There was a story from 2002 where a bunch of New Jersey nursing home workers played the office pool and mistakenly thought the co-worker who purchased tickets tried to cheat them out the jackpot. They hired a lawyer and dragged the poor guy's name in the mud. Turns out their office pool never had the winning ticket.
Save yourself the headache and buy your own tickets. Or save your bucks and don't gamble at all. 
http://www.nytimes.com/20...amp;src=pm
A Tale of Betrayal Unravels: No Winning Tickets Here
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Published: April 30, 2002
The tale of a group of New Jersey nursing home workers locked in a tangle of greed and betrayal over a $58.9 million share in a multistate lottery jackpot ended yesterday with a wheeze. State lottery officials said the mysterious winner was neither the pool of night-shift workers who had whiffed riches, nor the innocent nurse's aide they had berated as a scoundrel for trying to cheat them out of their shares.
As it turned out, a strange combination of happenstance, suspicion and rumor had given life to the story over the past two weeks. While the nurse's aide had insisted all along that he had not won the prize, his co-workers began to have doubts when he called in sick after the drawing. Rumors and speculation grew. Embellishments gained credence. A lawyer was hired. A newspaper story appeared.
The real winner's identity remained a secret, at least until today, when it is to be disclosed at lottery headquarters at Lawrenceville, near Trenton.
But Carole Hedinger, acting executive director of the New Jersey Lottery, said the winner was not Angelito Marquez, the nurse's aide who ran the pool, nor any of the staff members at Newark Extended Care Facility who had been in on it and had hired the lawyer, Anthony H. Guerino, to press their claims.
Ms. Hedinger said Mr. Marquez had indeed bought $100 worth of tickets at a Union, N.J., liquor store on April 15, for the April 16 drawing of the seven-state Big Game jackpot. But none of his tickets was among the three winners -- one each in New Jersey, Georgia and Illinois -- for shares of the $331 million annuity prize (or $58.9 million each if taken as lump sums).
''We know this news is disappointing to several employees at the Newark Extended Care Facility, but there is no evidence to support claims by Mr. Guerino or the group of co-workers he represents,'' Ms. Hedinger said at a crowded news conference called to clear up the confusion.
The proof was in videotapes taken by a surveillance camera at the 1-2-3 Food Mart in Hillside, N.J., showing a middle-aged man buying the winning ticket on April l3 and then returning on April 17 to have it validated. Mr. Guerino and four women who had participated in the pool watched the tape in silence yesterday, well aware that it had shattered their dreams of fortune.
''It's a bittersweet day,'' Mr. Guerino said later. As for his clients, he said, ''I could see them deflate, but there were no tears.''
Trying to lighten the moment, he said that two of the lottery tickets bought by Mr. Marquez for the nursing home pool had been winners -- for $1 each. ''We fell a little short of the mark,'' he said.
One of his clients, Violet Lakhan of Bloomfield, said: ''There was a little disappointment, but we wish the winner good luck and God bless.'' Two others, Edna Jenkins and Florence Smith, both of Newark, said they were looking forward to playing the lottery and working with Mr. Marquez again.
As for Mr. Marquez, a boyish-looking man in his late 20's who lives with his wife and daughter in Union, he was nowhere to be found yesterday. But a woman who identified herself as his mother-in-law told reporters, ''You're barking up the wrong tree.''
The squabble over the evaporated millions began weeks ago when Mr. Marquez, a $300-a-week aide, started collecting money for lottery tickets in dribs and drabs, $2 to $5 each, from fellow attendants caring for elderly and disabled patients on the night shift of the 430-bed nursing home. Twice-a-week drawings had no winners for months, and the lottery prize grew to become the second largest in the nation's history.
As many as 20 workers chipped in, and Mr. Marquez bought the tickets at Shoppers Discount Liquors in Union. He kept the names of contributors and usually gave receipts for the tickets, which never won. But several co-workers said he had failed to give everyone receipts for the April 16 drawing, which came up with a New Jersey winner.
A lawyer for Mr. Marquez, Donald DiGoia, said that co-workers began to suspect that Mr. Marquez had the winning ticket after he called in sick for three days with the flu after the drawing. And when state officials said the winner lived in Union County, rumors at the nursing home got out of hand.
''They just put two and two together and got five,'' the lawyer told The Associated Press.
Mr. Guerino said ''a lot of circumstance, coincidences'' led participants in the pool to suspect that Mr. Marquez had the winning ticket but was holding out on them. As speculation grew, so did the nuances and embellishments, he said, and the story began to take on a life of its own.
''Day by day, it was getting more credibility,'' he said.
Last week, the group of would-be millionaires hired Mr. Guerino, who sent a letter to lottery officials pressing their case. The letter said erroneously that Mr. Marquez always bought the pool tickets in Hillside, where the winner had been bought.
But last Wednesday, the day the letter arrived, a lawyer from Westfield, N.J., Darin D. Pinto, representing an unidentified man, appeared before lottery officials and presented the ticket that proved to be the winner.
As lottery officials undertook an investigation, The Star-Ledger of Newark published an article on Saturday on the workplace pool, quoting participants as saying they had been betrayed and cheated by the person who had taken their money for the lottery tickets. The article added to the confusion by identifying the actual winner's lawyers as lawyers representing Mr. Marquez.
Other news organizations, including The New York Times, picked up the story and clusters of reporters appeared at the nursing home.
By yesterday, things were almost back to normal at the home.
''It's good to have some peace and quiet again,'' said Ray Luague, 22, a pharmacy technician.
Elke Stein, an assistant administrator, said that patient care had not been disrupted, but that the story had forced the administrative staff to field hundreds of calls over the weekend from the news media and other people curious about the goings-on.
''We got a lot of visits,'' she said. ''We had Channel 2, Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 41 . . . ''
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Before tossing money into an office pool, workers can take steps to ensure they get their fair share of any winnings, says New Jersey attorney 
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