# Shocking!: woman claims winning lotto ticket not part of office pool **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 3, 2012, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697 "2012-04-03T15:41:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/21 "2012-04-03T17:13:26Z")
I am parked in front of her house today in an uplink truck. Mostly international press here following her around. I am getting harassed by some helpful neighbor for being here. I love being in the West Virginia part of Baltimore. Trust me I am not here by choice. I will post if I hear anything interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Sally\_Mander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@Sally\_Mander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sally_Mander)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/22 "2012-04-03T17:17:03Z")
> [@2gigch1](#): > > I love being in the West Virginia part of Baltimore. Isn’t that area more like the Detroit part of Baltimore? I thought the West Virginia part of Baltimore was Cecil County. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/23 "2012-04-03T17:22:35Z")
No Brooklyn was actually heavily populated by people from West Virginia during WWII and stuck around after the war. And they have not changed much either. And I am not trying to offend the good folks from West Virginia. In fact I think a case could be made that the folks who stayed in West Virginia were glad this group left. They are that bad. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/24 "2012-04-03T17:37:59Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Based on this, I’d say its a legal mess. They have to figure out which tickets she bought for the office with that last $5. Then see if the winning ticket is in that list. > > Taking office pool tickets home was just… stupid. Depends on your viewpoint. If you’re planning all along to pool other peoples’ money, and _claim_ any winning ticket from that pool “happened to be a personal ticket you bought _outside_ the pool,” and those pool contributors will fall for it, it’s not that stupid…just evil. But isn’t this the single fundamental concern of lottery ticket pools? When creating such a pool, isn’t the overwhelmingly important issue “how will I be certain to get my share and not get cut out of the action by an unscrupulous pool organizer, perhaps dazzled by the sudden opportunity?” I would think distribution of (legible) photocopies **before** the drawing, perhaps backed up by mutual agreement (say, via e-mail) that “everything is in order,” is the _sine qua non_ of putting money into the pool in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/25 "2012-04-03T18:20:00Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Taking office pool tickets home was just… stupid. What else would you do with them? I agree that photocopying tickets everyone getting a copy is important but I wouldn’t leave the actual tickets just lying around the office. Even our secure file cabinets can be broken into with a nail file and 2.8 seconds effort. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/26 "2012-04-03T18:29:07Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > \ > > I would think distribution of (legible) photocopies **before** the drawing, perhaps backed up by mutual agreement (say, via e-mail) that “everything is in order,” is the _sine qua non_ of putting money into the pool in the first place. This is all getting far too complicated. If it were up to me, I’d ban office ticket pools. There is no reason anyone who wants to play the lottery can’t play it on their own dime on their own time and not make messes like this. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/27 "2012-04-03T18:32:14Z")
When I am involved in an office pool I make sure to buy any and all personal tickets from a different location at a different time. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/28 "2012-04-03T18:32:30Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > They interviewed this woman on the news last night. The reported asked “How do you know your ticket was separate?” and she said “caus e’ebody hus dey phouto-copy.” Did she then beg the reporter not to throw her into the brier patch? ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/29 "2012-04-03T18:35:22Z")
No that’s a pretty spot-on Bawlmore accent. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/30 "2012-04-03T18:36:14Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > This is all getting far too complicated. If it were up to me, I’d ban office ticket pools. There is no reason anyone who wants to play the lottery can’t play it on their own dime on their own time and not make messes like this. I don’t participate in any kind of office pools. But I’ll note that football pools are explicitly banned in every office in which I’ve worked, and they usually thrive despite the ban, taking up a certain amount of time and attention during the workday – _despite_ being banned. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/31 "2012-04-03T18:40:00Z")
> [@2gigch1](#): > > No that’s a pretty spot-on Bawlmore accent. Ah. Well if I were her co-workers I’d think twice about messing with Snoop. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/32 "2012-04-03T18:43:33Z")
I’d like them to be banned here, too. There was a huge hullaballoo here, with everyone trying to make me feel guilty for not participating. Which I didn’t. It’s not worth the $2 for me. And then I found out later someone had put $2 in for me. :smack: I am grateful at the gesture, but… ---
**Author:** ![Flutterby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Flutterby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flutterby)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/33 "2012-04-03T18:45:43Z")
When I was in the office pool we had a deadline for getting your money in. Someone could front it for you, but it had to be in the day before the draw so the tickets could be purchased and everyone have copies of the tickets before the draw. If you didn’t have it in, or no one would front you, too bad so sad. We also had print outs of the contract from the lotto website for groups. (Essentially all these people bought in, attached are copies of the tickets and all winnings will be split evenly.) I don’t know if the US has stuff like that or not. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/34 "2012-04-03T19:06:26Z")
