*
Hey.
Is everything in here onion-like,
bacon-esque or cheese-ish?
(clerk clears throat)
Ever seen one of these things before?
Yeah, it's a TV, Pops.
You can read all about it on the Interwebs.
Why read when I can watch?
GIRL (sighs): Lame.
Have a nice night.
(door opens, bell chimes)
MAN: Nobody move! Nobody move!
Nobody move!
- Don't move, man. Don't move! - Behind the counter-- go.
Nobody here!
Not the money; the Change Your Life
scratch-offs-- all of them!
Lottery tickets? There. There.
Watch him, man.
(unzipping bag)
Hey! Eyes forward!
Damn it!
Come on, man! Keep it together, guys!
Okay, okay! Hey.
(gun cocking) Gun!
Come on! Come on! (shotgun blasting)
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God, he shot...
(shotgun blasting)
Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
Let's go! Let's go! (bell chimes)
(dialing number)
(phone line ringing)
CLERK: Yeah, I've been robbed.
Yeah, I shot one of them.
I think he's dead.
Just hurry, okay?
(crickets chirping)
(door opens)
"Grow a ponytail."
(chuckles) Yeah.
I found an old wish list.
Whose? Steven Seagal?
(chuckles)
No, I wrote this, uh...
when I just got out of college.
All the things I wanted to do with my life.
All the dreams and aspirations of your father's youth,
as scribbled on a flyer for a Donovan concert.
"See Easter Island."
"Take a cooking class at Cordon Bleu in Paris."
Yeah.
"Date Barbara Eden"?
Genies were very hot back then.
You know what's weird?
That I wanted to learn how to play the banjo?
- What's not on the list. - What?
Own a vintage home.
Play golf at Augusta.
Have kids.
Well, you know, priorities change.
I mean, when you're young,
your, uh... your life is about adventure
and, uh, mystery,
and if you're lucky, uh,...
- Love? - I was going to say sex.
- That's a wish? - Well, come on, I was only 21.
I wasn't in a rush to get married and have kids.
Well, it's too bad life doesn't follow lists.
Ah, maybe not back then, but...
I feel I have a second chance now.
Yeah, you're actually going to do all those things?
- Why not? - Grow a ponytail?
I'm working on it.
You'd better be careful.
You know, my girlfriend's coming back from Portland.
Yeah? She can have you when I'm done.
Hey, baby, come here.
Let me look at you.
I felt you were gone forever, huh?
Oh, me, too.
So...?
Trial just took longer than we thought.
Yeah, huh?
Well, shouldn't we get something to eat, maybe?
I just want to get out of these clothes
- and have a warm bath. - Yeah.
I think I can help you on both those counts.
Yeah? (phone rings)
Oh, just...
- I know that ring. - All right, I think
I just need an hour.
Eppes.
The water's getting cold.
LIZ: Four armed robbers stormed in,
demanding lottery tickets.
DON: All right.
- Take anything else? - Nothing.
Even left cash in the register.
Pulling the surveillance tape.
Clerk provided a description of the getaway vehicle:
cargo van, no plates.
Any prints?
These guys don't leave prints.
How do you know that?
The same crew has hit eight other stores.
Always after the same thing: Change Your Life scratch-offs.
Boyd Keene, security supervisor
for the California Lottery Commission.
KEENE: Change Your Life is one
of 52 scratch-off games that the lottery
is currently running in the state.
And the answer to your next question is no.
We have no idea why they're targeting those tickets.
They've targeted stores in several jurisdictions,
so the LAPD threw the case to us.
Clerk fired two rounds.
12-gauge, double-ought buck.
First one missed.
Second one didn't.
Whoa, you all right there?
Lottery commission doesn't deal with a lot
of... violent crime.
How about I.D.?
It was Wayne Peterson.
He had a record.
Not the kind you think.
He hit a $150,000 jackpot last year.
He's a lottery winner.
Wayne Peterson, 47, single, unemployed landscaper.
Won 150 grand on the Fantasy 5 draw last year
from the California State Lottery.
Why would a lottery winner
with no criminal record
rob convenience stores for lottery tickets?
Peterson's landlord said he was two months behind on rent.
- Anything else? - No, not much.
