A 32-year-old Cleveland man was arrested at a Solon gas station last week, accused of secretly printing his own winning Keno tickets and pocketing the payouts for months. Police say an internal audit at the store uncovered $17,000 in missing lottery funds before the scheme was traced back to an employee.
Solon police arrived at the Sheetz located at 5960 Cochran Rd. at about 1:49 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 5, and arrested Joshua Hartley, according to FOX 8. The outlet reports that a loss prevention employee had conducted an audit revealing $17,000 in losses tied to the store's state lottery Keno system, prompting suspicion that Hartley had been creating his own tickets from September until the beginning of November.
Once at the police station, Hartley admitted to creating the Keno tickets, the station's report states, and said he used the proceeds from any winning draws to help pay his bills. He has since been charged with theft, a fourth-degree felony, per the same account.
A Pattern Seen Elsewhere in Lottery Retail
Hartley's case follows a string of similar incidents involving Keno systems and convenience-store lottery terminals around the region. In Honesdale, Pennsylvania, a former employee of the Wayne Inn and Java and More faced a theft charge last year after investigators said he stole more than $25,000 in lottery tickets, according to the Times-Tribune. Management there said it first caught Jason Conklin purchasing and printing Keno tickets without paying for them back in April 2025, then redeeming the winning ones.
That scheme escalated quickly — Conklin fraudulently purchased $1,700 worth of Keno tickets throughout April, later telling investigators he and a friend had simply gotten carried away, the newspaper reported. Pennsylvania Lottery records showed his thefts ballooned to $25,324 by July, when he was finally fired, and he was ultimately charged with theft by unlawful taking of movable property.
A separate case out of Brookville, Pennsylvania, shows how these schemes can balloon into dozens of charges. A former Sheetz employee there, 36-year-old Katie Lynn Neal of DuBois, was hit with 42 felony counts this spring over an alleged $4,625 theft from the store, according to the Courier Express. Investigators said Neal stole the money between April 3 and April 11, transferring the funds to her VanillaDirect Pay app, and she faced 21 counts of theft by unlawful taking along with 21 counts of receiving stolen property, all third-degree felonies.
Lottery Operators Also Watching for Fraud
The Ohio Lottery itself has separately flagged concerns about potential fraud tied to one of its own promotions. The agency said it observed suspicious purchasing activity during the first two weeks of a September Keno promotion, according to News 5 Cleveland, and described it as activity it was looking into as potential fraud. That promotion originally offered a Double Booster on qualifying tickets every Tuesday afternoon before the Lottery scaled it back to one boosted ticket in every 20, the station reported.
The Lottery told News 5 Cleveland that the suspected activity did not involve anyone hacking into its systems, though it declined to comment further while the investigation remained ongoing. That case is unrelated to the Solon arrest, but it underscores how closely lottery retailers and the state agency are watching Keno terminals for irregular activity right now.
As for Hartley, the record from Solon police and FOX 8's reporting ends with the fourth-degree felony theft charge; no further court proceedings have been detailed publicly.
