[publius911]

A few years back, I operated a Lottery pool among my fellow employees. I ALWAYS delivered to them a copy of the pooled tickets before the drawing.

I participated in dozens of "pooled" lotteries in my day; Always the purchaser would distribute copies of all the tickets to each individual member before the drawing.

That's not rocket science.Only a truly stupid individual, or one with larceny in their heart would fail to see the propriety and ethical necessity for that.

[publius911]

At the hearing, the seven co-workers, and three former employees who participated in the salon's lottery pool, testified each was aware of a "rule" in their system prohibiting the purchaser of the group's tickets to buy personal tickets at the same time.

This part of the story makes no sense, since at the time of the purchase, every ticket is as likely to win as any other.
If the group paid for 50 tickets, and they get copies of them before the drawing, they don't have a legitimate beef.