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.
Pay the guy- it's not as though he "won" a million bucks..
Pay him the money or trust me you will be losing a lot of customers!!!!
Pay the ticket!!!
He paid you..now you pay him .
Accountability , Wisconsin Lottery
If it's not a forgery, you have to pay the man. JUST PAY THE MAN, DOGNABIT!!!.
Wisconsin Lottery screwed up. The poor schmuck who bought their "mistakes" shouldn't have to suffer. PAY THE MAN!
Not a great way to promote your business!
Screw this guy. Life isn't fair, get over it. Fascist dictators are ubiquitous, so get used to it.
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!
Sometimes gambling is more of a gamble than the probabilities charts show us!
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
They should pay him the money. I am sure it won't break the bank for them. They should take responsibility for their mistake.
Honor their mistake and keep the customers happy.
A long time ago, pre-internet and when IBM's were as big as rooms, Popular Science ran a cartoon.
A guy wne to an office to dispute a bill and the guy behind the desk said, "Our computer says you owe us $281.69 and our computer doesn't make mistakes, Mr. Z!@2$^Q".
Well they can't pay because for one all winning claim must pass validation. The lottery doesn't have money for this kind of claims if they do then the lottery won't exist anymore and anybody can come up with a one billion dollar misprint and say hey you paid the last guy so pay me. if they pay it will open a pandora's box so it is sad but didn't the owner of this scratch of ticket scan his ticket at store after he thought he won. The machine would have told him you still a Biggest Loser Bro you are worst than losing lol that will save him a trip to lottery office for another $2 refund not worth the trip too Bro lol.
Is that an example of an "Indian Giver"
No, eazygo, merely a typo. Though it has never happened to the Wisconsin Lottery before, it happens each year to some other state's Lottery.
Anyhow, welcome eazygo!
You would think the vendors should be responsible but i guess the State lotteries don't have that in their contract.
Congrats, hope you get your check soon
Ok being this is the misprint? I say not only refund this man his money he spent on tickets? But give him some complimentary scratch offs if they can't pay him what he felt he won. Do something to take away the "sting" of him having not won.
Even though this was a mistake it's still wrong. They need to give a refund to everyone who bought one of those tickets if they don't want to honor their mistake.
"He thinks the Wisconsin Lottery should pay up for a mistake they made."
Without knowing what the mistake was makes a big difference in saying what they should do and what they'll probably do. A few years ago in Florida a scratch-off player thought they won $1 million because one of "their numbers" matched a winning number. The problem was, below "their number 1" in smaller print was "thrt" (13). It might be a misprint because the "3" wasn't there or they scratched the "3" off. That player was not paid.
"While this affected game play, it would not affect if someone won, as determined by a scan of the ticket."
If it doesn't matter what's on the the ticket, the reason to even scratch the ticket is eliminated. If an apparent winning ticket scans as a loser, it's possible losing tickets will scan as winners and more players throw away tickets that "look like they lost" than the players who try to cash misprinted tickets believing they won.
There is one part of this story that makes me very skeptical and it's the fact the player said he played for 42 years and the two $1000 tickets was his biggest win. If it does go to court that could be the reason he loses and I'm pretty sure a good lawyer will tell him by signing the back of the ticket he agrees to all lottery rules and regulations.
Thats some BS,pay the man for ur error. Its good business.
I agree but if I were him, I'd probably stop playing crossword style scratch offs. I've never cared much for those anyway.
I had the same problem when Patel told me my slurpee coupon was a misprint. We fought for 10mins but i gave up and payed the $1.04.
I'm really starting to get disillusioned with Wi lottery, the scratch offs hardly have any winners and I've not won any money of significance on the other games since the Random Number Generator computer replaced the ping pong balls, has any one else noticed the change since the RNG was introduced ? If so let start a petition to bring back the ping pong balls.