I think it was honest and right what Martin did,but $200 come on!!,his honesty was worth more than that.

tru a couple thousand would have been good but 200 give me a break...

Hey,

It was good to see honesty            to help balance all the dishonesty we read about from store clerks --- Scanning the scratch offs prior to selling them, telling people their tickets were not winners when they were, etc...

We can argue how much she shoulda gave him initially, but I'll wager that after she sits on some of that money a while, and she continues to frequent that Circle K and visits with Mr. Martin , she just may help him out a little bit more.  I would. 

Oh, and one more thing- people continue to amaze me by handing their tickets to clerks without checking them first. This would never have a chance of dishonesty if players would do their due diligence.

She definitely was lucky to be a regular there. Congrats on the win, Leslee!

200 bucks

                                            $200

Guy did what he thought was best, hopefully not expecting to be rewarded for it.  He got 200 US as a bonus.  We can think it should have been more, or we can think it should have been less, but it was Hobson's money to do with as seems best. 

I see big winners on the blackjack tables color up for a few thousand when they bought in for a couple of hundred.... some don't leave a thing for the dealer, some give a pittance and occasionally someone will feel some serious generousity.    I saw a guy once give two black chips to every other player at his table and $500 to the dealer.

We all have different views on how things should be, but none of it's owed.  Tips are a lousy way to do business, usually, from the perspective of the tippee.

Jack

it's always nice to bless other people with our blessings.

$2,000 would have been real nice

nice to see some honesty. $200 crap. customers need access to scanning machines.

He should have gotten $ 1,000 at least.

$90,000 would have been nicer.

Jack

He did not deserve a tip at all for being so stupid and causing such a needless problem for the lottery customer.  I don't believe he could not read a simple (english) message anyhow. The lottery needs to crack down on the poor job their agents are doing and retrain them!

Problem is they have to hire their employees from the general population.  That's further complicated by the fact that it's a lousy job, poor pay and they have to deal with customers drawn from the general population.

Tough gig, all the way around.

I have mixed feelings about whether the person deserved a tip or not, but I definitely think the trash man who got cheated out of his winnings ought to have gotten something.

Jack

In Maryland we have scanning machines where you can check online games (not scratch offs) - but it only tells you if the ticket is a winner or a loser - I wish that if it is a winner that it also showed how much you won.  Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe everyone is responsible for checking their own tickets and knowing how much they won - but it would be nice to have confirmation without the human factor.

A smart entrepreneur ought to glom onto that need, do something on the order of what H&R Block did in the '80s with the income tax return thing.... you feeds the tickets to the machine, the machine pays off your winnings minus, hmmm 10 percent for anything over $100.  Sort of an ATM kinda thing.

Jack

You have a knack for seeing the "other" side of things -- and a knack for giving me the "laugh of the day"!

Amen to that!  (Scanning machines.)

You have to wonder if it was an error on the clerks part, or if their was larceny in his heart when the ticket wasn't proclaimed a winner. Having second thoughts he later returns the ticket to the rightful owner with a cover-up story to mask his original intentions.

Scaning machines that just show win or lose are no good, we need scaning machines to show how much u win. A convenience store clerk's wage, at least in boston cann't even pay half of monthly rent nevermind food and other stuff. There is no doubt that the clerk has to make his ends meet.

I always high lite the winning numbers on my tickets before cashing them in.  Even if I win nothing, I like to know how close my picks came to winning and the clerks are encouraged to rescan my tickets or return them to me if the scanner doesn't response.  Some times the terminal can't scan the tickets if the bar codes aren't dark and a hand scan unit on the side of the terminal has to be used.

In all honesty the person did not have to get one red cent for his honesty.  So the fact he was given $200 is nice IMHO.

I'm sure that clerk preferred to have a honest tip regardless of the amount or he would have cashed in the ticket himself and had a dishonest $100,000 and the fear of being caught.

RJOh

In fairness, the store clerk was honest but his incompetence led to the mistake, which led to his chance to be a nice guy.  If he had read the machine right the first time, there would have been no need for his valiant honesty.  Should he have got anything from the winner in that case? $200 sounds fair to me.  The store probably gets a bonus from the lottery, he can see if the owners also think he is worth $200.  Let's hope someone in town makes note of his deed and gives him a better job.  

I agree with Tony2222 - being a clerk is an underpaid and lousy job, and I'm not surprised some choose to try to scam their way to a better life by "misreading" tickets. It is a weak link in the lottery system.  

