Mums the Word, but Inquiring Minds Want to Know!

Fortunately there are now "safeguards" in place to deter future Tipton-like random-number-generator malfeasance . . at least "until the next time"!

I hope it was a good settlement for him because it seemed he had a sound case had it gone to trial.

The MUSL I'm sure settled for reasons that litigated precedence would have not worked in the Industry's favor.

Caveat Emptor is your only friend.

Good Luck.

Congrats to Larry.

Larry is lucky, l mean when was the first time you had a lottery player double dipping. He initially won $6 mil, complained that it should have been a lot more- and then they settled. The players in general from my POV, got screwed. How so you ask? Well first off, the Musl " settled" the previous lawsuit- same game awhile ago where a couple million dollars was to be spread out to the playing public, well as it turns out ONE player along with the attorneys made off with the lion's share of that settlement, and then we got Larry, making off  with a settlement we are told " is none of our business." That would never fly out here. Where is the " transparency " the lotto loves to blow their horn about? Anyways, that's my 3 cents..

When I read the article yesterday, I thought there was more to the story because Larry validated his ticket before Shaw made his infamous appearance at lottery headquarters. There were a few other cases where winners sued over unclaimed jackpot prizes, but those results for some reason are seldom published. By sealing the exact details to the Dawson settlement, it will be difficult for anyone to use that as a precedent.

Why was Tipton's software not analyzed by multiple third parties before being put into use? Why was one guys software put into place, unquestioned and unchecked?

The people who chose Tipton to write the software had responsibility to oversee and vet the product they were getting from Tipton, yet they did not do that. It's like the honor system was used. It's crazy when you think about it. The guy was just given blind trust to create and implement the software.

Also the fact that it wasn't their personal/business money it made no difference financially to the people who represented the MUSL. It kept everything behind closed doors as a trial would be public record.

"it seemed he had a sound case had it gone to trial."

He didn't have bad case, but it wasn't a great case, either. If the prize had rolled over more tickets would have been sold between the rigged drawing and the one that he won, and that means there's a chance (that can be calculated accurately) that somebody would have won in between the drawings, and that could have resulted in his prize being smaller rather than bigger.

We may never know because the settlement terms are confidential, but if the lottery was smart that was probably a factor in the amount they settled for.

"By sealing the exact details to the Dawson settlement, it will be difficult for anyone to use that as a precedent."

Except for other incidents where the circumstances are extremely similar a court ruling wouldn't result in any meaningful precedent anyway. I imagine the lotteries were hoping that there are very few future cases with similar circumstances much more than they were hoping to  avoid any kind of precedent.

"Why was Tipton's software not analyzed by multiple third parties before being put into use?"

That's a great question. While we may not have a "real" or official answer I think we can very safely blame it on high level stupidity. I understand providers of commercial software wanting to keep their code secret, but there are a lot of things where that shouldn't be allowed if they want to sell their programs for use by government agencies. It doesn't take bad intent or a lot of intelligence to recognize that software for things like lotteries and elections could very easily be written to favor the interests of the people writing the code. That government agencies would simply  pay for the software and run it with no questions is unconscionable. Unfortunately it's not also surprising.

He was the only legitimate winner so the whole jackpot should have been his.

Right. That thinking is often found in the jungle. For instance Lions do not tolerate Hyenas & African painted dogs hunting in " their" territory. They & they alone should be the predators, which is why lions will kill them on sight, after all- they are the only  "legitimate" players in that vast field..

Did Larry sleep with your wife and run over your dog?

Any time an individual player extracts a settlement from a lottery entity, or prevails against one in court, it's a win for all players. Does it matter that Larry's claim is a bit of a stretch? MUSL is paying for their sheer stupidity regarding Tipton.

What the frell are you on about Willis? l was talking about the distribution of the so called settlement.