Stolen Lottery Tickets

My murderer stole all the lottery tickets from the gas station when he killed the cashier. Yeah, I know, he's not particularly bright. I'm guessing that he's going to be able to cash a lot of the smaller value prizes without much problem, but when he gets to the large value winnings he's going to have to claim his winnings by mail.

That's when he *would* get caught, if he had a checking account. Since he doesn't he's going to get an acquaintance to claim the winnings and 'split' them. I'm sure that the police notified the lottery administration, so they'll have someone waiting to scoop up a claimant. The question is, how would that work? Would they watch the guy? Swoop down and arrest the guy who claimed the prize (and get the real perp from him)? The killing is sort of a sub plot, so how he's caught isn't terribly important, and it doesn't have to be dramatic, but a certain amount of realism would be nice.

Most lottery tickets are bar-coded. This which would allow those stolen to be suspended and not even a dollar winner could be redeemed with out specific authorization.

Interesting point. I've found two stories where tickets were cashed -

http://www.wvec.com/news/local/Police-Man-got-thousands-by-cashing-in-stolen-lottery-tickets-131213419.html

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2011/jul/19/man-redemeed-stolen-lottery-ticket-worth-20000/

and one that says they won't be -

http://www.phillyburbs.com/my_town/willow_grove/stolen-lottery-tickets-no-good/article_ed28ca5b-fd81-5c79-a22d-6428b3e5a2e2.html

So I'd guess it depends on the State lottery administration and whether the system is modular or not... Interesting.