lottery-858x483.jpg 858w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Spain-Lottery-430x242.jpg 430w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Spain-Lottery.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-335414\" class=\"text-description\">Spanish lottery tickets use a quirky number system that was exploited by two bar owners in order to deprive their victim of \u20ac11 million. (Image: Maspalomas)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The victim, also unnamed, was a regular at the couple\u2019s bar, which was where she purchased her weekly lottery tickets. On March 12, 2017, she bought three tickets for Spain\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/spanish-lottery-good-samaritan-faces-prison-for-fraud\/\">Loter\u00eda Nacional<\/a> Father\u2019s Day draw and handed them back to the bar owners for safekeeping, a common practice among the regulars.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Quirky System<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout\">\n<p>Unusually, Loter\u00eda 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 \u201cseries.\u201d Each series has its own unique number \u2013 which essentially acts as a bonus ball.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Coerced into Split<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>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\u2019s ticket had the right series number for the \u20ac14.8 million (US$16 million) jackpot. The other two tickets won \u20ac130K each.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout\">\n<p><strong>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.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The couple had a lawyer draw up a formal agreement outlining the four-way distribution of the prizes, which was signed by the victim.<\/p>\n<p>After convicting the couple of fraud, the judge ruled the victim had been \u201cled to believe that she did not know which ticket was the winner\u201d and was entitled to the full prize.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyers for the victim criticized the length of the case, which lasted six years, as \u201cremarkably excessive\u201d considering its \u201clow complexity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/bar-owners-conned-lottery-winner-out-of-12m\/\">Bar Owners Conned Lottery Winner Out of $12M<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\">Casino.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A husband and wife from Spain who schemed to swindle a lottery winner out of over \u20ac11 million (US$12 million) have been handed a three-year prison sentence by a judge in Valencia. Spanish lottery tickets …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wds-media.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}