Eddie Tipton’s fraud sparks Colorado Lottery player lawsuit

Lottery fraudster Eddie Tipton may be behind bars, but his shenanigans are still giving his former lottery bosses multi-million-dollar headaches.

On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that Boulder resident Amir Massihzadeh had filed a lawsuit against the Colorado Lottery, claiming that the jackpot he scored in 2005 would have been significantly larger were it not for Tipton’s illegal antics, which forced Massihzadeh to split a $4.8m jackpot with two other winners.

To refresh your memory, Tipton (pictured) was the former head of computer information security for the Multi-State Lottery Association, a position he used to secretly install software on a lottery mainframe that produced specific sets of winning numbers on specific dates, allowing Tipton and his co-conspirators to collect millions of dollars in illegitimate jackpots in five different states.

Tipton’s scheme unraveled when the group tried to claim its largest score, a $16.5m Iowa Lottery Hot Lotto win in 2011. Surveillance footage ultimately revealed Tipton buying the ticket and investigators traced Tipton’s connections to multiple lottery wins claimed by his brother Tommy and their mutual friend Robert Rhodes. In August, Eddie Tipton was sentenced to 25 years in prison.