Congrats to Mr. Alsaidi! That is definitely a nice win.

Once again we have a retailer or some employee of an establishment where lottery tickets are sold who has "picked" a jackpot winner. I don't know about everyone else, but I keep hearing too many of these stories lately. I personally think it should be prohibited for anyone who works in a store that sells lottery scratch game tickets (regardless of whether they are a manager, clerk, etc.) to be able to buy these tickets from that location. This should apply whether they are on or off duty too.

I have played these games on occasion over the past several years and in that time I have come to realize and observe that some retailers like to "keep track" on the winners and losers in some rolls. I know it's not discussed much or ever admitted, but I'm sure it happens.

This is especially true with the more expensive ($10-$20) scratch tickets, where the turnaround is much slower than the cheaper ($1-$2-$5) tickets. For example, if you are behind the counter and notice that 5 tickets from a certain $10-$20 roll were bought by a previous customer only to be losers, your chances of getting a winner on the next one are much better. However, someone who just walks in off the street would not know that. 

I always get an uneasy feeling whenever I walk into a store and I spot the clerk scratching tickets behind the counter. It just doesn't look good and I end up not buying from the place whenever I see that happening.

It should be the same as when some organization is holding a contest, sweepstakes or whatever. There is usually some list of rules or fine print somewhere that usually states that employees of that company (or even family members in most cases) are not eligible to participate.

It's just trying to keep things fair (on the same playing field) and not offer any unfair advantages, no matter how large or small they appear to be.

I agree anyone working in an establishment that sells instant lottery tickets SHOULD NOT be allowed to purchase tickets at that store.  Wasn't there some suspicion in Canada recently surrounding lottery retailers winning a large percentage of winnings????

It just doesn't seem right.

are you kidding me?  You want them to not allow employees who sell the lottery tickets to be eligible to win? 

If you think it is such an unfair advantage, why don't you get a job as a clerk selling the lottery tickets?  I'm sure you will change your mind about all of that real soon.  I worked in a store once as a clerk-no, not selling lottery tickets.  What makes you so certain they have time to notice such things?  And even if they do, that is no guarantee they are going to get all the winners.  I think if it's your time to win, you'll win, no matter what you did or didn't do.  I believe you can be strategic and increase your odds, but some people were just meant to win.  It's just who they are.  Besides, if anything, the clerks who work in the stores are probably more likely to develop an addiction to the lottery than anyone else.  Imagine seeing so many people coming in all the time cashing in winning tickets.  You know they are thinking "well, if they can do it, I can do it."  And off they go.  But they may not know that those players are spending hours working on their methods and strategies.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought that to be very unfair to the clerks who sell us our tickets.

Almost $25,000 a month, wow that is just ridiculous. I hope there is no scamming somehow going on with employees buying where they work. PA has nothing close to that except $100,000 a year for life, which is actually $75,000. He will get this AFTER taxes in 3 months!

Totally different story. The sellers in Canada were "stealing" peoples tickets, not buying tickets. Why shouldn't someone who works in a store not be allowed to purchase tickets? They are not anymore privy to certain numbers then someone who walks in and buys one.

Yes there is a big difference between what happened here and what people did in Canada.  But there is truth to the matter that if you work in a place that sells scratch off tickets and most of the people scratch them right in front of you and you see a big amount of losers in a row the chances are rest of the book will be somewhat positive or less of a losing roi.  Each book in most states has a specific amount of minimum prizes to it.   Say if you buy a roll of 60 $10 tickets in Illinois you are guaranteed that each book will pay out a minimum amount.  Books that have the big prizes in it will usually have a lower amount of other prizes to offset it.  So if I worked in a store that had ten or more straight losers in it I would probably buy the rest of the book knowing I would at least get fairly close to my investment back while having a better shot at maybe something big then just randomly buying a book.  This though I think is hard to do for most as many people buy the tickets and scratch at home and cash in maybe at another place. 

..and if you are working for 7 bucks an hour..have bills to pay and gas to buy, tell me how in the world are you going to "pay" for those "remaining"scratch-offs ?  Clerks don't make that much..Most of the ones I know just buy an occasional scratch ticket mainly out of boredom..when I was a lottery clerk, I did, too.  You only buy 1 or 2 because you have to pay for them right now..just like everyone else...

In Michigan a few years ago when they were doing the second chance drawings on tv. Call me skeptical, but, it sure seemed like there was a large majority of winners that were of middle eastern descent.

Wonder what would happen if they interviewed all the people that recently received a small payout from this winner. It just seems a little funny that he is going out of his way to tell when he bought this ticket and how he waited to cash it in.