Woman allegedly steals 800 lottery tickets, gets no prize

A Russian woman who was selling instant lottery tickets was so impressed by a buyer’s big win that she decided to steal around 800 of them for herself, according to police.

The alleged crime happened in the city of Torzhok in Tver Region around 200km northwest of Moscow, the regional office of the Interior Ministry reported on Thursday.

Investigators say the unnamed 19-year-old suspect was accused of causing $1,800 in damage over the course of multiple days.

The crime spree started with just a handful of tickets that the woman allegedly stole from her employer to try her luck. Despite trying again and again, she failed to win the big prize she had hoped for, and was eventually caught.

She now faces up to two years in jail for embezzlement.

The authorities did not specify which lottery the woman played or the amount she could have won. The biggest win of this type in Russia was reported last April and amounted to 50 million rubles, or $550,000.