Canadian man loses $27 million lottery jackpot by 7 seconds

Comment #43

RL-RANDOMLOGIC — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 02:21:29 GMT

If the ticket was being processed before the deadline then I say give him his share.

RL

Comment #42

KY Floyd — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 22:25:01 GMT

If sales had stopped completely, instead of getting one ticket for that night's drawing and one for the next drawing he would only have gotten the ticket for that's night's drawing. Nothing would be any different than it is. He was offered the chance to refuse the ticket, but he chose to accept it, so he doesn't even have an argument that he lost a dollar, never mind the jackpot.

Comment #41

Scratch$ — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 08:16:59 GMT

You're correct. In North Carolina the ticket purchase deadline for Powerball, Mega Millions and Cash 5 is 9:59 PM, with the drawing held at 10:59 PM. From 9:59 until after the drawing, the computer terminals in all ticket sales locations go offline, and you cannot purchase a ticket period. It's done the same way in other states.

Canada needs to get with the program and start doing things the way North Carolina and other U.S. states do it. I don't blame the guy for being seriously ticked off.... [ More ]

Comment #40

Stack47 — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 05:03:16 GMT

The time stamp that determines when the ticket was printed and the guy was clearly told it was for the May 30 drawing. Compared to some of the other lawsuits, this is just another example of players having no clue what they are buying.

Comment #39

RJOh — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 17:46:21 GMT

In Ohio you can play MM up to 10:45 PM on drawing night (up to 15 minutes before the drawing) and PB up to 10:00 PM on drawing night (up to one hour before the drawing) before the terminal switches to the next drawing date. The fact that one has different rules than the other doesn't effect anything, it's the drawing date on the ticket that counts and the tickets can't be canceled.

Comment #38

chris-chase — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 17:26:38 GMT

This guy should just come to the realization that he is a loser, not only in the lottery but the game of life as well.

Comment #37

Ron5995 — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 15:25:33 GMT

No. Simple reason being that playslips don't count, only actual tickets do. While a 10 second wait for a ticket to print isn't usual, it happens nevertheless. I've had ticket requests take longer than that. It's a risk of playing too close to cut-off.

On a related topic, some have mentioned draw breaks - some lotteries literally shut down all terminal sales for around 15 minutes prior to drawings. To me that seems a primitive way of running a lottery; annoying to customers and less sales. I'm... [ More ]

Comment #36

pickone4me — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:42:02 GMT

Does anyone find it interesting, and rather ironic winning numbers actually came up on a ticket like that? I thought there was some similar happenings in the United States.

Comment #35

Gleno — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 14:16:14 GMT

Timing is everything. Lesson for all ,don't wait until last minute to get your tickets.

Comment #34

darthfury78 — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 11:53:33 GMT

It never pays to pig around with the Lottery maifasto: You snooze. You lose.

Comment #33

darthfury78 — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 11:46:59 GMT

This is why it pays to mark the advanced play option. This way, he wouldn't have to wait until the last minute to buy his tickets that would be set for future drawings.

Comment #32

infiniti30 — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 07:48:06 GMT

Most terminals in the US have draw break for 15-30 minutes before the draw where all sales and validations are suppressed.

Comment #31

KY Floyd — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 06:13:44 GMT

They did honor the ticket. Unfortunately none of his numbers came up in that drawing.

Comment #30

Goteki54 — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 05:13:48 GMT

This was simply player error. This is going to haunt him to the end, but it was his fault. Rules are rules. Sucks to be him but I feel for the guy. You have to play to win, he did play to win and won but still lost, go figure. Timing is everything.

Comment #29

Marilyn222 — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 04:56:17 GMT

That's not fair, he won fair and square that's all that matters.

Comment #28

ttech10 — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 04:15:03 GMT

They sold him a ticket for the May 30th draw. He wants that ticket to apply to a different draw. He even knew before he paid for the ticket that it wasn't for that draw.

Loto-Quebec did nothing wrong here. It sucks, but let it be a lesson to not wait until the final seconds of purchase time to buy your tickets.

