A lottery player in Newfoundland says there could be a problem with Atlantic Lottery tickets after she says she was denied her prize.
Elaine Wells, of Foxtrap in Conception Bay South, says she bought a Lotto 6/49 ticket in January and won $20 on the TAG feature. But when she went to a ticket retailer to claim her prize, the lottery corporation's scanner at the store didn't register the ticket as a winner.
After checking the numbers, she says was convinced her ticket was a winner. She contacted the Atlantic Lottery Corp., and said the person she spoke with on the phone told her she must have already claimed her prize and forgot, which would explain why store's scanner did not approve the win.
"It aggravated me enough to say something's wrong here," Wells told CBC News. "Then, to be accused that I had done something wrong instead of maybe being open-minded and (admitting) there is a glitch in the system," she said of the corporation.
Wells said the lottery representative told her to send the ticket, with the validation slip from the scanner, to the corporation and they would look into the matter, and award her the prize if she did indeed win.
But Wells said the $20 prize isn't what concerns her. The validation slip that says the ticket is not a winner also says consumers should check their tickets manually, which leads Wells to believe that some people may not be getting their prizes.
"Now I wonder how many people, especially elderly, do not have access to the internet to check them themselves and just take for granted they are not winners and just throw [the tickets] in the garbage," Wells said.
There are features on Atlantic Lottery's website to check tickets and winning numbers.
No one from the Atlantic Lottery Corp. was available for comment.
The corporation handles gaming on behalf of the provincial governments in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island.
That is very sad. Stores should post the numbers on the wall so customers can double check. Where I worked, we would print out many previous winning numbers to hand to customers after checking the ticket with the machine. That way they could double check what was drawn.
I agree, it is sad. Some of the stores where I go to have printed out slips already made out and a couple of the grocery stores actually write on big boards the previous drawings, which I think is nice.
That is very sad. Stores should post the numbers on the wall so customers can double check. Where I worked, we would print out many previous winning numbers to hand to customers after checking the ticket with the machine. That way they could double check what was drawn.
I agree, it is sad. Some of the stores where I go to have printed out slips already made out and a couple of the grocery stores actually write on big boards the previous drawings, which I think is nice.