BALTIMORE — A newly released report from the Office of Legislative Audits raises concerns over potential collusion between Maryland Lottery winners and agency officials or vendors.
Speculation comes from a fiscal compliance audit of the State Lottery and Gaming Control Agency that spanned from January 2017 to October 2020.
Auditors found that the agency failed to investigate hundreds of instances where a single player won several big money prizes over a one-year period.
The report reveals that 362 different players won 20 or more times each during 2020 alone.
Eight of them won 200 or more times, earning nearly $4.5 million.
The auditors say they could not determine whether any of the winnings were illegitimate.
Investigators were unable to gather data showing the number of times those winners played the lottery, or the amount of times they may have lost during that time frame.
Either way, the auditors recommend that the agency "review patterns of winning tickets to identify where they were sold and redeemed, and attempt to identify relationships between winners and other high quantity winners, lottery retailers, and [agency] vendor employees."
The report also highlights six other findings, which include allegations of nepotism within the agency, and a lack of Video Lottery Terminal testing.
Read the full audit below.
