¡Lotería!

As the name of the blog series implies, today we’ll be discussing a topic I’ve been monitoring closely. It’s been the hot topic for the past few weeks as whose potential outcomes have divided the nation.

I’m talking about the Powerball drawing of course.

Yeah, yeah, I guess we could talk about the United States Midterm Elections, but after weeks of non-stop advertisement and harassment I think we could all use a break. Besides, as I write this the results aren’t all in yet so we’re doing the fun topic, Managing Editor’s prerogative.

Well, less fun now as I sit behind a respectably small pile of discarded non-winning tickets and a half empty Diet Pepsi, my face a taut grimace and hands white knuckled as I offer my congratulations to the Internal Revenue Service on yet another Lottery win. They’ll be taking home a nice cool $1.242 billion of some poor guy’s lottery winnings. $758 million less poor now but I digress.

There was a bit of mayhem early on that delayed the night of the drawing from proceeding due to a security issue, but Minnesota State Lottery officials downplayed the issue stating, “After unprecedented lottery interest, Minnesota’s sales verification system caused a processing delay on Monday, Nov. 7. The delay was necessary to confirm the Powerball drawing could be conducted securely and accurately. At no time was the integrity of the process compromised.”   

Reassuring news for those worried about the process, I mean with how advanced our security has become it’s probably been a long time since someone managed to cheat the system anyway.

2010 you say? Tried and retried for multiple frauds most recently in 2017 and sentenced to 25 years you say? Well, if you’re Eddie Raymond Tipton I guess you’re not playing the lottery again for a while. He did manage to commit at least three other successful lottery frauds before being caught, so I guess the lesson is not to be too greedy if you’re getting away with it. Or it could be to not have a direct connection to people winning the money, or maybe not telling people you work with how obsessed with root kits you are before you use one to hack a state lottery.

Cybersecurity concerns aside there’s also how the other half of security fits into the equation. Namely, if you’ve just won several hundred million dollars, you’re going to want to hire some physical security. A couple body guards, maybe that smart home security package you can now definitely afford. You’re going to want to do that because you definitely have a few cousins who don’t like you, and they probably like money a lot.

All I can say is that if the lottery winner is reading this, invest wisely, live happily, and if this humble blog provided you with any important insights, feel free to send a tip. Or a brand-new midsize sedan.

I’m not picky.