Apparently, a 37-year-old Ceres, California man was arrested by local and state detectives after stealing thousands of lottery tickets in a series of burglaries stretching throughout California's Central Valley. I suppose this takes the gambling addiction warnings on the California lottery site to a new level?

The lottery addict in question, one Matthew Roberts, is a suspect in 30 burglaries from November to June that had one common denominator: the theft of lottery tickets. During the arrest at a house in Ceres, several other people were taken in for drug and parole violations as well.

California Lottery’s Law Enforcement Division investigators began to see a pattern in the series of lottery ticket thefts, according to the press release on this matter. They began working with the local authorities in the area where the burglaries were occurring.

In May, alert SaveMart grocery store employees noted an individual attempting to cash in on a winning lottery ticket that had been reported stolen in the burglaries. They were able to get a license plate number, which led to Roberts being identified as the lottery ticket bandit.

Roberts has been charged in three of the burglaries and for auto theft. According to the authorities, there will be additional charges filed in the coming weeks as well as additional arrests, meaning there might be additional lottery bandits still at large.

In this instance, we are probably dealing with a not-so-bright criminal. Given that lottery security is extremely tight and the inventory is tracked by computer, stealing lottery tickets probably isn't the smartest way to win a lottery. It's pretty obvious that the alert employees at SaveMart must have been tipped off electronically that the ticket(s) being presented were "hot."

This isn't the first time in recent history that the California Lottery Police have made headlines. In May, it was announced that they were using undercover agents to catch dishonest retailers who were cheating winners out of their prizes. On several occasions, retailers presented with winning tickets worth $500 to $25,000 were caught pretending the prize was smaller and keeping the proceeds for themselves. Several arrests were made in California as a result of that sting.