South Carolina Woman Charged With Trying to Cash Stolen Scratch-Off Tickets

A South Carolina woman is facing multiple felony counts after investigators say she tried to cash in scratch-off tickets she had allegedly stolen from the store where she worked.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) charged Jessica V. Crum, 38, accusing her of passing stolen scratch-off lottery tickets at several gas stations in Richland and Lexington Counties on Nov. 5 and 7, 2023. According to warrants, the tickets had been stolen between Nov. 1 and Nov. 5, 2023, from the Scotchman #3878 in Swansea, where Crum worked. Investigators say both the theft and the attempts to redeem the tickets were caught on video.

The charges

Crum was charged in Richland County on Saturday with Intent to Defraud and Counterfeit Game Tickets and booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. On Sunday she was charged in Lexington County with four counts of Intent to Defraud Counterfeit Game Tickets and booked into the Lexington County Detention Center. The South Carolina Education Lottery requested the SLED investigation, and the case will be prosecuted by the 5th and 11th Circuit Solicitor's Office.

She has not been convicted of anything. The charges are accusations, and she is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.

Why stolen tickets are hard to cash

Here is the thing about trying to redeem a stolen scratch-off: the lottery's system is built to catch exactly this. Every ticket carries a barcode and a hidden validation code, and the lottery can flag tickets reported stolen so they fail the moment they are scanned. The tickets are also the lottery's property until they are sold, not the store's cash, which is why taking them is treated as fraud against the state rather than simple shoplifting. We explain that ownership wrinkle in how lottery retailers get paid, and why a clerk cannot simply eyeball which tickets are winners in whether retailers know which tickets win.

Not the first case like it

Employee theft of lottery tickets is rare, but it is not unheard of. A similar case saw a Florida Winn-Dixie worker charged with scratch-off ticket theft. The common thread is that the validation system and store cameras tend to make these cases straightforward to trace after the fact.

For now the case moves to the courts. If you play in the state, current South Carolina scratch-offs are on our South Carolina page.

Sources

WIS: Woman accused of trying to pass stolen scratch-off lottery tickets, SLED says