Lottery security guard charged with stealing lottery tickets

Friday, June 02, 2006 posted 11:56 AM EDT

BOISE - An Idaho Lottery security officer is in jail today, accused of stealing from the agency he was hired to protect.

Twenty-year-old Christopher Martin of Emmett is accused of stealing from the Lottery Commission.

Idaho Lottery administrators say Martin was working as an on-site security officer at the lottery headquarters. He hadn't been on the job long when he allegedly walked away with lottery tickets.

As a security officer contracted to patrol the Idaho Lottery headquarters, Christopher Martin's job was to ensure tickets and the processing of those tickets was protected, but lottery administrators say instead the 20-year-old used his access to steal scratch tickets.

"He took a pack of Disco Duck $1 scratch tickets, scratched them and then cashed them in at various locations in the greater Treasure Valley," spokesperson David Workman said.

Martin is accused of taking the tickets to 11 different convenience stores and supermarkets -- cashing them in for a total of $144.

"He scratched out an entire pack,” Workman said. "He looked like he went through the whole pack and then cashed in every single ticket that was a winner.”

But every lottery ticket has a tracking number, so it's possible to know when and where each one is sold.

Because this was a promotional pack of the Disco Duck scratch game being passed, Workman says the Lottery Commission knew almost immediately this was an inside job.

"When the ticket was being cashed in we knew that the red flags went off that this was a ticket that was not actively in play in any of our retail stores,” Workman said.

Workman says it didn't take long to track the tickets back to the commission's contract employee, who was arrested and charged with petite theft and passing a lottery ticket obtained illegally.

"It's definitely not a winning bet to steal lottery tickets in Idaho," said Workman.

If convicted, Martin could serve five years in prison and have to pay up $25,000 in fines.

This is a first-of-its-kind case.

While it's not unusual for lottery tickets to be taken from retail stores

This is the first time an employee has been accused of stealing from the commission itself.

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