On Tuesday of this week, Floridian William Cody found himself staring across a courtroom at his estranged wife, Ida. In a country where the divorce rate still hovers around 50%, this is pretty common, but the circumstances surrounding this particular battle are actually unique. While the Codys have been separated for over 25 years, William recently won $1.9 million in the lottery and Ida was suing for half of the take.

Although the Codys haven't shared a home since Ronald Reagan was in his first Presidential term, they have stayed on fairly good terms over the years. Until recently, they regularly went to the dog track together, and Ida often drove William to various appointments. In fact, according to court documents, when William won the lottery, he offered Ida $55,000, in addition to the $25,000 that he gave to some of their shared children. However, she rejected the offer and is currently demanding $950,000.

Ida Cody's claim hinges on her allegation that she loaned William the money for his lottery ticket, in return for which he promised her half of his winnings. The jury in this case is expected to render a verdict later today. However, even if Ida Cody loses this round, she already plans to (finally!) file for divorce. Under Florida law, she may then qualify for half of her husband's assets. Regardless, William should probably not spend his winnings just yet!

UPDATE: After one hour of deliberation, the jury in this case determined that Ida Cody was not entitled to any of her husband's lottery winnings.

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. While he sometimes wonders what happened to his ex-girlfriends, he's now starting to wonder if he really wants to find out. Regardless, he probably won't be buying any lotto tickets.

I suppose there are those housebound people for whom a new Ohio start up, Lotto Butler, makes faint sense. The company offers to buy lottery tickets for you, store them, and, should you win, deliver them by courier. It can also handle pools of people who wish to buy blocks of tickets and share in the prize.

Putting aside for a moment the terrible odds lottery players face, I was bemused by the thought that enough people could be deeply motivated to play the game yet unable to buy tickets themselves. This in a state where you can't swing a dead cat without knocking over a lottery ticket machine.

However, Lotto Butler claims to already have 600 people signed up. These customers pay for the tickets at the time of purchase, and receive email copies of the tickets while the originals are stored by Lotto Butler. Since it's illegal to mail lottery tickets in Ohio, winning tickets are delivered by hand to its customers. The company offers monthly plans ranging from $8.99 to $49.99.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the company has already received a cease-and-desist letter from the Ohio Lottery forbidding it to use the lottery logo from its site.

Apparently, if a lotto player is unable to appreciate the odds against winning, he won't be too concerned about making the deal even worse by increasing his overhead. Chalk this up as another life penalty for those who didn't see any reason to learn math.

Financial crisis and scams go together as well as peanut butter and jelly. These scams have been around longer than the Internet, which is hardly the first technology used by con artists. During the Great Depression the use of telegrams to pitch "investment" offers to wealthy Northerners exploded.

It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. Microsoft reports that email scams are on the rise as unscrupulous individuals try to capitalize on these uncertain times. Tim Cranton, an Internet Safety Expert at Microsoft, recently told Reuters that email scams are not only more sophisticated but they are also taking advantage of the public's fears surrounding bank closings and mortgage issues.

On top of these new scams which related to current events, there are also plenty of email scams which prey upon our desire to get rich quick. These scams often require users to pay a fee in order to claim the winnings of a foreign lottery. In case you didn't see where this is going; the winnings never arrive.

The common worry is that consumers, desperate for money to support themselves, will set aside good judgment and send what little money they do have to these scammers. Most of us don't think we would ever fall for an email scam but a recent survey from Microsoft found that 25% of competent computer users are worried that they will get taken by one of these well-crafted cons!

Keep this in mind as you gather for Thanksgiving in the coming weeks; make sure you tell your relatives to watch out for emails that seem too good to be true or purport to save them money on their mortgage. In fact you can click the "Email this" link below to send this article directly to your friends and family. Keep your money safe and don't respond to email solicitations that you have even the smallest doubt about. You can learn more about email scams and how to protect yourself at Microsoft's Security at Home section.

A Canadian lottery winner held onto his winning ticket in a C$3.6 million lottery for almost a year, deciding instead to "reflect" on what he was going to do with money. And all I can day is "DUH!"

Peter Dushop won the lottery in August 2007, and put the ticket straight into a safety deposit box. He only told his mom about the winning ticket, and spent the last year just thinking about the money. He didn't even tell his girlfriend, and I'm wondering if he wanted to see if she loved him even without the money

But seriously... This was a really foolish move on the winner's part. Even if he took the money and put it straight into a savings account or certificate of deposit earning only 3%, he'd have earned over $100,000 in interest over the last year. If he needed time to "reflect" on his winnings, he could have put the money into a very safe investment and still kept quiet about it. And he'd have an additional $100,000. Heck, if he didn't want the extra money, he could have donated it to charity.

Why don't I ever win the lottery and get a chance to do something stupid like this? I promise I won't waste time thinking about what to do with the money. I'll put it right into an investment account and start earning some interest and dividends right away!

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

The Indianapolis Star reports that a lawsuit filed against Indiana's Hoosier State Lottery has been granted class-action status.

The complaint alleges that lottery advertised over $8 million in prizes for its Cash Blast game from May 2005 to July 2006, even after the prizes had already been awarded. Indianians purchased more than $20 million worth of losing tickets during that time frame, and the suit seeks a refund for losing tickets sold.
Is it unfair? Yeah, probably. But with all due respect to the victims, it's a little bit like suing the perpetrators of one of those Nigerian email scams for lying about his name -- the Lottery is one of the stupidest things you can possibly waste your money on, and, even if the prize hadn't already been awarded, the odds of winning are so small that it's barely materially different from 0.