> [@2gigch1](#): > > No that’s a pretty spot-on Bawlmore accent. Which would be odd, because when I heard her on the news this morning, I would have sworn she had some sort of Caribbean accent. And Google says she’s a Haitian immigrant, so that makes her accent make more sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![2gigch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/2gigch1/32/3313_2.png) [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/35 "2012-04-03T19:10:03Z")
You are right. I didn’t know that when I posted. However incomprehensibility is a Baltimore trademark, so the mistake is honest. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/36 "2012-04-03T19:18:08Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Stories like this will eventually lead to a informal ban of office lotto pools. > > If I was a manager of a store or company I wouldn’t want my name dragged through the mud. “McDonalds Lotto winner steals winning ticket” isn’t a great headline for McDonalds. I can already see the memos going out within the entire McDonalds organization banning this in the future. And that’s not even half of it! At the company I used to work for, I would have banned them if I thought I could get away with it without an uprising. First of all, you’ve got someone who has to go around and collect the money. All their time doing so, and that of each of the workers they interact with (with additional time taken by inevitable unrelated chatting) - all that time can add up quickly. Then you’ve got all the copies that have to be made, and then distributed. In my company, and in larger companies, this can add up to A LOT of copies on the company dime. Besides the physical resources wasted here, there’s still more time lost by the worker doing the copying and distributing. And if all of the above is weekly, well that seriously adds up! So now it’s lotto night, and you have two possible outcomes. Most of the time, a large amount of your workers just collectively lost a lot of money that could have been used much more constructively. Or, in the rare occurrence, a large amount of your workers just collectively won a whole lot of money, and are now going to be at the very least distracted. That’s if you’re lucky, because many of them might now be quitting their jobs on the spot with no notice, and others may only be sticking around long enough to plan their retirements. Only then do you get into all the legal squabbles and bad PR that may soon follow. Then there’s the poor morale that would result from that and from the other workers who weren’t in on the pool. Yep, even more distractions. I don’t see any benefits to the company, but I do see a whole lot of negatives ranging anywhere from minor nuisance to major clusterfuck. ---
**Author:** ![piepiepie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47774/32.png) [@piepiepie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/piepiepie)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/37 "2012-04-03T19:34:06Z")
> [@Sally\_Mander](#): > > Isn’t that area more like the Detroit part of Baltimore? I thought the West Virginia part of Baltimore was Cecil County. 😉 I take offense to that. :mad: That’s Ceciltucky, thank you very much. That woman is probably lying, but I’ve done something like that before (minus the winning) and just wrote my name on the ticket after I bought it. Right there in the store. Maybe not the smartest solution, but if I won beaucoup money I’d definitely share it. ---
**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/38 "2012-04-03T19:59:46Z")
If she stole it, she’s an incredible dumb ass, since Maryland law allows the winner to collect anonymously. She could have quit, disappeared, collected her winnings and no one would ever have known. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/39 "2012-04-03T20:11:14Z")
I’m the organizer of lotto pools in my department, and we usually have about 15 people participating. I photocopy all the tickets our pool buys and distribute the photocopies to all participating, and I let everyone know I’m taking the tickets home with me. I work in a law firm, and my department has access to the services of several very tough litigators. They and I know that I’d never pull any tricks! ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697/40 "2012-04-03T20:15:28Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I can already see the memos going out within the entire McDonalds organization banning this in the future. Dear McDonalds employees: If we ever hear that several of you have won millions of dollars, you are _so fired!!_ You’ll never work at a McDonald’s again for the rest of your life! Do you hear me?! Never again! > [@Sailboat](#): > > But isn’t this the single fundamental concern of lottery ticket pools? When creating such a pool, isn’t the overwhelmingly important issue “how will I be certain to get my share and not get cut out of the action by an unscrupulous pool organizer, perhaps dazzled by the sudden opportunity?” But the other fundamental concern of lottery pools is when you buy your own ticket and then you win, and your coworkers (whose pool just lost) all claim that you were part of their pool all along. Thus is the danger of the “prove I didn’t go halfsies with you” game. > [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > This is all getting far too complicated. If it were up to me, I’d ban office ticket pools. There is no reason anyone who wants to play the lottery can’t play it on their own dime on their own time and not make messes like this. And if I worked for you, I wouldn’t tell you about the pool I was organizing behind your back. Unless we all won. Then you’d know first thing Monday morning. But like I said above, once your coworker wins hundreds of millions of dollars, there’s nothing stopping you and your loser coworkers from “drafting” her into a pool _ex post facto_. > [@2gigch1](#): > > No that’s a pretty spot-on Bawlmore accent. > [@DiosaBellissima](#): > > And Google says she’s a Haitian immigrant, so that makes her accent make more sense to me. I was shooting for Hatian, but I’ve only got so many vowels to work with, people! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shocking-woman-claims-winning-lotto-ticket-not-part-of-office-pool/617697.md?page=3)