The leader of a conspiracy that netted millions of dollars by fixing lottery drawings in multiple US states has admitted his guilt for the first time.

On Thursday, Eddie Tipton, a former computer information security director for the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), appeared in an Iowa court to plead guilty to a single count of ongoing criminal conduct as part of a plea deal struck with prosecutors.

Tipton told Judge Brad McCall that he “wrote software that included code that allowed me to understand or technically predict winning numbers, and I gave those numbers to other individuals who then won the lottery and shared the winnings with me.”

Starting in 2005, Tipton installed a ‘rootkit’ device on the MUSL’s random number generator that led the machine to deliver pre-programmed numbers on select days of the year. Tipton enlisted the help of his brother Tommy and Tommy’s friend Robert Rhodes to cash millions of dollars’ worth of winning tickets from the rigged draws in five different states.