1998 Connecticut Lottery Headquarters Shooting

On March 6, 1998, a mass shooting occurred at the headquarters of the Connecticut Lottery, then located in Newington, Connecticut. According to the Wikipedia article on the Connecticut Lottery, an employee named Matthew Beck, who was armed with a 9mm Glock pistol and a knife, shot and killed four of his supervisors at the facility.

As police arrived at the scene, Beck killed himself with a shot to the right temple. The Wikipedia account states that Beck had worked at the Connecticut Lottery for nine years and was upset about not receiving a promotion. He was also reported to have grievances related to being assigned tasks that were not part of his job description, along with other complaints against his supervisors.

The Connecticut Lottery itself is the official state lottery of Connecticut, created in 1971 under legislation signed by then-Governor Thomas Meskill, with the first tickets sold on February 15, 1972. The 1998 shooting took place at a time when the lottery's headquarters was situated in Newington; the organization has continued to operate various draw and scratch games in the years since.

This case is documented as solved, with the perpetrator identified as Matthew Beck, who died at the scene by suicide. No trial occurred as a result of his death at the scene. Contemporaneous news coverage of the incident was published by The New York Times and CNN, which are cited here as corroborating references from the period; specific factual details in this summary are drawn from the Wikipedia article's account of the event.