As far as we can tell, he has no family in the area.
(sighs) Someone's got to know the guy.
NIKKI: Here's an idea-- you found this
in Peterson's apartment?
They hold weekly support meetings
for lottery winners.
What, are you kidding me?
Hey, bags of money are heavy.
Trust me, life can get pretty complicated
the day you take home a big lottery payout.
Well, I could handle it.
These scratch-off games--
how big a part of the lottery are they?
The state lottery is a $3-billion-a-year business.
Scratch-offs account for over half of that.
It's the most popular game,
and it has the best odds.
Then, what happens when the tickets are stolen?
Well, the retailer reports
the serial numbers of the missing scratch-offs.
If anyone tries to redeem one, an alert goes out to the store
where the ticket is being redeemed
and to the local authorities.
So why steal scratch-offs if they can't be cashed?
Most tickets are taken by store employees
or shoplifted without the clerk knowing.
They aren't reported right away.
It gives the thieves time to cash in before the alert.
So, it's the gunpoint that doesn't make sense.
Unless someone's figured out a way to beat the system.
We're bringing down
an agent from our law enforcement division.
She's an expert in lottery-related crime.
You got lottery cops?
(elevator bell dings)
Can you hold the elevator, please?
Hold the elevator.
- Thank you. - No problem.
(woman sighs)
Sorry, I'm not usually this frantic.
Missed a flight earlier today.
I'd be 0-for-two if I missed the elevator.
Look at it this way-- you're 50% on time.
I'll take it.
It's better than most airlines.
Do you know that 63% of commercial flights
run at least 22 minutes behind schedule?
I base my airport arrival time on those odds.
Doesn't always work out,
but, overall, it's a real time saver.
- That's an excellent analysis. - You know, odds, they,
they get a bad rap.
Even the name "odds," it suggests irregularity, you know?
But numerically, actually, odds are hyper-regular.
You know a lot about numbers, huh?
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's kind of my job.
I'm also quite knowledgeable about the fact that--
I don't know, I think that you are following me.
(chuckles)
Ah, well, perhaps we are two hypotheses
that share an empirical consequence.
- We're going to the same place. - I think we are.
- Dr. Charles Eppes! - What are the odds?
Robbery crew has stolen nearly 10,000 tickets.
These guys really want to get their hands on some winners.
The odds of Change Your Life
are one in 5.47, so...
you know, you could win with fewer than six tickets.
Small payouts outnumber the large ones in these games.
Mostly they'd win a dollar or five.
DAVID: The amounts add up; the value of the stolen
tickets is over $125,000.
The robbers haven't cashed any of them.
They will. It's just a matter of time.
And what's this shaded area here?
Uh, that is the predicted target area
of the next robbery,
according to, uh, my calculations.
Your methodology?
The order of the prior locations of robberies.
Fractional diffusion equations?
Yes, from Professor Dirk Brockmann's work
with human mobility networks.
- That's fascinating. - Care to let us in on the fun?
Yes, of course. We're, uh, we're talking about
the importance of order or sequence
in establishing a specific pattern.
So, think of these robbery locations
as keys on a piano.
There are 88 keys.
But even playing one note at a time,
more songs can be composed on a piano
than there are atoms in the known universe.
The key to knowing a specific pattern or melody,
is to know the order in which to play the notes.
(plays first four notes
of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5 in C Minor")
If we know the order of notes in a melody,
we can take a good guess
at the next note.
And by using the sequence of robberies
as the starting point,
I've been able to produce
a defined target area with a high probability
of accuracy.
Math in stereo.
Yeah, the target area's pretty big.
How many lottery retailers
are in it?
Uh... uh, 67.
CHARLIE: I think I can be helpful
to Agent Hackett in refining the predictive area.
All right, we'll stick to some of that plain, old,
non-mathematical FBI work.
We'll focus on the dead guy, Peterson.
MAN: "Everybody needs
"money.
That's why they call it money."
David Mamet wrote that, and it's true.
And now that you have money,
everyone around you will suddenly need money.
And they won't hesitate to ask for it, because,
well, you got lucky.
You didn't earn it, did you?
What you must remind yourself is, you did earn it.
You decided to play the odds and you won.
