A Roanoke law firm has followed through on a plan to sue the Virginia Lottery on behalf of a Washington and Lee University professor.

Associate professor Scott Hoover, who teaches applied business statistics, played a scratch-ticket game called Beginners Luck in August 2007. After he noticed that the top $75,000 prizes weren't being given out at the rate dictated by laws of statistics, his suspicions led to the discovery that the lottery had continued selling scratch tickets after the top prizes had all been given out, he has said.

Hoover's suit, filed Friday in Richmond Circuit Court, asks that he be considered a "virtual representative" for everyone in the past five years who has bought a scratch-off ticket for a game in which the top prizes were no longer available.

The lawsuit accuses the lottery of contract violations and demands that the lottery repay those who bought the improperly sold tickets.

In the game Hoover played, the last $75,000 prize for the batch of tickets he purchased from had been given out the month before.

"This complaint aims to make the Lottery accountable," lawyer John Fishwick said in a statement released Monday morning. His firm announced last month that it intended to sue the lottery.

The lawsuit estimates that the Virginia Lottery made about $85 million over five years from selling 26.5 million tickets for which top prizes were no longer available. The suit demands that the lottery be found liable for that money and be made to repay it.

It's unclear whether the suit's assertion that Hoover can be a "virtual representative" for all ticket buyers will hold up in state court. Virginia law does not allow class-action lawsuits.

Virginia Lottery Executive Director Paula Otto said Monday she had not yet received a copy of the suit.

"I would just reiterate that we want our players to know that the scratch tickets at retailers have top prizes," she said. "Once we know that last prize is claimed we immediately end the game."

Otto has said that in the past some popular Virginia scratch games did continue to sell tickets after all the top prizes for a batch had been given away, but that only occurred in about 15 percent of the games conducted over a two-year period. The lottery ended the practice altogether in July 2007, for reasons unrelated to Hoover's lawsuit, she said.

Fishwick said that although the lottery has acknowledged the problem, officials haven't taken responsibility or taken steps to reimburse those who bought "defective tickets."

"The lottery claims that it has been conducting studies of its sales of these defective tickets over the last few weeks, but has not announced the results. We believe full disclosure to the public is necessary, and we look forward to that information," Fishwick said.