Check your own tickets. Period.

It is a lottery in itself trying to find an honest clerk.

There are plenty of them, and some are LP members, but why take the chance ?

Check the tickets yourself. If you are smart enough to play you should be smart enough to know when you have a winner.

In SC , the scanning of the ticket causes the machine to play a recorded message that you can hear if you are paying attention :

"Congratulations, you are a winner"

DD, that makes sense!  In Florida there is a "Race For Cash" game. I think if you buy 5 lottery numbers you automatically get a voucher, but I've heard the sound of a race car revving up coming out of the terminal. So if they can program that into the system, they certainly can announce a winning or losing scratch card.  I've watched the clerks scan tickets and the amount won is shown in the screen. I think a dishonest clerk could fool a customer by switching tickets. A customer should always ask for the ticket back.  It's amazing that for $77 this guy lost a job and got arrested. I'm not saying stealing $7 million would be right, only that this guy obviously was thinking of getting high and his brains were scrambled.

BTW, just as a good faith gesture I think the store should give this lady her money or 2 free tanks of gas.

We need scanners on this side of the counter.

What a price to pay for a $77 lottery ticket

He's an idiot and she should have checked her own ticket better.

In Michigan, once a clerk scans your ticket, the terminal spits out an receipt. It will show if you are a winner, with the prize amount stated, or, it will state, This ticket is not a winner. Get your receipt or get screwed! And always, always keep the ticket!

Is this true for scratch tickets as well?

BTW, people here are saying this woman should have been more careful. That's not the way I read the story. She knew she won and that's why she complained. I don't think she was being careless at all or she would have just walked away.  If I walked into a 7-11 and tried to cash in a winning ticket and the clerk told me I made a mistake and it was a loser, what could I do about it? I think by calling the police she did the right thing. Her only mistake was not asking for the ticket back the first time she went to the store.

In some Atlanta Publix grocery stores the Georgia Lottery is putting in small terminals where you can check your own tickets without involving a clerk.  Those terminals may be in other stores, too. 

I hope these ticket checking terminals are going to be placed into all stores selling Georgia Lottery tickets.

If these people would read the information about how to claim a prize,maybe they wouldn't have to go thru all this.They need to sign their names on tickets that they think are winners.Yes,this woman may have gotten cheated anyway but,she would have known the procedure that any clerk should have followed.

Good idea, although I always check my numbers online.  I think they should also put up a sign that reads "Do Not Scratch Your Tickets Here"

In Idaho the terminal makes a music sound when a ticket wins something.

she left the store.

              what in the world is so hard about checking your own ticket?

Absolutely.  Very good idea!

Signing the ticket is only worthwhile if you are going to cash a ticket at the lottery office . Anything that can be redeemed at the store can be scanned and then trashed regardless of whos name is on it.

DD