By “identical”, I mean the timestamp, location, and any other identifying information on the ticket is identical. The buyer paid cash and there is no other way to trace the buyer’s identity. (Clerk doesn’t remember, no photographic records from the store)
Since the lottery records would show only one ticket was sold, it’s probable that someone is trying to commit fraud by cloning a winning ticket. Let’s play this out as a hypothetical, I’m not planning or advocating actual fraud.
Both parties show up with the winning ticket (signed by themselves) and are eligible for the full winnings. But since the counterfeit is an identical match, it cannot be proved which party holds the original winning ticket.
I suppose the lottery commission could simply split the prize, but then half of someone’s prize would be stolen. That’s not good PR. I can’t imagine they would pay out double the grand prize, yet how could they not?
Well the ticket would be hard as hell to fake. But lets assume that they had a matter converter and made the exact ticket.
Good police work could figure it out. Finger print parts of the store the person claims to have been. Unless the counterfeiter already thought of this of left traces of him in the store.
Or have them both submit to a polygraph, if they want the money. I guess they would both have to agree to opt into that.
So other then good police work and looking for evidence of the person there I can’t see another way. If the tickets are atom for atom identical. I suppose you could see who was more “prepared” to have the money as guilty but that would not stand in court.
I mean you would have to copy the ticket exactly! They can look at it under a microscope and see what drum of paper it came out of and trace that back to the box, etc. Just having the barcode and timestamp right will not do. Paper is made as long sheet of paper miles long that is then cut up. Forensics people have been able to look at a paper and been able to trace it back to the source as the grain in paper is like snowflakes its always different when you get down far enough like fingerprints
I’d assume that it would be in the lottery commission’s interest to spare no expense to determine which ticket is (or is both tickets are) fake, since their income depends on public confidence in the reliability of the system.
Well, that and public ignorance of math.
Anyway, if there are two winning tickets in “Pick-6” type lotteries, they typically split the prize.
$52 a year is one thing, but if you’ve ever been stuck in a convenience store on a Friday night you know the average lottery player spends a lot more than a dollar a week on those things.
If the box of paper rolls from which the winning ticket originated was used up and sold as tickets to anonymous buyers, how do you get a known sample of the original winning paper so you can differentiate the counterfeit?
If the box of paper rolls were not used up, maybe the counterfeiter took a piece of unused paper from that box and printed his clone on there?
If a box of blank ticket paper from the same batch is sufficiently close, perhaps the counterfeiter (intentionally or by chance) also used the same batch?
I realize if the previous or next ticket from that same roll could be identified by timestamp and located, one could match up the tears in the paper. But suppose these tickets had been purchased anonymously and discarded. The authorities cannot recover those tickets for analysis.
Further suppose there was no identifying information found in the store as far as fingerprints, identifying images, eye-witnesses, etc. Both parties pass the polygraph. What then?
I realize the policy for two winners is to split the prize. In that case, the lottery has a record of two winning tickets being purchased. In this hypothetical, there is a record of only one winning ticket, which I believe is a key difference. The lottery often announces how many winning tickets had been purchased, especially for large prizes. If they announce 1 winner and 2 identical winning tickets show up, what do they do??
Wouldn’t it be a shame if the winning party smudged or covered those prints by handling the ticket? Or, if the clerk was wearing gloves or finger cots. Let’s also check the tickets for the clerk’s DNA in case he sneezed, drooled, or jizzed onto the ticket, too. Hey we got a DNA match! …but just with the winners. Wouldn’t you jerk off onto a million dollar ticket, too?
Sorry, you’re right. I’m just thinking it would kind of suck if you were the legitimate winner and someone else showed up with another winning ticket. They tell you sorry, the other guy’s ticket has the clerk’s fingerprint and yours is kinda smudged, so you get $0.
I think the problem here is that your question changed. It started out as, there’s NO WAY to tell the difference, period. What do they do with the money. Then it turned in to ways to figure out which one is fake. You’re sort of asking the unmovable object VS unstoppable object question.
I guess I’m okay with speculating on how easy it is to detect the winner. The OP paragraph does state the clone is “identical” and there is no way to determine which is the original. However, the title sentence does not state this and SDMB threads historically ignore the OP text in favor of the OP title.
It seems the OP hypothetical has not been answered, but it’s early. In the meantime, we’ve hit the usual lottery-thread tangent of “public ignorance of math” and recovered nicely.
If we want to get into the specifics, I suppose you could imagine the winner brags to friends and the counterfeiter learns of it. Counterfeiter is extremely tech savvy. Winner signs the ticket and shows it off. Counterfeiter is one of the people who sees it, and scans it surreptitiously for data and smudges any fingerprints on it before returning the ticket. Counterfeiter programs a lottery printer to produce a clone ticket, signs it and turns it in.
Of course a savvy counterfeiter could also arrange to get the clerk’s fingerprint onto the clone ticket. This did not require Star Trek replicators nor did it require unmovable / unstoppable objects that defy the laws of physics as far as I know.
Yes, I know by supplying specifics, I’ve turned this into a game of “beat the OP”. Yes, I have opened myself up to this.
You will undoubtedly want to “a-ha!” me by claiming a police detective determines the winner had bragged to the counterfeiter, thereby unraveling the plot. Or the detective somehow proved the winner had showed the ticket to the counterfeiter (even though it could have been done in private).
I remember hearing about a case where a woman came in to buy one lottery ticket right before the store closed. The cashier accidentally printed out six tickets with the same number. The woman only paid for one and, rather than cancel out the rest, the cashier put the $5 in and kept the idential tickets.
Guess what numbers came up that week? You got it.
The cashier tried to cash in all five tickets, claiming he had the right to 5/6 of the jackpot. The woman took it to the courts, who decided each should get 1/2 (a decision I did not agree with).
I think the legitimate winner, if he/she suspects foul play, hires a lawyer and private eye and cuts them in on the winnings to pay for the investigation.
Maybe the tickets are identical, but someone who can counterfeit a ticket probably can’t hide everything else required to produce it (machinery, underworld contacts, body language, stupidity, etc.)
In other words, counterfeiting a ticket is one thing, counterfeiting everything else that people would look at seems pretty difficult.
I must inquire, how did the fraudster get the original ticket in hand to duplicate it? If he stole it, why ever give the original back? If he did not steal it, that means the original buyer is either in on it or has to know when it was faked because he had to have loaned it to the fraudster in the first place. Or did a wizard dio it?