Joe Mahr – Page 30 –

Scratch-off lottery tickets, some with handmade signs advertising unpaid prizes, are shown at Mare's Mini Mart & Deli on Chicago's Northwest Side. A Tribune investigation found the Illinois Lottery collected hundreds of millions of dollars from selling tickets to its biggest-prize instant games in which it did not award all of the grand prizes.

Lottery’s scratch-off payouts got little state oversight

June 14, 2024 at 6:46 p.m.

The director of the Illinois Lottery was dumbfounded. In June 2013, Michael Jones had just learned the firm hired to manage the lottery wanted to stop selling a scratch-off he...

State lawmakers call for investigation into lottery after Tribune report

May 22, 2019 at 10:50 p.m.

State lawmakers from both political parties are calling for an investigation of how the Illinois Lottery managed scratch-off games in response to a Tribune report showing the lottery didn't award...

Jim Carter, 41, questioned why many of the large grand prizes for scratch-off games were not awarded during Northstar Lottery Group's management of the Illinois Lottery. "There has to be accountability for that," the veteran lottery player said.

Illinois Lottery’s biggest scratch-offs didn’t award 40% of grand prizes, Tribune finds

June 8, 2018 at 6:01 p.m.

It was called The Good Life and offered the biggest grand prize of any instant game the Illinois Lottery had ever produced. Two lucky winners could scratch their way to...

Placing grand-prize tickets in instant games is an elaborate process

June 8, 2018 at 6:19 p.m.

The private firms that manage and stock the Illinois Lottery with instant tickets say nobody knows where the winning tickets are. There is no way to manipulate the games, they...

Roy McCampbell, middle, walks with attorneys Craig Tobin, left, and Sean Sullivan through the lobby of the Hon. George N. Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012.

Retired Bellwood official agrees to slash pension to avoid risk of prison

May 22, 2019 at 10:47 p.m.

A former suburban comptroller official has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in a deal that will significantly reduce his pension but avoids the chance he'd go to prison. Roy McCampbell...

Numbers are selected during an Illinois Lottery drawing in July 2010 at WGN-TV studios in Chicago.

Rauner appoints new lottery director from Vermont

May 22, 2019 at 10:34 p.m.

Gov. Bruce Rauner has appointed a Vermont lottery official to oversee the Illinois Lottery. Greg Smith will join the agency that became the first in the nation to turn over...

Then-state Rep. Ron Sandack participates in a legislative hearing on the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative at the Bilandic Building in Chicago on Oct. 9, 2014.

Ex-state Rep. Ron Sandack resigned after ‘inappropriate’ online talks, extortion scheme

August 21, 2019 at 8:09 p.m.

When a top ally of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner abruptly resigned this summer blaming fraudulent social media accounts and politics getting "too ugly," there was much head-scratching, eyebrow-raising and theorizing...

Former city Comptroller Joseph Letke was a central figure in a notorious deal that sent millions of taxpayer dollars to a developer to supposedly turn a dilapidated truckers motel beside a strip club into a Holiday Inn with a regional conference center.

Ex-Harvey comptroller linked to failed hotel deal found dead

May 22, 2019 at 10:25 p.m.

Authorities said a one-time south suburban political operative appears to have committed suicide in southern Indiana amid a lingering investigation into his role in a notorious development deal in Harvey....

Harvey school board member charged with sexual assault

May 22, 2019 at 10:23 p.m.

A Harvey school board member and longtime city employee has been arrested on allegations he sexually assaulted a woman in the south suburb's City Hall on Friday. Tyrone Rogers, 59,...

Illinois seeks new private firm to run troubled lottery

June 11, 2018 at 9:21 p.m.

After a widely criticized first attempt at privatization, the Illinois Lottery has formally begun the process to try it again. Gov. Bruce Rauner announced Thursday that the state was opening...

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