Summary: Lottery winners are stealing scratch-off tickets leading the FBI on a hunt to figure out why.
Original air date: January 8, 2010 (USA)
Written by: Mary Leah Sutton
Directed by: Stephen Gyllenhaal
Opening numbers:
- 1 in 576,000: Odds of being hit by lightning
- 1 in 880,000: Odds of dating a supermodel
- 1 in 3,000,000: Odds of seeing a UFO
- 1 in 14,000,000: Odds of winning the lottery
Family Concepts: (character development)
- Alan wrote a life list when he was just out of college:
- grow a ponytail
- see Easter Island
- take a cooking class at Condon Bleu in Paris
- date Barbara Eden
- learn to play the banjo
- Robin is back from the case in Portland, Oregon
- Margaret would buy scratch-off tickets and hide them in gifts
- If she won the lottery, Robin would live in a villa in Italy
- Robin rode a motorcycle when she was in college
Episode Quotes:
- Charlie: You’re actually gonna do all those things? [on the life list]
Alan: Why not?
Charlie: Grow a ponytail?
Alan: I’m workin’ on it. - Alan [quoting Shakespeare]: Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
Charlie: And the other fourteen million sink.
Episode Synopsis:
A group of armed gunmen has held up eight convenience stores for “Change You Life” scratch-off lottery tickets. When they rob a ninth, one of them, Wayne Peterson, is shot and killed by the store owner. The interesting thing is, Peterson won a $150,000 jackpot, through the lottery. Boyd Keene with the Lottery Commission offers to help with the FBI investigation by calling in Nancy Hackett, an agent with the Commissions law enforcement division. Nancy Hackett and Charlie meet on their way to a meeting to discuss the case. She has defined an area where the next robbery will probably occur.
Nikki and Nancy go to visit Scott Wilson, also a lottery winner who counsels other lottery winners on what to do after they win. He knew Wayne Peterson from group meetings and states Peterson had spent most of his winnings before coming to the group, but Wilson sent him to a financial planner, Sarah Lewis, to see if she could help him keep the $15,000 he had left.
LAPD soon finds the van used in the latest robbery and inside the FBI discovers about 10,000 scratch-off tickets, all scratched in the back. Nancy’s team is able to match up the serial numbers on the tickets to show seven tickets are still missing. The key is those seven tickets are all winning tickets worth less than $600, so whoever has them, can cash the ticket anywhere the tickets are sold. The amounts though don’t seem worth the effort to rob some many stores to get just a few thousand dollars. Charlie points out the tickets are completely scratched off, including the serial number on every single ticket, including tickets that are not winners. The robbers, were after the serial numbers, not necessarily winning tickets. If they have enough tickets they can make a prediction on where the $5 million winning ticket is located.
Before Charlie and Nancy can get too far with their hypothesis, Keene informs the FBI one of the seven missing tickets has been located, someone in Venice is trying to cash it. Nikki and Liz go out to the store and chase down Zach Wilson, Scott Wilson’s son. He has all of the tickets in his possession but doesn’t seem too worried about the FBI. he admits having the tickets and that he found them. He is shocked when Don wants to charge him as an adult for the armed robberies. Scott tells Don Zach had nothing to do with the robberies, Scott and three others, including Peterson, were the ones committing the crimes. Peterson had told the others he knew someone who could help get their money back, but none of the other three knew who this person was.
Charlie and Nancy are working out how the robbers could use the information from the tickets to find the $5 million winner. Nancy points out the tickets are sold to stores in batches and it would take someone inside the lottery commission, and very high up, to track down the correct batch. Just as she and Charlie are working this out, David and Nikki arrive to arrest Nancy. Keene’s group discovered Nancy using her private password to access the Lottery Commission computer and search for specific batches of tickets. Charlie doesn’t believe Nancy is the insider and Don realizes Charlie may be right.
Don and David meet with Boyd Keene and show him the records of Nancy’s log-ins to the Commission computer. One attempt is made when she was flying to LA to investigate the case; the records show her password was logged from a ground line. Keene admits he was involved and wants to make a deal. He wasn’t the mastermind for the theft, but he can give the FBI the person who was: Sarah Lewis. Nikki and Liz pick up Sarah outside a convenience store with the $5 million ticket in her possession. She said she did it because she was tired of watching people who had no right to win so much money only to waste it on things she felt were unimportant.