And the fact that you earned it means it's up to you
how wisely or unwisely
you decide to use your money.
Okay, next week,
we'll get into some specifics about long-term investments.
Thank you. Thanks.
- Scott Wilson? - Yeah.
Oh, you must be the FBI agent.
I am. And this is Agent Hackett
from the state lottery.
You look, uh, kind of familiar.
I was at the ceremony when they awarded you
the $15 million two years ago.
You won the Super Lotto with the numbers
2, 7, 19, 23, 41
and, of course, the Mega Number-- 13.
How do you remember that?
They're all prime numbers.
I mean, that hasn't happened since
the Rhode Island Super Bucks miracle of '98.
Ah, this is my son Zack.
Say "hello" to these agents.
They're with the FBI
and the lottery commission.
What do the FBI care about the lottery?
What do you do-- you shoot minors
who try to buy lotto tickets?
Only if necessary.
You know what you should do is, uh,
stop stupid people from buying them.
WILSON: Zack, come on.
Lighten up.
Try not to miss me too much.
My wife passed away five years ago.
When you're a teenager,
all the money in the world doesn't make your dad cool.
Well, how can I help you?
Do you know this man?
This is Wayne.
He was a member of our group.
I-I heard about his death. It's just bizarre.
What can you tell us about him?
He was the classic winner
who would have been better off not winning.
Most of the people
I counsel have never had access to a large sum of money.
They have no idea how to make smart decisions with it.
You help them gain that knowledge?
I try to educate winners
on life after the lottery.
How to spot a con, dealing with jealousy,
getting started with estate planning.
What was Peterson's story?
By the time he got here,
he'd quit his job, gotten himself a Porsche
and bought a diamond ring for a stripper
he'd met two days before.
He was pretty mad at himself.
He knew he'd blown it.
How much did he have left?
He said about $15,000.
He knew it wouldn't last.
I sent him to a financial advisor,
someone who specializes in working with lottery winners.
Yeah, well, we'll need a name.
Sara Lewis?
Hi.
I'm Agent Warner, FBI.
I just need a few minutes.
If you don't mind walking with me.
I'm late for a lunch.
Sure.
I understand
you were Wayne Peterson's financial advisor?
Not really.
I met with him twice.
By the second time, he'd already lost most of his net worth.
He must've been upset about that.
Very upset, very typical.
A lot of lottery winners have a hard time
holding on to their capital.
75% go broke within five years.
Yeah, but most don't rob convenience stores,
looking for more lottery tickets.
That's true,
but we're talking about somebody
who thought his life had changed forever.
Couldn't accept that he was worse off than before.
Think it was too much for him to handle?
I think it would be a lot for me or you to handle, much less
an impulsive guy who made poor choices.
I don't think he ever had a shot.
We need to see Peterson's financial records.
Get a subpoena, and they're all yours.
I have a reputation of discretion
to uphold and a lunch to get to.
Remember how your mother used to hide
a lottery ticket in the present?
She'd call it a gift in a gift.
- That's right. - Yeah.
And she'd line us all up at the table
and make us scratch them all off together.
- Yeah, yeah. - Right.
Until you turned nine, you refused to play.
That's right.
You told her the lottery is "a voluntary tax on stupidity."
- And I was right. - Yeah.
No. I mean, some of the money goes to fund schools, you know,
and support teachers.
Well, that's the irony, isn't it?
That the money funds schools that teach,
among other subjects, mathematics.
But, uh, I don't know.
Look, if more people understood the probabilities,
believe me, fewer would play.
Well, you know, people give more money
when they expect something in return.
Yeah, but they're buying into a game
that's designed to make them believe
that the odds are better than they are.
Listen, the lottery asks you
to pick six numbers between 1 and 47, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, that's the same as asking you
to pick a number between one and 14 million.
That's why you have your lucky numbers.
Oh, and what?
Yours are your families' birthdays?
You think I'd tell that to the lottery Grinch?
Hey, listen, a professor at UCLA analyzed
20 million sets of numbers played
in the California Super Lotto.
Among the most popular were one, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six?
The odds are the same as picking any other set of numbers.
1 in 14 million.
Are you sensing a theme here?
Yeah. The odds are against us.
So what? They usually are.
