Wisconsin man's two winning lotto tickets said to be "misprints"

Jul 29, 2014, 9:42 am (29 comments)

Wisconsin Lottery

Includes video report

MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — Ivory Mitchell thought he had two $1,000 dollar winning crossword scratch tickets back on July 20th.

When he tried to cash them in, he was told there was an error and that the tickets were misprints.

He thinks the Wisconsin Lottery should pay up for a mistake they made.

He was told to fill out a claim form and that he would have to wait 30 days to hear if they would honor the tickets.

CBS 58 asked the Wisconsin Lottery about this and they sent this statement:

"The Wisconsin Lottery was made aware of a vendor error on July 18 in which the overlay of the $2 Crossword scratch game did not match the letters underneath.  This was an isolated case within this particular crossword game.

 While this affected game play, it would not affect if someone won, as determined by a scan of the ticket.

 This one batch of tickets began to be distributed to retailers on July 16.  When the Lottery was informed of the incorrect overlay, Lottery staff contacted retailers to stop selling tickets in the affected range and stopped subsequent distribution.

 Per Game Rules, the Lottery has notified retailers expressing that they will reimburse all players of this $2 Crossword game the cost of the ticket they purchased.  To receive reimbursement or claim a winning ticket, players must sign the ticket, fill out the claim form, and mail in the ticket along with the claim form to the address on the ticket.  Retailers can also directly reimburse. 

Wisconsin has not experienced similar vendor printing errors in the past."

VIDEO: Watch the news story

Thanks to GAMBLIN QUEEN for the tip.

58 News

Comments

noise-gate

Pay the guy- it's not as though he "won" a million bucks..

prncss59's avatarprncss59

Pay him the money or trust me you will be losing a lot of customers!!!!

KKLK$DAY7

Pay the ticket!!!

luckyshoes's avatarluckyshoes

He paid you..now you pay him .

Accountability ,  Wisconsin Lottery Yes Nod

mypiemaster's avatarmypiemaster

If it's not a forgery, you have to pay the man. JUST PAY THE MAN, DOGNABIT!!!.

Tialuvslotto's avatarTialuvslotto

Wisconsin Lottery screwed up.  The poor schmuck who bought their "mistakes" shouldn't have to suffer.  PAY THE MAN!

dpoly1's avatardpoly1

Not a great way to promote your business!

Bash

onlymoney

Screw this guy. Life isn't fair, get over it. Fascist dictators are ubiquitous, so get used to it. 

HaveABall's avatarHaveABall

I think players that this same thing happened to should be reimbursed their monies spent on ticket(s). 

Also, I think that lottery vendors who continued to sell the mentioned "misprinted ticket #s" should be fined, per ticket sold, for not having a system invoked to check and react to urgent lottery headquarters notifications!!! Earning income, per lottery ticket sale, as a vendor should be earned and re-earned!

Rant

Sometimes gambling is more of a gamble than the probabilities charts show us! Unhappy

ThatScaryChick's avatarThatScaryChick

They should just pay the guy and any other people who scratch winners for their mistakes and make sure it doesn't happen again. It would be better pr for them and make the Wisconsin state lottery look honest. But they won't do that.

noise-gate

Not for nothing is it called gambling, Wisconsin lottery took a gamble and now have to pay the piper for a game they authorized.

Any A-hole thinking it's okay to be given the short end of the stick in this case may very well be beyond rehabilitation.

duckman's avatarduckman

Unfortunately, most state lottery rules say that the scan/barcode determines the winner, not the scratch play area. The scratch/play area is "for entertainment purposes only" and is meaningless as far as winning goes.

That being said, from a PR standpoint the lottery should pay out.

The BIG problem is that there could be some winners that appear to be losers after scratching the letters (the scan/barcode would show a winner when the scratched letters indicate it is not a winner).

What he should do is take ALL of his, and other non-winning tickets he can find, into Lottery HQ and tell them to scan the tickets to make sure they are not winners. Imagine showing up with a few thousand non-winners for them to check. When they scour at checking all those tickets, just tell them the play area on the front may not match the barcode/scan as evidenced by this report...

Think's avatarThink

So much for me making a trip to Wisc to buy some Megabucks tickets.

Now I know for sure it isn't worth the trip.

icebuster

Same thing happened to me a couple weeks ago.  It can be very frustrating and upsetting too.

I found a $40 winning scratch-off alongside a busy intersection and when I was able to scratch all but one of the serial number digits off.  I took the scratch-off to a grocery store and the clerk was able to guess the missing digit and it came up as a non-winner.  But one can clearly observe that one of the winning numbers match one of the numbers on the bottom.  In all, called Georgia Lottery and they told me to send the scratch-off to them with a letter.  I sent them the scratch-off along with a register receipt saying that is wasn't a winner.

Now I'm just sitting away hoping for a response, checked the mail but no response as of yet (7/29/2014).....Can't wait to get my $40 check, if they choose to pay me at all...Sometimes the lottery can be a ripoff at times...

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