After legal battle, judge rules original Lotto Max claimant entitled to prize
A $33 million lottery jackpot should soon be in the hands of an Edmonton man who has waited almost two months to claim the prize, one of the biggest awarded to a single lottery winner in Canada.
A judge on Wednesday ruled that Matthew Hayduk should be immediately entitled to $33,301,693.30 after finding that another would-be prize claimant, Ted Baltoussen, did not have standing to assert a claim to the money.
After he gets his long-awaited cash, Hayduk says he will leave town as soon as possible.
"Once the prize is paid to me, I will be able to afford to take my commonlaw wife on a well-deserved vacation and 'disappear' from the media and others," Hayduk wrote in an affidavit presented in court.
The case gained attention last week after it became a legal battle, two months after Hayduk approached the Western Canada Lottery Corporation with a winning ticket for the April 22 Lotto Max draw. The lottery corporation started a standard review of the ticket purchase, and investigated inquiries from six other lottery players who suggested they could be the rightful winners of the prize.
The other players presented several scenarios, including that they might have lost their tickets or accidentally thrown them away. Baltoussen claimed a convenience store clerk had swapped two tickets he had asked to be verified. He told a court last week he wanted "to get to the bottom" of the situation and thought there was a chance he was the real winner.
The five other lottery players backed away from their claims once the issue got to court. At least one player said he had simply made an inquiry to the lottery corporation about a lost ticket and never wanted to be part of a court action to claim the prize.
Court of Queen's Bench Justice Denny Thomas last week asked Baltoussen to file an application and affidavit stating where he bought his winning ticket if he wanted to continue with his claim. Baltoussen did not file any documents by the June 21 deadline set by the judge.
According to an affidavit presented in court, the delay in determining the lottery winner has caused Hayduk stress and anguish.
"I have been anxiously waiting since April 28, 2011, after which I presented the winning ticket to the (lottery corporation) to be paid the winnings of $33,301,693.30," Hayduk said in the affidavit.
Hayduk said he and his family have essentially gone "into hiding" since his name has become public as the winner of the Lotto Max draw.
The lottery corporation has said there won't be a formal check presentation to Hayduk.
Odd as it appears that some folks were merely "inquiring" and I do hope folks have the right to inquire without it turning into a court issue.
The man who legally won will get his just desserts in due time. Such a strange story though...hasnt even been 6 weeks and the courts resolved it. In america our wheels of justice turn ever so slow when tickets are invloved. Allowing all the more time for the lottery to rake in the interest off the moola.
I think that it's funny that the six people "inquired" given that the lottery said there was a winner and somebody presented said winning ticket. If it had been a case where nobody claimed the prize and somebody thought there was even a remote chance that they lost the winning ticket, then by all means, inquire away.
But when somebody else has already claimed the prize, it seems absurd to try to say that you lost the winning ticket. I like how Mr. Baltoussen wanted to "get to the bottom of it" until the court asked for an affidavit about where he bought the ticket, and then he went Ralph Kramden on them: "Humina humina humina..."
Way too many lawyers .................... I was in New York State several times ..................... maybe I should sue for the last jackpot that was won there ............ you know 'cause .............. maybe .............. well ........................
Congratulations Mr. Hayduk!!!! Hope you and your family can disappear and live in peace.
In the U.S.A., the name of the retailer who sold the winning ticket is announced by lottery game's administration within two days of the drawing. Apparently, this isn't so in other countries, for some odd reason.
I think if I was accustomed to buying my lottery ticket at changing retailers, and thus not able to recall where I bought my ticket, yet convinced that my ticket might have been stolen by a retail operator, I would hire a hypnotist, at $100-$150, in order to pull out the answer. Or better yet, don't check unsigned ticket at a retailer, but rather online and the newspaper.
Anyhow, congratulations to the person who received the big jackpot monies!
It was clear from the get-go who actually won the cash. Those other guys stories put them too far from actually touching the winning ticket. I think they hoped the winner would pay them to go away rather than go to court and have his money held up for a while.