According to the Star, "Two men, Jeff Frazer, Carmel, and Jeff Koehlinger, Auburn, filed the suit in Marion County for their losses in the game. Frazer purchased $40,000 worth of the $10 tickets and Koehlinger bought $2,470."

That's just sad. If any good comes from the case, hopefully voters and elected officials will see the tremendous human cost of gambling, even when the game isn't rigged any more than usual. $40,000 worth of tickets -- and I doubt that he could afford it because anyone who could afford it wouldn't spend money that way.

In an effort to fund ever-increasing fiscal irresponsibility, the Florida Lottery announced that, in addition to the regular cash prizes, people who buy its "Summer Cash" tickets can also win one of 40 gas for-a-lifetime prize or 400 gas for-a-year prizes. The promotion started on June 30th and will continue through August 26th.

Seeing that this is a great way to increase sales, California State Senator Dean Flore, a Democrat, sent a letter to the California Lottery urging that the state run a similar marketing campaign. I'm tempted to send a letter to the Democratic Party demanding that it disown Flore, but that's another story.

Here's what's so messed up about the idea: it's designed to appeal to people desperately seeking relief from high gas prices and, mostly likely, that's not going to be the people earning $500,000 per year. Imagine the single mother who can barely afford to provide for her children stopping to fill up her tank on the way work: she's never bought a Lottery ticket in her life, but how could she help being lured in by the promise of free gas?

It's disgraceful that any state would exploit its most vulnerable citizens like this, especially in the name of education, which the lottery is used to fund. Students should be able to go to class without the knowledge that their history textbook was paid for with the blood of the desperate working-class.

I've never understood the rationale behind the Lottery. If gambling isn't a bad deal for society, then why isn't it legal? And if it is bad for society, then why is the state using it as a revenue source? It looks like the cops busting up backroom card games aren't promoting law and order: They're protecting a state-run monopoly.

Even if you accept the idea that the Lottery isn't inherently exploitative of those who can least afford it, I hope you'll agree with me on this: A $50 scratch ticket is insane and extremely exploitative. But today's New York Times reports on the rise of scratch tickets priced at $20 or higher and Texas, the state where everything is bigger, has a $50 scratch ticket -- The $130 Million Spectacular.

Of course, all lotteries urge people to "please play responsibly". But I have to wonder: How many people are in a position where it is responsible for them to buy $50 Lottery tickets, especially in this period of record foreclosures and soaring consumer debt in the face of a sub-zero savings rate.

A lot of people are worried about what their children see on television: sex, violence, drugs, vulgar language, etc. But one show that no child (or anyone else) should see appears on TLC of all places: Lottery Changed My Life.

The show profiles Lottery jackpot winners and what they've done with their money. Not surprising, many of the winners were living in very modest circumstances before they won -- exactly the people who could least afford to be playing the lottery and yet comprise a disproportionate percentage of the country's problem gamblers.

Lottery winners are not people who should be glorified: We should save television profiles on people who worked hard to better themselves and their children.

Maybe TLC, the channel that features such shows as Flip That House, feels a little shame itself? The show isn't mentioned on its website at all. Hmmm.

Here's a show I'd like to see on TLC: a show profiling the lives of families ruined by problem gambling, and children lacking clothes for school because their parents bought Lottery tickets instead. There are a lot more of these situations than there are jackpot winners, and that's the cost of state-sanctioned gambling that politicians need to be looking at. Maybe documentary filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz will bring us something worth watching.

As the holiday season approaches, we thought you might appreciate some gift suggestions with a twist, appropriate for those on your list who aren't satisfied with the same old, same old.

Most of the gifts we've recommended in this series are meant to add a little well-intentioned, if off-kilter, fun to the holiday season. But what if you have to gift a really bad person -- the guy that treats the five bucks you owe him like the subprime scandal, that has to tell you, for your own good, that you've developed a little chunk in the trunk, that feels its her moral obligation to tell the boss you cut out from work a half hour early to score Hannah Montana tickets for your kid.

For such pond scum, we have the perfect gift: fake lottery tickets. Celebrate the season by watching the joy of miraculous fortune on your nemesis' face fade into the scowl of indignation. But keep an eye out for the flying bottle of retribution.

For the person who can't believe you don't (heart) them to death, say it with lottery tickets. It's a gift they'll never forget.

Chalk this up as another piece of evidence that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and the internet have become shining beacons for justice.

According to the Associated Press, Donna Campbell of Miami was shocked to discover, when she Googled her husband Arnim Ramdass, that he was part of a group of co-workers that won a $19 million lottery jackpot months before. The group chose a lump sum payout, from which Arnim had received $600,000 before taxes.

Campbell became suspicious when Ramdass had their phone disconnected and refused to turn on the television. When the lightbulb in Campbell's head finally flickered on, she queried the internet about her husband.

When she confronted Ramdass about the money, he made a lame excuse that he'd bought the ticket for his daughter by a former wife. Shortly thereafter, he disappeared, just ahead of Campbell's lawsuit to recover her portion of the winnings.

If I was Ramdass, I'd give myself up. He can't hide from Google forever.