Man Charged With Rigging Iowa Lottery

This story was published more than 7 years ago.

This week Iowa law enforcement officials ended up charging a former vendor with rigging the random number generator for the state's lottery, allowing him and his associates to win prizes over the course of several years.

Eddie Tipton was charged and convicted of rigging the lottery, taking home a $16.5 million jackpot in Iowa, and he is also awaited trial for similar charges in Kansas, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma. Also arrested was Tipton's brother Tommy Tipton, who rigged Oklahoma and Colorado jackpots for $1.2 million. The older Tipton rigged the games by tampering with the random number generators, allowing him to know which numbers would be selected ahead of time.

Despite the charges, authorities were unable to get ahold of any of the generators, as the evidence had been destroyed. That changed this week , when Wisconsin lottery officials were able to obtain a RNG that was used in 2008 to rig the Megabucks jackpot in 2008 and was held by Robert Rhodes.

Authorities allege that the crime ring rigged six wins between 2005 and 2011.

The younger Tipton has posted bond and has been released, although his position as a justice of the peace had to be resigned when his brother was originally charged.

Casino Listings will update this story as more developments arise.

About the author

Dustin Jermalowicz // News Editor
Dustin Jermalowicz
Dustin has a long-standing passion for gambling. He has been writing professionally on the subject and breaking industry news for Casino Listings since 2011. His favorite casino games include Blackjack, Poker, and Hi/Lo. A proud native of Detroit, Dustin currently lives in Michigan.
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bgsharpe
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13 April 2016 - 9:47pm
#1

Quite a family 🙂
Hopefully they will get what they deserved and it should be a lot of spare time in prison because the fact that those generators had been destroyed speaks clearly and unequivocally that they are guilty. Hopefully the authorities will find a proofs for that.

lvblck
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14 April 2016 - 10:00am
#2

Wow I am quite surprised they did this all, this is really bad and not honest to other true players. This is some greed.