BOSTON, July 31 (UPI) -- Massachusetts lottery officials knew for years some gamblers took advantage of a game's flaw but initially did nothing, the state inspector general said.
State Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan's report detailed how a handful of syndicates -- including Massachusetts Institute of Technology students looking for a student project -- turned playing Cash WinFall into a nearly full-time business, spending $40 million on tickets during a seven-year period and winning an estimated $48 million, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.
Lottery officials were willing to bend the rules to allow the players to buy hundreds of thousands of the $2 tickets, the report said.
The report said one lottery supervisor asked in an e-mail: "How do I become part of the club when I retire?"
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State Treasurer Steven Grossman, who oversees the lottery and stopped the game this year, said Monday the department should have acted sooner, the Globe said.
"I feel it is important to essentially apologize to the public because a game was created that allowed syndicates to gain special opportunities that others did not have -- using machines themselves, partnership with lottery agents, using them after hours. We're sorry some gained unfair advantage," said Grossman, who asked for Sullivan's investigation.
The inspector general recommended no further action be taken, determining lottery officials didn't benefit personally from the syndicates' actions. Sullivan said ordinary gamblers still had a fair chance at winning Cash WinFall, even though the more sophisticated gamblers had a higher rate of profit.
The Globe reported last summer that a few gamblers, skilled in math and probability, found a flaw in Cash WinFall soon after it was introduced in 2004 that allowing them to make an almost guaranteed profit so long as they bought enough tickets at the right time.
