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MSLC Missed 39 Potential Claimant Addresses That May Have Matched MSLC Employee Addresses.

Auditors presented these findings to Lottery management and in response, the Lottery performed an internal review which concluded that no ineligible player received a prize.
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Overview

We obtained the names and addresses of all claimants from our audit period to compare to MSLC employee names and addresses and identified 39 claimant addresses that were potential matches to MSLC employee addresses and were not identified as such by MSLC during its annual review. Without investigation of all potential matches of claimant addresses to employee addresses, MSLC employees or their family members claiming prizes may go undetected. Additionally, there were 5,125 claims we could not compare to the Commonwealth Information Warehouse report of MSLC employees and their home addresses because addresses on claim forms were incomplete, were inaccurate, or were post office boxes.

Authoritative Guidance

According to Section 31 of Chapter 10 of the Massachusetts General Laws,

No ticket or share shall be purchased by, and no prize shall be paid to any of the following persons: any member or employee of the commission or to any spouse, child, brother, sister or parent residing as a member of the same household in the principal place of abode of any member or employee of the commission.

Reasons for Issue

MSLC uses Excel and a manual review process annually to compare claimants’ and employees’ addresses. This results in the possibility of missing potential address matches. We used geocoding software (software that provides geographic coordinates corresponding to a location), which increased our ability to match claimant addresses to employee addresses.

Recommendations

  1. MSLC should investigate the potential matches to ensure that no employee or employee’s family member claimed a prize.
  2. MSLC should ensure that each claimant’s address information is accurately and completely entered in the ES system.

Auditee’s Response

The MSLC Security and Compliance Department has investigated all addresses associated with the thirty-nine claims. The investigations included an analysis of claim forms, review of public records, and interviews with staff. The MSLC had obtained reasonable assurance that none of these cases resulted in an employee or ineligible player claiming a prize.

The MSLC will implement a new policy and procedure by June 30, 2021 to ensure that all MSLC customer service staff are accurately recording claimant name and address information at the time tickets are cashed.

Auditor’s Reply

Based on its response, MSLC is taking measures to address our concerns on this matter.

Date published: June 9, 2021

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