Several people, all of whom used to be friends, are parties to a New Jersey lawsuit over the ownership of a $25 million lottery ticket. It seems that the fellow who regularly collected a couple bucks each week from a group of co-workers (these days he is called “defendant”) is being sued by his co-workers who claim that he passed off the winning ticket to a former neighbor (he also is known as “defendant”) and shared the winnings with him.

Not surprisingly, the facts are hotly disputed, and no one’s story seems perfect. However, for what it’s worth, the Lottery’s Deputy Director believes the former neighbor who says he has no relationship with the office pool guy, and he doesn’t know anything about any office lottery pool. A Superior Court judge will have to sort it all out.

The moral of the story is that if you take people’s money for a lottery pool, after you buy the tickets, run – don’t walk – to a photocopy machine, make copies and see that everyone in the pool gets copy of the tickets you bought for the pool. This is particularly true if you also buy your own tickets. Cover your ass, because when $25 million is involved, lawyers are easy to find.