TX woman's $18 Pick 5 play at Retama returns $1.25 mil

[cal828]

Originally Posted by jms62

I think I recall that they singled the races already run.

You are right. There is a big long explanation on Wikipedia that explains what happened, but to cut to the chase, the mastermind of the scam was a senior computer person with Autotote. He altered tickets after the first four races had been run and then went all/all in the last two races on the ticket. His ticket was around $1100. This was not the first ticket that he altered. He also did this with some other bets and got away with it so decided to go for one big score with his buddies. This was the year that Volponi won the Classic and paid $41. Strangely, he was only sentenced to a year in prison while the one bud got a couple of years and the other almost 3. He ratted them out and got a lesser sentence.

[casp0555]

Originally Posted by cal828

You are right. There is a big long explanation on Wikipedia that explains what happened, but to cut to the chase, the mastermind of the scam was a senior computer person with Autotote. He altered tickets after the first four races had been run and then went all/all in the last two races on the ticket. His ticket was around $1100. This was not the first ticket that he altered. He also did this with some other bets and got away with it so decided to go for one big score with his buddies. This was the year that Volponi won the Classic and paid $41. Strangely, he was only sentenced to a year in prison while the one bud got a couple of years and the other almost 3. He ratted them out and got a lesser sentence.

degenerate bastard

[cal828]

Originally Posted by casp0555

degenerate bastard

Certainly that, but also a greedy and a lucky one too. Who tries to steal 3 mil and only gets a year in prison? Of course, he's probably ruined too and he's probably one of those guys you see sifting through the discarded tickets on the floor of some racetrack now, if they even allow him near a race track.