A Washington and Lee University professor has carried out his threat to challenge the Virginia Lottery. Business professor Scott Hoover is claiming in a lawsuit that millions of dollars worth of scratch-off tickets were sold even though the top prizes had already been won.

Attorneys for Hoover, who threatened legal action in early June, filed suit against the state on Friday in Richmond Circuit Court. They asked that the state-run game give back $85 million to gamblers who bought tickets that had no chance of winning the promoted top prize.

"The lottery markets and designs these tickets so that they all focus upon the top prize and promises the purchaser some chance to win it," but, over the past five years, "the lottery has regularly refused to pull tickets from at least 60 game orders after the final prize has been claimed," according to the suit filed by Roanoke lawyer John Fishwick Jr. on Hoover's behalf.

In response, Paula Otto, executive director of the lottery, said Scratcher buyers can be confident that they always have a chance at the big money.

"We don't have any games out there that don't have a top prize," she said.

Otto said 85 percent of Scratcher games end as soon as the top prizes are claimed, and any unbought tickets are removed from stores. For the remaining 15 percent of the games, the lottery has in the past sent additional tickets to stores before the top prize was claimed. However, because it was possible that the top prize could be won before the additional tickets were sold, the lottery dropped the replenishment system in July 2007, Otto said.

After Hoover's threat of legal action, the lottery double-checked its tickets and found only about 2,000 Scratchers for sale that held no chance of winning a top prize, Otto said. She said those tickets were immediately removed. For an agency that sells more than $700 million worth of tickets yearly, the number of defective tickets "was really very, very small," she said.

In his suit, Hoover claims the lottery has sold 36.8 million tickets when no top prize was available. At least 26.5 million of those tickets "had no prize at all to recoup the price paid" for the ticket, he said.

Hoover is asking the court to put $85 million in a fund and set up a claims procedure for ticket buyers to seek reimbursement.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com.