Lottery staff arrest over $18m prize

Video footage of the man who bought the winning ticket was released and the public was asked to help identify him. Photo / Thinkstock

An American lottery employee has been arrested in the latest twist of the strange case of an unclaimed US$14.4 million ($18.48 million) lottery jackpot.

The winning ticket in the Iowa lottery was sold to an unknown man at a petrol station in December 2010 but for an entire year no one came forward to claim the fortune.

Just minutes before the one-year deadline in 2011, a New York lawyer arrived in Iowa with the winning ticket and said the money belonged to an unnamed client.

Iowa lottery officials were suspicious and the lawyer soon withdrew his claim, meaning the money was forfeited.

Video footage of the man who bought the winning ticket was released and the public was asked to help identify him.

More than three years after the incident, police have arrested Eddie Tipton, 51, the security director of the Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, who they say was the man in the footage.

Mr Tipton had access to confidential information about the running of the lottery and was therefore banned from playing or winning.

But police are not saying whether they believe he used his position to somehow manipulate the system to ensure he was able to buy the winning ticket.

The fraud charges related instead to allegations that he bought the ticket when he was not allowed to and that he devised a complex scheme to try to claim the money without revealing himself as the winner.