It's been tried before and sometimes it works so people running such scams have little to lose if they don't go to court.
Finally........$$$$$$$$$$........
Congrats & Best Wishes To You & Yours!!
I'd guess that this isn't odd at all. When millions of people buy tickets I suspect that it's completely routine for a few to think that maybe the ticket they no longer have for some reason might have been the winner. It sounds like most of the people in this case were satisfied easily enough after making their initial inquiry.
As for the speedy resolution, there wasn't an actual trial. Courts here can also start the process and set deadlines for the preliminaries just as easily. If the guy in this case had filed his response in time the process might still be continuing, depending on what his response said.
Winning numbers and the area where the winning ticket was sold are usually publicly available within hours of a drawing, people seeking even more information before it's officially released aren't merely "inquiring", they are probably up to no good.
Maybe he knew he wouldn't be able to explain why he wasn't on the surveillance camera at the date, time, and location that the ticket would indicate it was bought. All of the false claimants deserve a
.
I'm willing to guess that the Lottery itself must get numerous people who call about losing the winning ticket. And it almost always stops there when lottery headquarters lets the people know that charges will be filed if you make a false statement. I'm also willing to guess that everytime you call in to speak with someone from the lottery, that the conversation is always recorded. And that must scare off many who try stunts like this.
I'm sure Matthew Hayduk is just going to move on with his life but wouldn't it be nice if he went after Ted Baltoussen civily for mental anguish so the whole story could be told and this Ted guy exposed for trying to steal someone else's money.
Thank GOD the truth came out and the rightful owner of the ticket may now move on with his life.
I pray that everyone who filed a fraudulent claim or made an inquiry with the intention of trying to scam this man and the lottery commission out of the winnings have nothing but financial hell for the next seven years. I pray that if their motives were not pure, they have to work harder than a "Hebrew slave" to make ends meet and have no health insurance coverage for the next seven years.
Congratulations to Mr Hayduk.
May your life be filled with wonderful things and excellent health.
I knew it,that guy Ted Baltoussen was a fraud.He tried to get some of Matthews lottery winnings,by thinking Matthew would give him something ($!!) out of court.But Matthew didn't budge.Congrats to Matthew.
Playing the devil's advocate, the question that needs to be asked is this:
Is it within the realm of possibility that a lottery clerk could switch an unsigned ticket that someone handed them to be scanned?
Unequivocally, the answer is yes.
Perhaps Ted's suspicions were aroused by something that just didn't seem right at the time when the clerk checked his ticket and handed it back to him.
Given the horror stories about clerks stealing jackpots and the amount of money at stake, perhaps he just wanted to make sure that wasn't happening by having the possibility ruled out by the routine standards of claims processing just for his own peace of mind.
Or forever wonder.
Sounds good to me.
Good thing that person step forward to claim this jackpot prize.
Judging from the story Ted crafted he just wanted to create some chaos without down right lying. He never said he played the winning numbers or even bought a ticket at the place that sold the winning ticket, he just suggested he could have. It was the judge request that he sign something stating where he bought his winning ticket that put an end to his game.
The judge may have scared him off with that but he just might have been unsure where he bought it or which Mr Patel checked it for him.
Maybe he's blasted out of his mind most of the time like me.
If he had believed even a part of the $33M belonged to him, nothing the judge said would have scared him. He knew once he signed something, they could probably prove he had being lying all along and he probably would do some jail time for filing a false claim.
He may have indeed been scared off if he was in the habit of buying tickets at all different stores and didn't want to sign an oath saying he bought it at one particular store when he wasn't absolutely sure where he bought it.
I'm not saying that happened, just that it's possible.
Stranger things have happened.
I heard a lady in Detroit called 911 because McDonalds was out of Chicken McNuggets.
That sully can be a stinker at times..Bet she called collect...
LoL, was that you, sully?
rdgnr
LMAO, My grandad once told me a story about a guy that went to the police station so that
he could tell them where a girl was that had been kidnapped on a soap opera.
RL