A New Mexico man thought he won big bucks on a lottery scratcher only to find out it was a misprint.
In December, John Wines bought a scratch-off lottery ticket at the Shell gas station in Roswell, New Mexico.
The winning numbers were 1 and 2.
As John started scratching, he came across not 1,2,3 or 4 — but 5 winning numbers, totaling over $500,000.
If you look closely at the ticket, you can see part of a number that's supposed to be next to the 1's, but it's very faint and you can't tell what it is.
"There's a 1 right here for $250,000," said Wines. "Right below that is another 1 and it's a $250,000 winner."
But there was a problem - the maximum prize for the ticket is $250,000.
Down below is another 1 for $75, a 2 for $500, and another 2 for $50.
John says he thought he hit the big one. But he says when he went to the gas station to get his money, it didn't work.
"I took it back in and she told me that is not a winner," said Wines. "They told me that it was a misprint and they don't pay off for misprints."
John says he contacted the New Mexico Lottery who replied in an email saying, "We did find a flaw in that particular pack of tickets and it's been reported to our printer. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I did complete a reconstruction of your ticket and it was not a winner."
John begs to differ.
"I mean, if you thought you won $500,000 and somebody tells you that you didn't, and you can prove to them you did, it's pretty stressful for somebody to say, 'no you're not getting your money,'" said Wines.
John says he just retired and $500,000 would be nice.
"If it was $50 or $75, I would not think a thing about it," said Wines. "But this is $500,000. That's a half million."
The New Mexico Lottery did offer him $100 in lottery tickets.
"It's like I told them, I didn't misprint it," said Wines. "I bought the ticket in good faith thinking if I won I was going to get my money. And they told me no, they absolutely, positively told me no."
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Thanks to Leland B. for the tip.
It's a tough break for John, but indeed, a misprint. If the "1" which matched his numbers just said ONE underneath the number instead of "TW" and the NM Lottery refused to pay him, there'd be legitimate cause for a lawsuit. But it looks like several numbers on his ticket were blurred out and he should receive some compensation in addition to the tickets, although not the full prize.
They should honor their mistake.
should get more the a 100 dollar it is there mistake.
Its a printer,they do malfunction sometimes.Not really a fan of scratch off tickets.
Casinos have been declaring malfunctions on their one-armed bandits for several years now, denying the player a good hunk of money. Looks as if the lottery has picked up on the scheme. Look for more "misprints" on scratch off in the future.
This is just another reason why I stay clear of scratchers tickets.You guaranteed a BS answer if they think they have a chance of screwing you over by claiming" misprint"
The words no one wants to hear...
" We did a reconstruction of your ticket and guess what Pal, you lose"..end of discussion.
"There's a 1 right here for $250,000," said Wines. "Right below that is another 1 and it's a $250,000 winner." But there was a problem - the maximum prize for the ticket is $250,000.
The title of this article is very misleading because there never was a winning lottery ticket. Looking at the "14" in the third line it's obvious another digit was on the right side of the "1" in the first and second lines. It even says below the picture you see where not all of the other digit was scratched off.
According to the clerk where I buy my tickets, at least once a week someone will scratch off the other digit trying to make a "14" or "19" look like a "1". What the players didn't know, if the digit is a "1", "one" will be below it and not "fortn" or "nintn".
I'll bet on the back of the ticket is some type of misprint disclaimer and says something like "Prizes over $25,000 must be claimed at the New Mexico Lottery headquarters".
I understand his frustrations but it looks like abbreviated numbers underneath the ones. Definitely a missprint. He should be grateful he got those free tickets, he might win of those.
He should have taken the $100 in lottery tickets. Who knows, maybe a real jackpot winner would be in there.
While some misprints could be debatable, this one is clear-cut loser. Not only are the numbers wrong, but the combination of so-called winners is clearly invalid. A large "jackpot" ticket, in every instant game I'm familiar with, would never have a smaller $50, $75, etc winner too...