And do you know that roughly half the people that play
every week have a yearly household income under $35,000?
Yeah, so, most of the people
who waste the most money can least afford it.
So what? I mean, it's their choice, isn't it?
If it wasn't the lottery, it would be a casino
or a bookie.
This way, the money goes for a good cause.
Oh, got to go.
It's a numbers game,
and if you understand the numbers, it ruins the game.
Ran the list of names from the lottery support group.
No histories of robbery or violence.
Our bad guys get zero points for style.
You know, they're sloppy, anxious.
Don't know how to handle weapons.
DAVID: Seems weird. Why pull robberies
to get tickets that give you
a chance at winning money?
Robbing a bank is much more direct.
What would you do if you won the lottery, Sinclair?
Uh, well... (chuckles)
I'd drive a nice car to work.
What about you?
Well, first off, I'd buy you a nicer car.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
Then I'd make you drive me to work.
(phone ringing)
(laughs)
Sinclair.
Yeah.
LAPD found the van
used in the robberies.
LIZ: A security guard reported a suspicious vehicle
parked here overnight.
LAPD called it in.
DON: Trace it?
The VIN number led us to a rental agency,
but the customer used a fake name and paid in cash.
Anything in it?
Just a little something.
LIZ: 10,000 lottery tickets.
All of them scratched off and just left there.
HACKETT: Yeah, not quite all.
We checked the serial numbers of the recovered scratch-offs
against the list of the stolen tickets,
and seven of the tickets were not in the van.
So you're saying, we're just missing seven tickets?
Yeah, all seven of which were winners
of amounts less than $600, which is a significant number.
Okay, why is that?
A ticket under
$600 can be redeemed at any state retailer.
Amounts larger than that have to be claimed
at a lottery field office.
But these guys left behind a lot of other winning tickets.
Yeah, who pulls nine robberies for seven tickets
worth less than $4,200?
And they put a lot of effort into checking
every one of those tickets.
You ever scratch off 10,000 tickets?
You know, it takes a lot of time.
Takes a lot of patience, you know.
Not to mention, you run the risk of getting that, um,
carpal tunnel syndrome.
Which would make it hard to shoot that gun, young lady.
I feel like you could work through the pain.
How's that scratch-off case coming along?
- The AG's asking about it. - Why is that?
The lottery commission's a high-profile state agency.
Gets a lot of media attention.
Well, I mean, we don't have
very much yet, you know.
Lotteries make for so many legal headaches,
including class action suits.
People claim states lie about the true odds,
that they skim the winnings.
Well, maybe they're just not worth the trouble, you know.
The lawyer in me agrees.
The gambler in me would love
to retire to a villa in Italy.
Oh, yeah? Italy, huh?
Yeah.
Italy.
Live off investments, that kind of thing?
Like that new motorcycle that's parked in your spot.
Oh, you saw that.
Go for a ride?
Gonna have to tell me about it first.
You'd be finer with a set of fish tailpipes and some bullet
- axle caps. - Excuse me?
Used to ride a bike in college.
If I look around, I can probably still find my leather pants.
Look around.
(door closes)
Oh, now, what's all this?
That conversation we had about lotteries got me feeling lucky.
Well, then it's clear I failed to make my point.
Well, there's nothing wrong with believing in luck.
Shakespeare did.
"Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered."
And the other 14 million sink.
If I'm gonna do any of those things on my wish list,
I'd better have a way of paying for it.
Still growing the ponytail?
- I gave up that one. - Oh, what a shame.
I had a scrunchie all picked out for you, Dad.
There is something you could get me.
- What's that? - It's new on my list.
Grandkids.
That's not new.
I've been hearing about that for years.
Yeah?
(scratching ticket) How's your lottery case coming?
I tweaked Agent Hackett's analysis.
I wasn't able to refine a smaller target area.
There doesn't seem to be any importance
to the order of the robberies.
So, I think now
we just wait, basically,
for the bad guys to make their next move.
Waiting to get lucky, huh? Yeah.
Maybe this will change your luck.
- Try one. - Tsk.
Uh, there's a part of this you forgot to scratch off.
Yeah, that's for the serial number.
Once you know you're not a winner, why bother?
The robbers weren't looking for the winning tickets.
