Lottery Insiders Allegedly Knew Winning Tickets in 27 Million Euro Fraud

Italian authorities have frozen more than 28 million dollars in assets belonging to a group of former employees of Lottomatica, the operator of the state-backed Gratta e Vinci scratch-card lottery. The suspects are alleged to have used legitimate login credentials to access company servers and identify winning tickets before they were put on sale.

According to the investigation file, four current employees and two former employees identified four winning tickets between 2015 and 2019. Two of these tickets carried a 7 million euro prize and two carried 5 million euro prizes. The staff also learned which retailers the tickets would be sent to and when they would be delivered.

It is alleged that the defendants directed acquaintances and relatives to these retailers, who then bought the winning tickets in bulk. Two of the tickets were sold in 2015 in the area around Milan and Brescia. The others were bought in Foggia in 2017 and in Cremona in 2019. Most of the suspects lived in Rome.

After the winners collected their prizes, they kept their share and transferred the rest to accounts controlled by the lottery employees. Lottomatica cooperated with the police, and the company is not accused of any wrongdoing.

On October 23, the Lazio regional board of the court-appointed administrator froze assets worth more than 25 million euros belonging to five suspects. These assets include 25 properties in six provinces, five vehicles and a motorcycle, and financial accounts. The state argues that insider use of information removes the chance element from the lottery and that unclaimed payments should not remain outside the public treasury. The defendants denied the allegations during the preliminary investigation, but the prosecution is continuing the case.