Immediate size winners also are most typically limited in what combinations are valid. For example, if one is playing PA bingo and there's a common bingo number needed to complete two lines on the same card ... one for say $25 and also for $1000, that bingo number is not coming up; if it did, the ticket is non-conforming. Some states publish detailed winning combination info, such as Pennsylvania, while many others, such as New Mexico, don't.
I'm amazed more misprints don't occur. Hopefully, New Mexico Lottery contracts out with a different printer and/or improves the quality checks. And while they're at it, increase their claim period from 90 days to at least 180 days, or even better 1 year. Any lottery with such a short claim period is immediately suspect - seemingly more focused on cheating players out of their winnings than building a loyal player base, but I digress.
Here's the thing, how many winners have been thrown away because of misprints too? No one will ever know. Funny how that works in their favor, don't ya think?
Same. Too easy for mistakes like this to happen.
Wow that suxs the NML should do the right thing.
Ron, some instant tickets--mainly the Bingo--I've played in Missouri and Florida have had $25,003 prizes (the top prize plus a $3 line) so it's not unheard of, but in this case, you're spot on. $250,075, what an odd prize!
I just hope the unfortunate guy didn't tell his boss exactly what he thinks of them before the bad news kicked in because the boss would be the one having the last laugh.
Aside from what is printed on the face of the scratch ticket, the ticket is protected by the bar code. So the value of the ticket can always be determined by the bar code , despite the symbols or numbers on the ticket face.
It's very clear that neither of those numbers are just "1". He should at least get the cost of the ticket refunded though.
"He should at least get the cost of the ticket refunded though."
People keep using the word "misprint" when it looks like the second digit was scratched off in the top line. Wouldn't that open the door for anyone scratching off the second digit in any number from 10 to 19 and then getting a refund on a worthless ticket?
Wait a minute there Stack..The lottery officials told him that they " aware of the misprint " on that batch, yet they continued to sell them instead of pulling their product off the sheves,perhaps thinking that no one would catch it...well duh.
The last thing l need to hear is " we know there is a defective batch out there"..but since you the only one complaining- we guess it's not that severe after all..
Ticket obviously says 12 and 18, not 1 and 1. He must not be able to read either, because under 12 it Tw.... and under 18 is Et.... so duh get a life.
Exactly, they guy would have to be a borderline retard to think he won on that ticket. I would LMFAO if they turned around and sued him for
defamation.
I'm usually a person that says, "pay the guy," but in this case looking at the ticket it's pretty clear those numbers are not 1's.
I would probably agree with you, but John was only one seeing the email and his credibility is skeptical.
John says he thought he hit the big one. But he says when he went to the gas station to get his money, it didn't work.
I don't expect everybody to be lottery savvy, but expecting to collect over $500,000 at a gas station?
He was offered $100 worth of tickets, which was a nice gesture considering he believe he won over $1/2 million when the top prize was a quarter million.
The New Mexico Lottery did offer him $100 in lottery tickets.
I hope their not the same tickets.
Now that would be messed up.
l get what you saying about this guy attempting to get the gas station clerk to pay him half a million dollars- my original beef was them continuing to sell defective scratcher tickets. If Advil had a misprint on their bottles- those items are recalled immediately because of lawsuits- with scratchers" keep them rolling people"..they losing tickets anyway..
I agree, if they know it is a defective batch, they should pull it. If it was defective in the buying public's favor, you can bet they would pull it in a heartbeat.
First thing I thought after reading the story is how did he expect to win $500,000 when the top prize is $250,000?
And as mentioned, the barcode indicates a winner or loser.
He's trying to pull a fast one. A very sloppy fast one. LOL.
You can still part of the second digit on both of them. It doesn't take a genius to know that it was a misprint.
They are taking it just as serious ,but what they are doing is illegal ,if it appears to be a winner than it should be a winning ticket, the reason why you scratch. Lottery tickets also don't say anything about claiming a misprint. What mainly appears on it should be official. Try to make payments in advance for anything than tell them that it was a mistake and to send you your money back.