They were looking for the information on the tickets.
CHARLIE: All the tickets recovered
from the robberies were completely scratched off.
The serial numbers were visible,
even on the losers.
Oh, my.
Oh, my, what?
Well, the serial number tells us
if it's a winner.
It's the most important piece of data on the ticket.
Oh, does the serial number tell you
- how much the ticket's worth? - Yeah, but we use
a computer-generated code to randomize the relationship
between the prize amounts and the winning serial numbers.
It would be almost impossible for someone
to make the connection without, you know, cracking the code.
Technology to generate
truly random number sequences doesn't exist
yet, and until it does,
all codes are vulnerable.
Yeah, but to break our code, you'd need to access
an enormous amount of information.
Well, the robbers have 10,000 tickets,
each with a serial number and a prize,
for a total of 20,000 data points.
(sighs)
Uh, yeah, you're right.
I guess that's why you're the famous math professor,
and I'm the state employee.
Oh, God, I can't believe this whole time,
I've been focusing on the fact that the robbers
are looking for winners.
First off, you're a fine mathematician.
It's a lot easier to explain this stuff to you
than it will be to the FBI.
The fact is that the robbers did want winning tickets.
Lots of them.
If they break the code that links the serial number
to the value of each ticket, then they can figure out
which serial numbers represent the big winners.
Right?
If that's what this case is about,
then we're not the only two involved
that know a lot about math.
One of the robbers does, too.
DON: Okay. Yeah.
Hey, we got a hit.
Someone's trying to cash
one of the seven stolen tickets right now.
Right now? Where?
Venice at some mini-mart.
We sent an alert to the retailer.
He's trying to stall the suspect.
I got Nikki and Liz heading over there.
Somebody tried to cash in the stolen tickets?
I mean, that doesn't fit our theory that
this case isn't about cashing stolen tickets.
No. No, that doesn't fit at all.
(siren wailing)
Hey!
WOMAN: Hey!
He's over here!
That's him! That's him!
- NIKKI: Stop! - LIZ: I got the car!
All right, he's heading for the canal!
(wheels screeching)
(wheels clacking)
(siren wailing, brakes screeching)
Freeze! FBI!
Off the bike!
Guess you can skip your spinning class today.
- Zack? - Wait, you know this kid?
Yeah, we used to date.
His father runs the lottery support group.
(panting)
Looks like we found the seven missing tickets.
Your father withhold a few thousand
from your allowance this week?
My dad doesn't have enough money to pay attention.
He won $15 million.
Now he's broke.
ROBIN: Zack was in possession of stolen lottery tickets.
That links him to the robberies.
He doesn't fit the description of the gunmen.
Well, then how'd he get his hands on the scratch-offs?
He says he found them.
And he seems pretty unconcerned.
He doesn't seem to know that they link him
- to a serious crime. - You think he's
- putting on an act? - I think
he's got no idea what he got himself mixed up in.
And we pulled his father's financial records.
They confirm what Zack told us.
- His dad is bankrupt. - Well, Wilson knew Peterson,
the robber that got shot.
And Peterson was also broke, right?
Then maybe
we're looking at a crew of bankrupt lottery winners.
The evidence is circumstantial,
unless Zack tells us that he got the tickets from his dad.
He's 16. All right, we need to notify
his father that he's in custody.
If Wilson is one of the robbers, there's no way
he's going to let us talk to his son.
Yeah, but the kid's his weak spot.
Maybe we can use that.
(knocking)
DAVID: Scott Wilson!
FBI!
(music plays over headphones, door opens)
Mr. Wilson?
Whoa! Whoa! Hey! Who are you?!
FBI, Mr. Wilson. We knocked. The door was open.
(stammering): I was expecting my son.
Why are you in my house?
Well, we're here about Zack.
Oh, my God.
Did something happen to him?
He's in custody.
Arrested?
What did he do?
We need you to come with us.
We're still convinced that the robbers
are collecting data from the tickets
in order to crack the lottery's code.
How is that possible?
(chuckling): Professor Eppes said
he would have a hard time
explaining it to you.
That's why he brought a visual aid.
All right, what we've got here is a three-dimensional
representation of the lottery's
numerical relationship between
the serial numbers and the prize amounts.
