Over $23,000 in lottery tickets found on Beaufort County roadway, police say
Local deputies said state police will investigate how dozens of lottery books ended up scattered on a Beaufort road, with an estimated value of $23,100.
After calling authorities around 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday, a resident told a Beaufort County deputy he had found the scratch-off ticket books “everywhere in the median of the roadway” as he drove down Goethe Hill Road approaching S.C. Highway 170 (Robert Smalls Parkway) on his way to a baseball game, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
The resident said he grabbed as many of the tickets and books as he could and called police because he used to work at a gas station and “believed this to be unusual,” the report says.
Nearly 40 lottery books put into police evidence
The deputy took the lottery books from the man’s truck and later submitted them into evidence, according to the incident report. Police noted the total of 39 books had an estimated worth of $23,100.
Sheriff’s office spokesperson Master Sgt. Robert Herlong said on Friday the case would be referred to the Lottery Investigations Unit of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. He confirmed the tickets found on the roadway were part of the S.C. lottery system but deferred other inquires to state investigators.
Reached via email Friday afternoon, a SLED representative said the agency was not yet investigating the matter and would not answer questions about the case, including if the lottery books were believed to be stolen and if charges would be pursued.
The lottery books found in the area of Goethe Hill Road included 12 packs of Mighty Jumbo Bucks tickets, 10 packs of Hit $500 and seven packs of 200X, according to the police report. 200X tickets can yield prizes of up to $2 million, according to the S.C. Education Lottery.
