Loser! Perdante!

It’s safe to say that Ariel Sinclair didn’t think her cunning plan all the way through.

The 23-year-old assistant Rite Aid manager apparently saw an opportunity when she realized that hey, I have access to this here lottery machine and can make it do whatever I want. According to investigators, what she wanted was to make off with around $6000 worth of cash belonging to the Virginia State Lottery. That’s fine. Not fine in the sense that we should all start doing it, but fine in the sense that she picked a decent target. The lottery has lots of money and is probably run by the government. Those folks are likely going to catch on a lot more slowly than her bosses at Rite Aid, you would think. But thinking…that’s a problem. It’s always a problem, isn’t it?

In order to gain access to the cash spitting functions of the lottery machine, you first have to pass a security check that involves providing a fingerprint, presumably so that the lottery people know who’s using the machine and when in case something goes sideways. And when I say goes sideways, I mean situations where oh, I dunno, an assistant Rite Aid Manager decides she’s going to make off with around $6000 of their money. Yeah, that’s a good example.

Unlike those Brazilian doctors who figured out how to use fake fingers to skip work while still getting paid, Sinclair used a real finger. Her own real finger. Which, unsurprisingly, pointed right at her when the lottery started asking questions.

She’s been charged with embezzlement and is free pending a court hearing.