Comment #27

DrMiracle — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 02:54:32 GMT

Well, if he had both numbers on a playslip, and slip was insert before 9pm or 8:59:45., and the second ticket came out on 9.00.07

Would you consider him as a winner though

Comment #26

RJOh — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 02:38:55 GMT

Is that what you're doing? I thought only residents of Massachusetts could do that.

Comment #25

myturn — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 02:29:17 GMT

Joel forget Loto-Quebec and play Megabucks Doubler from the Massachusetts Lottery. You Don't need to travel you can subscribe from the comfort of your home over the phone.

Comment #24

eddessaknight — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 02:00:28 GMT

Spot on Guru101

But there is always the possibility that the man was intentionally playing close on purpose for specific reasons undisclosed and thus consequently ran out the clock

Eddessa-Knight

Heisenberg Effect:

Werner Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist was a quantim forerunner saying that an event did not exist unless witnessed when observed the event becomes changed

Comment #23

noise-gate — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 01:50:56 GMT

Blaming the Lottery machine for missing out on millions is nothing but a bad joke. That machine was ready and able to print out his ticket whenever he wanted * meaning earlier- if Joel shows up at the last minute..how is it the machine's fault?

Had he won...he would have created an avalanche of nonsensical lawsuits.

Comment #22

myturn — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:44:05 GMT

If the lottery sold the ticket, which they did, they should honour it.

Players in Quebec should boycott Loto-Quebec in protest and subscribe to other lotteries instead

I only play by subscription, I never buy tickets in a store.

Comment #21

surimaribo24 — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:49:01 GMT

wow that hurts .

Comment #20

RJOh — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:34:38 GMT

He should have bought a good watch with part of the $100,000 he spent instead of making himself look like a fool.

He was probably advised by his lawyer to continue fighting, regardless of the lower courts rulings.

Comment #19

Stack47 — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 21:27:25 GMT

The store's owner, Mehernosh Iranpur, says he sold Ifergan the tickets, and Ifergan knew the second ticket was for the next draw. I asked him, 'It's for next week. Do you want it or not?' Iranpur said. He says, 'No, I'll keep it.'

It's no different than buying tickets for the next ten drawings, the numbers are drawn in the eleventh drawing, and then claim he should be paid because he intended to play and has the play slip to prove it. Ifergan knew the ticket was for the May 30 drawing and go... [ More ]

Comment #18

HaveABall — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 20:44:05 GMT

Hum, I wonder if this gambling man will move to a different province in Canada that still prints out same-day draw tickets only?

I don't know of any states' lottery retailers that do that here in the good 'ole U. S. of A.. However, to attempt to fix an abundant anger situation, some vendors used to unplug their lottery machine terminals come 9PM and say something like: Sorry the machine is down, please come back tomorrow after 6AM. But, the 'to-the-wire impulse folks' got upset about that met... [ More ]

Comment #17

tony869 — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 20:09:08 GMT

Well that happened to me once about 20 years ago and the WA lotto had a 10 mins cut off time before 8 PM.. I bought a 3 dollar QP 3 mins after the cut off time.. To my amazement all the numbers come up straight and i checked the ticket over and over again and it was dated for Monday's drawing.. I was not happy and kicked stuff around..

Comment #16

Get paid — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 19:59:32 GMT

BUMMER

Comment #15

Ron5995 — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 18:29:11 GMT

Some lotteries close down all terminal sales for around 15 minutes prior to drawings. PA Lottery doesn't do that. For long as I can remember - far back as late 1980s, sales continue with tickets printing for the next day and/or being rejected. For most numbers games, cut off time is seconds before 6:57 (about 2 minutes prior to actual drawing) for Evening, and seconds before 1:06 for Day (computer draw occurs at approx 1:10). Some PA in-state jackpot games have had earlier cut-off times of appro... [ More ]

Comment #14

Seattlejohn — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 17:50:14 GMT

I hate to see this kind of thing. Ultimately, he shouldn't have waited until the last second to buy his tix, but it's sad to see someone lose out on so much by so little...

Comment #13

Crazy Wombat — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 16:45:04 GMT

You would think all lotteries would close a game out at least 5 or 10 minutes before the draw time ... that should be good enough to clear the system of any slow printing tickets.