In Florida we got "Brand New" Lottery Terminals Jan 2005 that have a Flat Panel Screen for the player too see the previous nights winning numbers and other basic game info plus a "Scanner" that lets us check our own tickets.It will say "Ticket is a Winner" or "Ticket is not a Winner", if the ticket is a winner it will say please see clerk for assistance where an actual amount will be given from the Screen that the Clerk sees on the Terminal.A Pick-4, Pick-5, or Pick-6 jackpot will say "must claim prize from area District Offices or Main Office in Tallahassee" 

Now here in Miami I notice that these fancy new terminals require a"Technical Certificate" too operate by watching how difficult it is for some clerks too use compared too the old ones we had before.I've had clerks direct me towards  another one too enter my playslip or say the "Machine is down".And many times had a clerk charge me more than what I marked on my playslip in Cash 3/Play 4 and had too tell them "wheres my change" I marked $.50 not $1.00.It's quite obvious that the FL Lottery Commision did not give much training on these terminals for our store clerks,as is the case for the "Honest Clerk"

You have to admit the public debate/auction on how much of a tip the guy got/should have gotten gives a bit of biofeedback on the frequency people expect to encounter acts involving honesty these days.  It's evidently rare enough to make a $200 tip seem a slap in the face, rare enough to make $2000 a more equitable sum, but still not rare enough to justify taking it away from the person who wasn't able to check her own ticket, and giving it to the clerk for inhaling a breath of the lofty air of honesty.

Seems to me anyone who can't read the numbers and check them against their tickets is putting an unnecessary and burdensome responsibility on guys who didn't know they were signing on for that crap when they came over here from India or some backwater place surrounded by ocean and and who have no real reason to give a hoot whether the ticket they're checking is a winner or a loser.

Jack

I agree -- He probably read up on the swindler store manager from Andover, MA who got caught and then chickened out himself!  People are gullible.

Having worked in convience stores for 10 years and having Lottery machines in those stores the entire time, I will say in the clerk's defense that those machines are sometimes hard as heck to read. They will give some of the most off the wall messages and it is not always possible to get in touch with the folks from the lottery. When I could I would call the 1-800 number which the GA lottery commision gave to all the lottery outlets. But as I said, that wasn't always possible. For my own protection, when I couldn't figure out what the message was trying to say, I would always give the customer back his or her ticket. -Bonnie

Bonnie:

You were playing it smart.  Reading through this thread, start to finish you'll find a guy starting out suffering from the stingy winner, moves on to being a reformed larcenist in a matter of 20 or so posts by people who've never met him, who know only what they'd have done if they were him, otherwise completely innocent of any knowledge of what goes on in the heart of this man who might well just be of normal competence, but conscientious and honest.

Whew..... people will have him stalking the winner nights with a butcherknife clenched between his teeth if this goes much further.

J

Everything happens for a reason...Common mistakes happen all of the time...So im talking for the real people...Survival of the fittest only the strong survive...I wouldnt have gave the ticket back...if i threw it away by accident...If on purpose thats a different story....Somethings are meant for you to have...It is true God works in mysterious ways..

20%; after all 80% of something is better than nothing and had I been handed 200 bucks I'd wished I'd kept the whole thing from this VERY stingy person! VERY STINGY! Stingy to the point that maybe a car will hit her on her next trip to buy a lottery ticket! LOL. You STINGY STINGY BI%%%%CH !!!

I keep all my losing tickets for tax purposes just in case I win some money later.  Lottery players should request the return of all their tickets unless the clerk need them as a record of payouts.  Some clerks will even return your winning tickets after the payouts has been recorded at the terminal.

RJOh

 i agree the ticket readers are sometimes difficult to read and or operate.

here, where i check mine the machine is frequently out of service.

also when i check my numbers  i have missed winners that the machine found for me (two four number winners) i believe the clerk was doing the best they could and was not cheating or being careless.

 i think i would have given a tip of 10%.

the comments here do not seem to reflect those opinions on the related page of polling whether to return tickets or not.

I have worked with John Martin for a long time at Circle K. He is a very honest man and would only think about doing the right thing. It would have ate at him forever if he hadn't been so honest. He was happy with the $200 anything helps since we make just over minimum wage. It would have been nice to get more and most people probably would have given more. But John is not greedy. He takes what life has to offer him. To be fortunate enough to make someone else happy by returning a large winner is satisfaction enough for him. 

your right about that....