Bar Owners Swindle Regular Out of Lottery Winnings

A husband and wife are facing three years in a Valencia prison after swindling the equivalent of $12 million from a lottery winner in Spain. 

The only details regarding the husband and wife are that they own a bar in Pedralba, which is near Valencia. 

The names are unknown. They’ve been ordered to pay the victim back funds. 

This is the latest international casino/lottery-related crime following a Singaporean casino dealer being sent to prison. 

Victim Details

Like the criminals, the victim’s name hasn’t been released. We do know that the person was a regular at the couple’s bar, and she purchased the lottery tickets from them on March 12, 2017. She purchased three for Spain’s Loteria Nacional Father’s Day drawing. She handed them to the owners for safekeeping, a common practice by those who attended the bar. 

In purchasing tickets, the victim always bought three—two with the same numbers and one random. 

One of the numbers was 39,813. These digits were also chosen by the bar owners and one of their friends. Another regular also chose those numbers and left the ticket with the owners for safekeeping. 

Background on the Jackpot

It’s worth noting how the jackpot there works. 

Loteria Nacional draws are based on tickets with five digits from 00000 to 99999. That produces only 100k combinations, so each number is printed several times across several “series.” Each series has a unique number, like the Powerball in the United States Powerball game. 

To win the jackpot, the ticket needs to match along with the series number. If you match the ticket but not the series, you still win, but it’s a smaller prize. 

How the Criminals Got the Victim to Agree

The drawing was on March 18, 2017. The 39,813 came up, and all of those tickets won. However, the victim in this case had the correct series number. 

When the bar owners realized, they called her to the bar, locked the door, presented the three tickets, and pretended not to know which one was hers.

So, the owners insisted they split the money. The victim was confused and agreed. 

The owners then had a lawyer draw up a contract discussing the split. 

However, the judge in the case ruled that the victim was “led to believe that she did not know which ticket was the winner.”