I think in PA the games close 5 or 10 minutes before the actual drawing ... not 100% sure ... I also think MM and PB stop printing new tickets 45 minutes or an hour before the drawing ... again not 100% sure about that time deadline.

CW

Comment #12

Original Bey — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 16:43:36 GMT

If it were his own numbers I would empathize. The same numbers might not have been pulled had the machine produced the ticket even a second earlier. He should not feel robbed, and I think it was silly to sue. I also think it's weird that the machine doesn't go offline for an hour or two after the cut off time for each official drawing. He was told as much and accepted the ticket anyway. It might have been his strategy to play minutes before the drawing. I know people who do this.

Comment #11

Guru101 — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 16:38:26 GMT

This man isn't entitled to anything. Nobody ever wants to take into account the butterfly effect. If you wrote down 6 numbers on a piece of paper right now for tonight's Mega Millions, didn't play them, and then those numbers came out tonight, the vast majority of people would be thinking to themselves Oh my God, I just lost out on millions of dollars . No you didn't. The numbers would have most likely been different had you played them. I know it's hard to believe, but it's scientifically corre... [ More ]

Comment #10

maringoman — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 16:31:04 GMT

This is the lottery, almost doesn't count.

Comment #9

WesternRedDoug — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 16:03:27 GMT

Bummer for him. I realize this is Canada, but I would swear that in some states, the ticket machines actually shut down or go offline for an hour or two when the draw deadline passes. Presumably to prevent something like this being disputed. Is that real or am I mis-remembering it?

And my headline would have said misses jackpot by seven seconds, not loses.

good luck everyone.

Comment #8

Crazy Wombat — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:20:18 GMT

Yes, it is a very strange story ... it could have went his way had the first ticket that printed had the winning numbers on it ... also think what the real winner of the jackpot was going through, possibility having to return half of the jackpot, had the court case decision gone another way.

All that dragging on for years ... although I would think the real winner felt some relief after the first court decision went their way.

...

Comment #7

savagegoose — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:19:26 GMT

intrinsically a ticket printed 10 sec after the draw cut of, could never have been in any way considered to have somehow managed to cheat the system as the draw was still unknown at the time of printing. its more in order to save the loto paying out some prize money, and in the spirit of protecting from cheats, that the rule is in place. if i was running loto and won i would have at least made an out of court agreement to pay his legal costs IF HE AGREED TO NEVER BRING THE ACTION AGAIN., and at

Comment #6

hearsetrax — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:09:16 GMT

rather a strange tale to say the least ......

but I wonder what his excuses were for buying tickets that late in the evening

Comment #5

mypiemaster — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:59:30 GMT

2X loser?. Man, that sucks. You should have known that the lottery gods won't budge.

Comment #4

loonasee2 — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:58:31 GMT

you gotta be in it to win it,blame yourself you wait to long to purchase your tickets.As Maxwell Smart would say 99 I only missed it by that much

Comment #3

ThatScaryChick — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:49:23 GMT

Yep. Sad but he shouldn't have waited until the last minute to buy tickets. The terminal was doing it's job and printed the tickets out the way it was programmed to.

Comment #2

dallascowboyfan — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:45:14 GMT

Umm...... he spent over $100,000 in legal fees when the clerk told him that the last ticket was for the next draw he kept the ticket anyway

Comment #1

uprrman — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:40:48 GMT

you should not wait til the end to buy tickets. give it time. sucks tobe him tho

Canadian man loses $27 million lottery jackpot by 7 seconds

Lottery Post — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:34:17 GMT

The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed an appeal from a Quebec man who tried to claim a $27 million jackpot based on a lottery ticket printed seven seconds after the cut-off time.

On Thursday, Canada's top court said it would not hear Joel Ifergan's lottery case. The SCC dismissed his request for an appeal with costs.

Ifergan purchased two lottery tickets for the May 23, 2008 Super 7 draw at 8:59 p.m., one minute ahead of the weekly draw deadline. His first ticket printed with the May 2... [ More ]