We've got 50 data points.
Each one represents a serial number of a stolen scratch-off.
As you can see,
- they appear to be random. - HACKETT: With a limited
amount of information, it's impossible
to determine the algorithm used
- to encode the tickets. - CHARLIE: However,
our robbers have accumulated 10,000 serial numbers.
Which is a lot, so now
we get to see what happens...
(rapid chirping)
DON: All right, so that's interesting.
- So it's not random. - Yeah, once you know
the pattern, you can crack the code.
HACKETT: Now, our robbers have enough information
to identify the serial number of the jackpot ticket.
DON: Which is how much?
Five million.
Uh, this seems a bit far-fetched.
Even if someone knows the serial number,
they don't know where to find the ticket.
There are over
20,000 retailers in the state that sell lottery tickets.
It could be any of them.
Besides, didn't you say
that Peterson was a landscaper?
An-And Wilson was a truck salesman.
KEENE: No way they have the math skills
- to pull this off. - Well, I mean,
they could be working with someone else.
Now it sounds like
we're making assumptions to fit a theory.
He's got a pretty good track record.
Trust me.
Hey. Got the dad?
He's in the interview room.
So I ran the financial records on the lottery support group.
- Uh-huh. - Turns out Wilson and Peterson
aren't the only ones who lost all their money.
Two other members are also broke:
Carl Graham and Raymond Brown.
And they've both gone missing since the last robbery.
The innocent ones don't tend to hide, right?
Wilson's lawyer's here.
She's demanding that the FBI
stop talking to Zack.
Officially, we have to do what she's asking.
Yeah, how about unofficially?
Well, I'm not going to tell you
to put father and son in a room, but if you did,
and if a conversation took place,
it would be spontaneous utterance.
A lot of "ifs."
What is this?
Well, he'd like to talk to his dad before we
- process him. - We'd like some privacy.
What's the big deal?
I tried to cash in some lottery tickets.
Zack, what the hell were you thinking?
Scott, don't say anything.
He's my son. I'm going to talk to my own son.
Dad, this is an intervention.
(snickers)
Stop spending money.
For God's sake, this is not a joke.
Sure it is.
Knock, knock. Who's there?
The kid whose dad blew through $15 million.
It's a tough crowd.
Everything I did was for us.
- We're done here. - DON: Mm, we're not done.
The tickets we found on him
implicate him in a series of armed robberies.
- Armed robberies? - Nine felony counts.
You're going to be processed as an adult.
I didn't even know!
Dad? Dad, I didn't even know.
He didn't rob anybody.
I did.
The tickets were mine.
I hid them in a desk drawer,
and my son must've found them.
I mean, he's, he's a smart-ass,
but he is not involved.
Scott, don't do anything you'll regret.
What do you want?
I'll talk if you drop the charges against Zack.
I want Carl Graham, and I want Raymond Brown.
(sighs)
Peterson said he knew someone
who had a way to make us our money back.
- DON: Who? - I don't know.
None of us did.
We were each given
a list-- which stores to rob and when.
Ask Carl and Ray.
They'll tell you the same thing.
We can't find them.
(exclaims)
Idiots.
They wanted to keep going after Wayne got killed.
I told them I wouldn't do it.
I want to know the next store that's going to be hit.
(bell chimes) Nobody move!
Where's the clerk?
(bell chimes)
Just hurry! Get the tickets!
Let's go! Let's go!
I got them!
(bell chimes, police siren whoops)
DAVID: FBI! Don't move!
Put your guns down!
You got nowhere to go! Drop it!
Don't shoot! Don't shoot!
It's going down! It's going down!
Stay right there.
(garbled radio transmission)
Mr. Raymond Brown.
And Mr. Carl Graham.
Graham and Brown both claim they don't know any more
than Wilson does; Peterson was dealing with someone else.
Kept the rest of them in the dark.
- So we've got nothing. - We're looking into
phone records, and techs are searching his computer.
KEENE: Agent Eppes.
The commission's just informed me that
we've uncovered highly suspicious activity
in our software over the past few days.
- Like what? - Someone accessed
information about the robbery locations,
before the robberies occurred.
- What, like you were hacked? - No.
This person had clearance.
