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.