link Police: Woman Used Stolen Card in Lottery 1 hour, 32 minutes ago MEDFORD, Ore. - A woman bought a winning lottery ticket worth $1 million with a stolen credit card and could wind up with nothing if convicted, police said. ADVERTISEMENT Christina Goodenow, 38, of White City in southern Oregon faced numerous theft-related charges, forgery and possession of methamphetamine, said authorities, who searched her home Thursday. The card belonged to a deceased relative, they said. If convicted of any of the charges, Goodenow will not be able to collect prize money from the winning ticket, said police Lt. Tim George. Oregon Lottery officials refused to discuss specifics of the case because an investigation is still under way. "I'll be fascinated to see how this shakes out," Lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann said. "In my 12 years with the Oregon Lottery, this is the first time I've encountered something like this." Goodenow purchased the winning ticket Oct. 9 using a credit card that had belonged to her mother-in-law, who died more than a year ago, police said. Goodenow traveled to Oregon Lottery headquarters in Salem on Oct 12 to accept an installment payment of $33,500. The $1 million grand prize is paid out over 20 years. Detectives began tracking Goodenow on Wednesday after learning that she had used the credit card to purchase several items, including the ticket. A search warrant served at her home Thursday turned up some methamphetamine, but little money, George said. "Our investigation is still trying to determine what happened to the $33,500," George said.
Yeah, my immediate thought when reading this was "wait...you can buy Lotto tickets with a credit card?...since when!?"
Most credit cards have a 4 digit code you can use to get cash at ATMs too, either way it is the Texas Lotto computer system that doesn't allow them to ring up lotto tickets to a credit card payment (I think).
I have bought lotto tickets with credit cards before. you're not suppose to be allowed to do it, but it all depends on how the sale is entered. If a store doesn't have a true inventory system, they can ring it up as a "$2 grocery item", bill it to your card, give you the ticket and then at the end of the night use cash to pay out the lotto tickets.
Which is illegal, if you have a store that knowingly does that they could easily lose their rights to selling Texas Lotto/Lottery items. But, usually those small stores do all kinds of "shady things" to keep revenue up. When I was growing up the store down the street from my house was run by a vietnamese family, and always charged tax on non-taxable items like milk, bread, etc. You had to tell them "hey, there is no tax on this" and they'd go "oh, I'm sorry hit the wrong button" but they would do it everyday, regardless of how many times you've been there... and most people never noticed. They would also sell stuff from other stores, like kroger brand canned goods and items that were labeled "not for individual sale"... classic.
