Lottery chief sent tickets to trooper who didn’t ticket him, probe shows

By Marc Kovac

This was not the first time tickets were given to law enforcement officers.

COLUMBUS — The head of the Ohio Lottery Commission sent 100 low-value promotional lottery tickets to a state trooper who gave him a warning instead of a ticket after a January incident, according to a state investigation released Tuesday.

The state inspector general found that the distribution of promotional lottery tickets to public officials was “entirely inappropriate,” “lacking in sound judgment and improper.”

According to the report, Michael Dolan, appointed executive director of the lottery commission by Gov. Ted Strickland in 2007, was stopped along Interstate 71 while driving his personal vehicle and received warnings from the trooper.

Two days later, the trooper received a package from Dolan with 100 promotional lottery tickets and a letter stating he “should share these tickets with his fellow troopers,” according to the report.

The patrol forwarded the package to its Columbus headquarters, and an inspector general’s investigation was launched shortly thereafter to determine whether Dolan had acted improperly.

According to the report, Dolan confirmed that he had sent the tickets to the trooper and that he and others at the commission had “previously given promotional lottery tickets to other law enforcement agencies and personnel, prosecutors, commissioners and other governmental officials at the local and state level.”

According to the report, the lottery commission had distributed 55,711 instant lottery tickets from January 2007 through February of this year. The tickets had a face value of $1 to $2, and “the odds of winning a significant amount of cash from these promotional lottery tickets were minimum.”

Their distribution has been common practice in Ohio and at other states’ lottery commissions, according to the report.

Still, the inspector general found that Dolan acted improperly in sending the tickets to the trooper. The report recommended that the lottery commission establish a new policy to prohibit distribution of promotional items to public officials and others doing business with the state or involved with commission business.

Strickland said after the report was released that he was communicating with Dolan, both verbally and in written form, about the situation.

“I do feel that he used a lack of judgment and that we are putting a hold on certain practices regarding the promotion of the lottery until such a time as I am presented with a policy that can be well-vetted and carried out without any indication that it’s being used inappropriately and unwisely,” he said.