| Posted: October 31, 2009, 9:06 am - IP Logged | |
I would never trust a clerk or anyone else for that matter, to check my tickets. I always check my tickets online first. Always. That way, I know what I won ahead of time. These stories, are way to common to end up trusting a ticket that could be worth thousands or millions to a clerk that you barely know.
You would be surprised how many people don't check their tickets; I've had people ask me what the MM numbers were on a date two months ago. Another problem is people watch the drawings and write down the numbers as they are drawn and believe their numbers must be in the same order. We wonder how they can do that but they don't play very often and there are games where the numbers must be in the exact order.
Some people buy MM and PB tickets without knowing there are secondary prizes and/or the value of the tickets. If player tells the clerk "check this ticket, I think I won 3 bucks", a dishonest clerk might see the ticket is worth $150, hand the player $3, and pocket the rest. I play multi-number wheels and there have been many times when I thought I matched two numbers but I actually matched 3. But I only cash tickets at an "honest store" and the clerk tells me how much. Last year when I was playing Ohio's Ten-Oh, I thought I'd matched 7 numbers for a $40 prize but it was an 8 number match worth $400. Had I went to another store and told the clerk the ticket was worth $40, a dishonest clerk may have handed me the $40 and kept the rest. Sure, I should have known exactly what the ticket was worth, but at least I didn't hand the ticket to a possible dishonest clerk.
It's impossible to know how many other "Willis" have been cheated out of thousands of dollars on one ticket and with the daily volume of all lottery play how many players have been cheated by dishonest clerks after being told their tickets are worthless or paid them substantially less than the ticket was really worth.
Chris Hanson of Dateline NBC thought they uncovered something after talking to retailers that had cashed multiple jackpot winners but I believed the players knew the actual value of those tickets and accepted a discounted value from the retailer so they could get the money immediately. Had Dateline bought a roll of scratch-offs and taken the winners to multiple stores, they might have discovered how many dishonest clerks tried to cheat them and have a real story.
"These stories, are way to common to end up trusting a ticket that could be worth thousands or millions to a clerk that you barely know."
