Ky Lottery warns players of scammers

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – The Kentucky Lottery warns people to be on the lookout for scammers.

Tuesday nights Mega Millions jackpot stands at an estimated $654 million and Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot is an estimated $345 million.

According to the Kentucky Lottery large jackpot runs like this bring scammers out in full force.

The Kentucky Lottery nor any other lottery official will call or email you to say you’ve won a game grand prize.

“I always remind people we don’t take your phone number or email address when you buy a ticket, so how would we know to contact you?”, said Polston.

The lottery staff say they encountered a case on Monday where they were contacted by a gentleman asking if he really had to open a second bank account in order to obtain his prize.

“After we started peeling back the story, he told us he’d received a call that he’d won and was instructed to open a second account. We were able to quickly get him to contact his bank to close the account, and he lost no money – but was very close,” said Polston. “And the poor guy admitted he hadn’t even bought a ticket.”

Scammers typically work in one of two ways – they want players to pre-pay “taxes” on a prize before it’s delivered (which never happens), or they request access to bank accounts in order to “wire” prize money. Instead, they wipe the accounts of all available funds.