Lotteries are illegal in Utah to raise money for education, but the state does use them to fund wildlife management.
In 2015, Wallace Scott Keele plunked down $10 for a crack at a “sportsman” elk permit and hit the big-game jackpot, winning a coveted San Juan County tag on Elk Ridge. That fall, he bagged a trophy bull. A year later, though, he found himself in court in Monticello, charged with a felony for allegedly poaching that animal.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), which netted $114,000 off that lottery, contended Keele’s 2014 conviction in Alaska for shooting a brown bear “over bait” disqualified him from hunting in the Beehive State while he was serving a two-year suspension ordered by an Alaskan court.