CHARLIE: That totally makes sense.
The tickets, the code, going after the jackpot...
The facts are lining up like lottery balls
in a drawing machine.
Mmm, I love the smell of probabilities in the morning.
(Charlie chuckles)
Well, we... we still don't know how the robbers
plan on locating the jackpot ticket
once they'd exposed its serial number.
I mean, they'd need to know
where each ticket was being distributed, right?
Right, and looking at a ticket individually,
there's no way to do that-- unless...
- "Unless" what? - Well, we've been
analyzing these tickets individually.
Looking at them like points on a graph.
Is there another way to analyze the tickets?
In groups.
The actual tickets are packaged.
They're... they're sent to our retailers in batches.
So, once they knew the serial number of the jackpot ticket,
they would then need to know
where the batch containing it would be sold.
Right, but that's restricted information.
Only lottery employees
with the highest clearance level know that.
They're working with an insider.
- You think you know who it is? - Well, there's only
a couple dozen employees that have that clearance.
I mean, I know them all.
I work with them. I... I trust them.
I did most of their clearances myself, so...
Nancy Hackett.
Yeah.
You're under arrest.
What?
No, this is a mistake.
This is crazy!
Boyd, you know me. Tell them.
Nancy, please.
You may want to see a lawyer
- before you say something. - What?!
- Now, wait a second. - I'm sorry,
we would've notified you earlier,
but we had to move fast, as soon as we figured it out.
This isn't right.
Why do you say that?
Because she's been helping us.
Because she just got done telling me her theory
about how someone inside the commission was involved.
Why would she do that if it'd only lead back to her?
Come on, what's your evidence, guys?
Hackett used
her private password to access the lottery software.
Records show that she researched the serial numbers
of the scratch-offs and locations before every robbery.
She was feeding the robbers information.
No, there has to be another explanation.
Show me an equation that proves it,
and I'm with you.
Otherwise, we've got
a pretty clear case
against Agent Nancy Hackett.
So, Agent Hackett was telling the robbers where to hit.
A routine security review of the lottery commission's
software flagged her unusual activity.
Yeah, it looks like she was searching
for specific batch numbers of tickets
and then pinpointing their location.
This happened right under my nose.
I should've figured it out sooner.
What happens to her now?
I'll oversee her transport
back to Sacramento to face charges.
You know, I can't say that we've never had an instance
of employee fraud before, but nothing like this.
This is a real blow to our department.
ALAN: I heard that, uh,
Robin is back in town, huh?
Yeah, I haven't had a minute,
but I'm happy she's back.
Well, did you at least tell her that?
Well, yeah, in so many words.
Donnie, it's men like you
that are the reason that BeyoncГ© sings that "Single Ladies" song.
- Did you just say BeyoncГ©? - Yes, I did.
- I'm up on current trends. - Uh-huh.
For instance, did you know, that, uh,
ponytails for men are out of style?
DON: Really. (Alan chuckles)
So, how's that lottery case coming?
Well, we closed it.
- Hey, that's great! - Yeah, except
Charlie's gut says we've got the wrong person.
His gut, huh?
You know, I read that intuition is actually a skill
gained by expertise in a particular field.
It's what happens when you, um, subconsciously see something,
even though you can't put your finger on exactly what it is.
And then you just fill in the details later on.
Charlie's not wrong a lot.
- I'll give him that. - Nope, he's not.
- What's that, Easter Island? - Yeah. (chuckles)
I always wanted to go there.
The problem is, it's a 14-hour flight,
and I just can't see myself on the plane for 14 hours.
Wait, that's it.
- What? - The case.
What has Easter Island got to do
with the California State Lottery?
No, it's not the island, it's the plane flight.
Open it.
We pulled the lottery commission's security report,
dates and times that Nancy Hackett logged in,
using her private password.
Okay.
- What's going on? - She was late.
She missed her flight.
I recall that, yes.
The report shows her
logging in from a hard line, from a ground location,
when she was 31,000 feet
in the air, en route to Los Angeles.
She was in two places at once?
I don't know, there must be some explanation.
Maybe the explanation is,
Nancy Hackett wasn't
the only one using her private password.
Well, of course she was. Who else would be using it?
