News writer
After buying a batch of scratch-offs in Oklahoma, a business in Pennsylvania won $5 million in a single day, causing some concern over “lottery tourism,” according to Oklahoma News 4. So far, it's unclear whether the scheme was fraudulent, but it appears to be a sophisticated, targeted series of wins that zeroed in on elevated odds and jackpots.
The wins
According to News 4, an entity called Friendly Enterprise LLC collected $5,028,000 from 20 Deluxe Gold scratch-off tickets in Oklahoma on August 8. The haul consisted of 18 winning tickets worth $1,000, one ticket worth $10,000, and a batch of $100 Limited Edition Deluxe Gold tickets which led to a single $5 million grand prize.
The Limited Edition Deluxe Gold game is active for a limited time. Players can check online to see what prizes are left, and they have 90 days after the game's end to claim their wins.
The odds of winning the $5 million jackpot are 1 in 246,102.
What is “lottery tourism”?
On August 8, only 15% of tickets remained in the game, while $5 million in prizes were unclaimed, according to News 4. If the LLC made these calculations and noted the higher-than-usual odds for the high jackpot, they may have been intrigued to purchase the tickets in bulk in Oklahoma.
In a similar recent example, a Philadelphia LLC called Breezy Legs claimed $1.3 million on a local scratch-off in June, then, weeks later, a $1 million prize, according to News 4.
Idaho's lottery commission told News 4 that Breezy Legs visited “every corner of Idaho looking for available tickets.” They called the phenomenon “lottery tourism,” which is scanning the country for lottery opportunities with slightly higher odds.
The LLC
This isn't Friendly Enterprise LLC's first rodeo. Pennsylvania Lottery records show that Friendly Enterprise LLC won $10,000 and $1.2 million in its home state last year, and $125,000 in June, according to News 4.
Friendly Enterprise LLC was tracked to a 78-year-old Shi-Tao Yeh, a retired statistician. His son, Andrew Yeh, told News 4 that Friendly Enterprise, a computer LLC, hasn't been active since it went under in the 1980s, and that his father didn't know what was going on. And so, the mystery deepens.
You have to be there
Someone has to be physically in Oklahoma to buy tickets for a state scratch-off. There are no online lottery ticket purchasing options in the state. You can, however, claim large prizes by mail. The LLC entity, which is based in Pennsylvania, could have someone on the ground in Oklahoma to buy the tickets.
Bulk buying as a matter of course
In addition to statistical reasoning, bulk buying is usually a key part of lottery tourism schemes. In 2023, three Europeans bought 27 million tickets in Lotto Texas in less than 72 hours, spending $25 million. They won a $95 million jackpot. It wasn't certain that they'd broken any rules - though they had used sizable means and planning prowess.
Famously, in the 1990s, an accountant named Stefan Mandel figured out that purchasing lottery tickets in every combination would ensure a jackpot win, and the bulk buy would cost less than the prize, in some cases. He was able to win the lottery 14 times.
Where are the guardrails?
It seems like a simple fix: put a cap on ticket purchases, or else the lottery games experience could be diluted for everyone except shadowy millionaire entities. Public trust in the lottery is critical for the game's longevity.
In Arizona, Fast Play ticketholders can't spend more than $50,000 tickets in a day, for example. After Mandel and the Texas debacle, it seems strange that this isn’' the top priority for lotteries across the country.
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