Former Officer Now Pounds an Odds Beat

The clerk at La Grand Market in Santa Ana looked puzzled as Wayne Mackley approached the counter and displayed his badge.

“Hi. I’m the lottery agent,” Mackley said in a friendly voice. “What time did you start selling tickets yesterday morning? 10:40?”

A month ago, Mackley, 48, was a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department in charge of investigating robberies.

Now the 27-year LAPD veteran is one of 33 California lottery agents assigned to enforce laws dealing with the new state lottery which, with cannon blasts and cheers, began officially at 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

One of five agents stationed in the Lottery Commission’s Anaheim regional office, his beat is Orange County, from Santa Ana south to San Clemente. Like other California peace officers, he carries a gun and has the authority to arrest.

‘Crimes Against Tickets’

But instead of investigating cocaine smuggling or burglary rings--the kinds of investigations he has handled in the past--Mackley now investigates what he described as “crimes against lottery tickets.”

Those responsibilities are interpreted broadly to include not only criminal cases, which could range from ticket thefts to counterfeiting, but misuse of lottery tickets, to violations of lottery retailers’ contracts with the state, which are not criminal offenses but could force their licenses to be revoked.

And on Friday, that meant investigating a little neighborhood market called La Grand.

Lottery informants--competing lottery retailers in the neighborhood--had told Mackley that La Grand Market, like a dozen other newly approved lottery retailers in Orange County, allegedly had ignored the official 12:30 p.m. start time for the lottery Thursday and had held its own private kickoff, conducting a brisk sale of lottery tickets several hours too soon.

So, badge in hand, Mackley paid the owners a surprise visit.

His demeanor was firm but friendly. “Can we look at when you sold your lottery tickets? Do you record the numbers on the packages?” he asked.

Inspected Cash Register

Chun Yang, the store manager and son of La Grand owner Sun Yang, said nothing at first, then replied that the store had not recorded ticket numbers, as lottery rules require.

For the next 20 minutes, Mackley took notes on a yellow legal pad about the Yangs’ bookkeeping. He inspected their cash register and safe and he elicited from Chun Yang the information that the Yangs had sold about 1,000 tickets between Thursday and Friday morning.

As Mackley’s questioning continued, Ae Yang, wife of the owner, stayed by the cash register, selling additional $1 lottery tickets to customers who wandered in.

Finally, Mackley asked the Yangs to get their blue retailer handbook and referred them to several sections defining the retailer’s contract with the state. “Read these sections,” he said. “That’ll tell you how to comply with the rules.”

‘Off the List’

And he issued a warning. By starting sales early, “you could jeopardize your authority (to sell tickets). In other words, we could take you off the list.”

As Mackley left, Chun Yang said that he was worried about Mackley’s inquiry but he didn’t think that he had done anything wrong. “Because if somebody wants, we sold them,” he said.

As Mackley drove on to the next case, a Winchell’s Donut House that also had allegedly sold tickets early, he said that he had made up his mind about La Grand.

“I will see that he be suspended (from selling tickets) pending further review” by the Lottery Commission, Mackley said. His main criteria were: “Did they have knowledge (of lottery rules)? Did they have intent? And how blatant is it?” Chun Yang had said at one point that he had sold 200 to 300 tickets before the 12:30 p.m. start time, Mackley said.

17 Cases Investigated

But La Grand Market was only one of Mackley’s cases Friday. In all, he would investigate 17 cases that day, some involving possible felony charges, others involving contractual violations. Among them:

- A report that someone was selling tickets in a vacant lot.

A report that a nightclub offered a “free drawing” of lottery tickets but may have required customers to buy at least $2 worth of beer to participate. (That would be a misdemeanor violation of state gaming laws if true, Mackley said.)

A claim that a Santa Ana grocer was refusing to pay $2 and $5 “instant-winner” tickets, as retailers’ contracts with the state required. His lottery customers were said to be gathering outside muttering that the lottery was “a rip-off.”

A New Challenge

The work was different from his police experience, Mackley said, because it involved more time with the public, more time talking to retailers, explaining proper precautions to them as well as investigating crimes.

But then, he had wanted the job because it was different, Mackley noted. He was near retirement with the LAPD and he wanted a new challenge.

Still, being a lottery agent wasn’t entirely unlike being a street cop, Mackley said.

“It’s a new kind of law enforcement title. But essentially the work is the same, the principles are the same. The rules don’t change, the laws don’t change.”