Bar codes, scanning codes, are also a print ,My friend had a ticket that revealed a $50 winner and the ticket scanner revealed less, the ticket was clearly a 50 winner. He got his reward. Some people just scratch the scanning code. You probably been leaving you're treasures behind. It won't be a bad idea to pick up tickets with only bar codes scratched.
cont...try pick up tickets left behind, i have found prizes in completely scratched ones.You are more likely to win this way compared to powerball jackpot.
Misprinted money is valuable.in fact more valuable. I think anything that reveals a winner but has been misprinted and not tampered with it should be rewarded. Otherwise they should print warning on back of ticket .
was some kind of mistake and you had to beg for your job back. Moral... The win isn't official until you cash the check.
no doubt...but we live in America so that's not gonna happen.
I agree. til the money is in the bank or in hand, its best to pause on making rash actions.
I had a scenario where the entire packet from a store was never "initialized" in the terminal. I won legitimately yet when I went to claim it they said its NOT valid. I had them call the PA vendor hotline and they tracked down the vendor and about an hour later I had a money order in hand . Took all the thrill out of winning when they made an allegation that I some how may have stolen the packet. I said" How could I have stolen it when I told you where it was purchased and they never filed a Loss of ticket packet.? I get that they are distrusting, yet It made me realize that even when the vendor goofs up, somehow they pin it on the player.
I found it odd the state lottery would offer $100 worth scratch-off tickets when the email said there was a flaw in that particular pack of tickets and a complete reconstruction of the ticket showed it was not a winner. There is a difference between the average player finding a flaw and someone who thinks their ticket should pay over twice the advertised payoff and the gas station where they bought the ticket will pay them in cash.
The flaw could be not enough paint making it easy to scratch-off the digit with the "1" and probably just on one pack of tickets. There is no "one" underneath either "1" and you can clearly see another digit was suppose to be there or rubbed off. It would be nice if everybody could aggressively rub off the other digit and get paid and call it a flaw, but that will never happen.
The New Mexico lottery appears to be very incompetent. I wouldn't trust it after hearing this story.
Why, they didn't make the ticket. One of their vendors did. They admitted the ticket was printed incorrectly and reported it to the vendor. They offered fair compensation. The player realized the error in the printing process and tried to capitalize on it and succeeded by getting 5 times the value for his losing ticket. How could he think his ticket was worth 2X the top prize?
The word number indicated the right number is in the teens, not 1. Now it would be a different story if the lottery used military numerology...that is one two for 12, one eight for eighteen.
nope, that ticket is a loser dude!
This story is getting lots of attention and Jimmy Fallon joked about it in his monologue. What if a bank has a misprint on the amount of money from a check you deposited; the check was for $1000.00, but $100,000 was deposited in your account because of a printing error. Do you get to keep the money?
Or what if you deposited a check for $1000, but the deposit showed it was only $10.00 because a speck that looked like a period; does the bank get to keep $990?
In either situation is easy to reconstruct the actual transactions correct any mistakes. Any savvy scratch-off players knows when the top prize is $250,000, they can't win more than that on one ticket and just looking at this ticket it's obvious there was another digit behind the "1" whether is was a misprint or scratched off by the player.
I wish I could find the story from over 20 years ago when a player cut and clued numbers from another ticket and tried to claim the winnings.
Anyhow, the store clerk(s) probably recalled that they pulled their other misprinted tickets from the sell bin ... but did or didn't explain that to him. Regardless, I think the Lottery Headquarters office was quite generous in offering this super-stretching complainer those 100 free tickets. Had he accepted them, he probably would have won at least $25-$75 bucks out of those 100 tickets! Geez.
There are numbers on the bottom of the scratch off that tell if the ticket is a winner. If those numbers state the ticket is not a winning ticket- its NOT!