Winners say the state is claiming they owe money for nonexistent debts

Includes video report

By Kate Northrop

Florida lottery winners are increasingly expressing frustration over the claims process, with many players complaining that the state is blocking prize payouts and issuing notices of owed money for debts that do not exist.

Lottery winners in Florida suspect that an "error" in the state's internal system is causing it to flag individuals for owed debts where none exist, halting prize payouts.

While some Florida residents visited a claim center hoping to leave with a check for their winnings, some walked out of the building with a letter saying that they owe money to the state instead. One young mother, Brittany Wilson, described the feeling of having her winnings snatched from her as a "nightmare."

"It was hard for me during that time," the struggling woman told ABC Action News. "I was financially struggling... something just told me to go to the store and try out my winnings."

Wilson bought a lottery ticket and won a $5,000 prize. It was such a financial relief that she cried tears of joy. She was excited that she would be able to spend some money on her kids, who mean "everything" to her.

"I was thinking about all the bills that I have held up, just paying those off," she continued.

The mood quickly took a downturn when she visited a Florida Lottery District Office on Jan. 3, 2024 and was handed a "Special Circumstances ticket" telling her she may owe "state-owned debt" related to unemployment compensation she may have received in the past.

"This can't be right," Wilson said. In 2023, she had won and collected a $1,000 scratch-off lottery prize without a problem.

She said she never received any call, letter, or email from the state informing her of any debt, adding that she called the Florida Unemployment Assistance Program "almost every day," sometimes "waiting two hours, at the max three, just to speak to someone."

"If you guys [the state] can find out if I'm working or if I'm not working to verify if I qualify for unemployment, you should be able to find some way to reach me," Wilson told ABC Action News. "My email on that site is still the same."

ABC Action News found that more than 530 people had the same issue as Wilson — trying to claim lottery winnings but being told they owed debts related to unemployment that they were either unaware of or positive that they did not owe.

"Something has to be done," Wilson contended. "This cannot keep happening — with the times now, where [the cost of] everything's going up: rent's going up, food's going up. Let me have this money."

Two weeks after Wilson told her story, the state sent her a check for her winnings, and the debt under her name was wiped.

Bob Calamita, another lottery winner in the same boat as Wilson, was adamant that he did not owe money, and yet, he was told he did. In March, he won $1,000 in the lottery but was given a letter saying he owed $3,000 for an unemployment overpayment during the pandemic.

"I stay there about an hour and a half to be told, 'Sorry, you're not getting this because you owe money on the DEO system,'" Calamita told WFLA. "If I owed money, I would have paid it. I have no problem with that, but I didn't owe money."

This week, Calamita said he was told it was a computer-generated error in the state's system that he and hundreds of other individuals were on the receiving end of. It was reportedly an anti-fraud measure implemented by the state that had apparently backfired. Calamita would get his money after all.

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