- You. - DAVID: You're the one
that requested the commission look into software logs.
Because we suspected an insider.
You asked for a review one day
before Wilson tipped us off.
DAVID: You had access to data
about where tickets were being distributed.
And your name is all over Peterson's phone records.
How does this work?
What can I give you?
We know you're not trained in math,
so you must be working with someone who is.
Someone who could break the code.
Who?
I'd like another 32 tickets.
You feeling lucky or something?
Something like that.
(bell chimes) Ms. Lewis.
Agent Warner.
And friend.
I actually don't have time to talk right now.
Why do guilty people love to say that?
I wouldn't know.
- You win anything? - You were the financial planner
of four members of a robbery crew.
Not responsible for what my clients do.
Unless you help them do it.
Your connections
within the lottery support group gave you access
to men who were desperate for money.
Boyd Keene gave you up.
Oh, that little bastard.
(handcuffs tightening) I spent years
watching idiots win and waste millions.
People who didn't deserve what they got handed to them.
I mean, using the money to upgrade
your single-wide to a double, who does that?
One guy spent millions
on a company who promised him a light saber.
Their money, their choice, not yours.
I hear bingo night's popular in prison.
Is, uh, is that the five- million-dollar ticket
- all this was about? - LIZ: Yep.
- That's the one. - Pretty crazy, huh?
Yeah, I guess.
You know, there was a case in Oregon in 2007.
A woman used a stolen credit card
to purchase a scratch-off worth a million dollars.
- Did they catch her? - Oh, yeah.
She had the ticket on her when they arrested her.
NIKKI: And what happened to it?
Well, the judge ruled
that the seizing authority was
in possession of the winning ticket.
So, uh, they got to keep the prize money.
- I interviewed her. - I held the scratch-off.
Agents, the arresting authority
is the FBI, so...
I'm just going to take this on down to Evidence.
You trust him?
With $5 million?
Hey! Wait! Hey!
You know, being gone so long,
I wasn't sure what I was coming back to.
Who? Me?
You know, you're the guy who's always on the job.
One foot out the door.
I got used to that.
Whoa, whoa, hold on. You're the one who left.
I wasn't the one in Portland.
What if long distance works for us
because it's safe?
Because we like keeping each other at a distance?
How are we going to do this?
(sighing): We're doing it.
ALAN: How about that Bulgarian
lottery last September?
Where six winning numbers were picked
- in two consecutive drawings? - Not that unusual.
'Cause Bulgaria has numerous lotteries, so the same six
numbers in two consecutive drawings...
Actually, the odds are only one in 5.2 million.
Really?
As many as a billion people
play thousands of lotteries
all around the world.
Wild coincidences are bound to happen.
My-my favorite is
one woman bought tickets
for both the Massachusetts
and the Rhode Island State Lottery on the same day.
She picked the winning numbers in both,
- but she didn't win a dime. - Why?
- What happened? - Her Massachusetts
numbers won in Rhode Island.
Rhode Island numbers
won in Massachusetts.
- No! Oh, wow. - Yes!
Well, given enough opportunities,
- the improbable will occur. - Well, in that case,
Charlie, why don't you put your money where your mouth is.
There.
(Hackett laughs) - CHARLIE: Now, see.
- Come on, come on. - See, I knew
this was coming. Listen, if I do this,
you have to promise me
to stop trying to get me to approve
of playing the lottery as a legitimate form of investment.
Charlie, just think of it as a bandage.
- Just rip it off. - Oh, boy.
Are you feeling numerically violated? (chuckles)
I think I just won $10,000.
(gasps) Let me see that.
I can't believe it.
I mean, I-I... I can, but...
$10,000. What are the odds?
- I don't recognize this game. - Wait a minute!
That reminds me of that father in Pasadena
who bought a fake scratch-off ticket
online to play a prank on his genius but gullible son.
(both laughing)
- Yeah, I remember that story. - Mm.
The father was never heard from again.
So, what are you going to do?
Take me out with differential geometry, huh?
Protractors and slide rules at 20 paces?
HACKETT: Sorry, Charlie,
but the odds are with your father on this one.
ALAN (laughs): It's just a joke,
Charlie, just a joke.
(Alan laughing)
(gunshot)