Includes video report
LOS ANGELES — Two California Lottery insiders claim the lottery sometimes chooses image over integrity.
CBS2's David Goldstein previously reported on a man who collected a nearly $2 million Powerball check, even though he said he lost the ticket.
And the chief Lottery investigator said in her report he couldn't provide substantial proof that he was the winner, which is required by law.
Insiders say it's not the first time that people have been paid when investigators say they shouldn't have. All, they say, to avoid bad publicity.
They produced a Lottery report of a San Francisco man who won a $750,000 Scratcher this year. According to the report, the investigator concluded that the claim be denied because there were conflicting statements in relation to who purchased and play the winning ticket.
But it was eventually determined the claim be paid even though it allegedly violated Lottery regulations.
And the Lottery sent out a press release announcing the new winner, never mentioning any conflicting statements.
They also claim the Lottery has taken a passive approach to cracking down on retailers who may be breaking the rules in order to avoid bad press.
They say one way to do it is known as "pinning", where retailers carefully scrape off the bar code on a Scratcher to see if it's a winner. If it's not, it goes back on the shelf and they try to sell it to unsuspecting players.
Helen Brean, the former chief Lottery investigators, was fired after filing an internal complaint about the $1.9 million Powerball winner who took home the prize after she alleged he didn't have substantial proof.
"They didn't really like us going out and doing a lot of enforcement," Brean said. "It was kind of, 'Keep everything quiet, we don't want people to think that ... there's any negative aspect to the Lottery."
Lottery officials in the case of the $750,000 Scratcher said the decision to pay the prize was based on the investigator's initial findings. The Lottery said it makes decisions regarding payment of prizes based on the law and the facts in each case.
VIDEO: Watch the report
Wow i never knew all this was going on. Thanks for the Story.
I've always said, "If you have a law/rule in the books that you are not willing to enforce uniformly, then take it off the books". This story has two sides though: if you genuinely lost your winning ticket, you pray that you get paid but if you are just a scammer, then this can potentially be a huge BONANZA.
The lottery office should have stood thier ground. everyone knows that if
you lose a ticket, you may lose a worthless piece of toilet paper, or you may
lose millions.
Can I sue N.C. for 110 million for not getting the MegaMillions game in our state?
when I had the numbers...?....I don't think so.
The California Lottery wanted to avoid bad publicity. Now they have what they feared.
The Governor should investigate the Lottery Board. How high did this go?
Another reason why I do not play scratchers, pinning. I only play PB & MM.
Correct me if Im wrong but the lottery immediately show up where the winning ticket was sold and takes the video.
If they know the time the winning ticket was sold and you are seen buying it, why wouldnt they give you the prize? I understand some video, actually digital, tape may not be clear. However the ones I've seen at my local 7/11 were in color and very clear.
l want to know more about that $1.9 mil payout without a ticket. We have been told time and time again" No ticket no payout." What changed?
They do know the time and place where the ticket was sold but there are problems that come up. Let's say there was a winning lottery ticket for a $500 million jackpot. The ticket was sold at 7/11 on Wednesday 6:35 PM.
They look at the surveillance footage for someone buying a lottery ticket at 7/11 on Wednesday 6:35 PM but there are multiple people buying lottery tickets. Who do you award the money to? When lotto fever kicks in I've seen the lines at 7/11 go all the way down to the curb. I could easily imagine 100 tickets sold in a one minute period of time to more than one person. Some 7/11s even have 2 or 3 terminals that sell tickets that complicates the situation even more.
Also how would anyone know the time on the surveillance footage is synchronized with the clock at the lottery headquarters? The record at the lottery headquarters shows when the winning ticket was bought but the time on the surveillance footage is off.
No ticket. No money simple as that. The ticket should always be the bearer instrument. Allowing people to claim money without the ticket is just asking for fraud.
I buy my tickets at 6 am and no one is there. And if there is, they are not buying lotto tickets.
If as in your case scenario, if there are lines out the door, then there might be a problem. But not with mine.
Since everything is digitalised, the times on the recording equipment should be accurate. Also, they can test it when they seize the recording.
Looking at the totality of the circumstances, if there is no doubt that someone purchased the winning ticket but lost it, they shd pay up!
HMW......neither did anyone else I bet because, if it is not honestly reported we won't hear about it. You know no Kalie news corp's will inform the people on this won. Glad that Todd has a news forum in the LP!
THANKS:
I'm pretty sure cases like this, albeit perhaps not as high as $2 million, happen in nearly all states....especially the larger lotteries. They have a larger pool of unclaimed prize $$$$$ as well as larger marketing budgets to absorb instances like this. There are always "exceptions" made to supposedly hard rules in order to avoid bad publicity. Where I work, we make exceptions frequently because our clients are worth more in daily revenue than the amount we lose by making the exception.
I can see this backfiring if they honor a fraudulent claim, announce that individual as the winner, and then the true winner shows up to claim.
Rules may be rules but there is also the concept of undue enrichment. If there is sufficient evidence that the person bought the lost ticket, the lottery may want to avoid a court decision against them.
Calif. man knew he won $1M but lost the lottery ticket
Mar 13, 2015, 11:32 am
A California Lottery winner lost out on the opportunity to claim his $1 million Powerball prize after he misplaced his ticket.
The man saw news reports about himself buying the ticket in Rosemead and came forward, saying he was the winner, KABC-TV reported. But, he said, he lost his ticket.
Because Powerball rules require the winner to produce the actual winning ticket, he was ineligible to collect his winnings, California Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said.
"We believe the man who came forward yesterday was the actual guy in the surveillance footage," Traverso said," but unfortunately, in Powerball rules, you have to have a physical ticket to win.".....
Without the ticket there will always be doubt.
I'm wondering if buying tickets on a debot card would solve some of these problems?
My understanding is that you can't buy tix in nost states with credit cards, but at gas pump terminals that also sell lottery tickets you can use your debit card which can only reasonably be used by one self or one's partner.
You know what would solve some of these problems?
Don't lose your f**king ticket!!!!
Never have.
Paying out on one lost ticket claim but not another which you say there is no doubt the claimant is the actual buyer of the lost winning ticket, just asks for a law suit. I hope that is what happens.
"The California Lottery wanted to avoid bad publicity. Now they have what they feared."
This sounds to me like a situation where the adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity is definitely true. I'm sure some people who don't play the lottery wish the state kept the money, but why would people who do play be less likely to buy a ticket because they find out that the lottery occasionally pays prizes when the player can't prove they really won?
No ticket, no payout.....seriously....If you don't treat your tix like cash, you shouldn't bother playing...
What do you expect from the Loony Left Coast LOL!
How about some fruits and nuts? Some of our greatest exports to the world.
.
Exactamundo, Mr. Whiteballz.
Don't lose the doggone ticket.
You should see me when I get my tickets and have my slips all flat and ready
to hand to the cashier, out of my vinyl envelope. I'm very protective of them.
You'd think I have O.C.D. or something.
Keep tickets in a 'sacred' place. If you hand them to the cashier all
wrinkled and dog-eared, you've not kept them in a safe place.
You may have likely just shoved your tickets into a pocket with your keys,
loose change and the like.
Groppo
Why should the Lottery unduly benefit from a lost ticket if there is sufficient evidence of who bought the winning ticket?
It says on the backs of tickets, "This ticket is a bearer instrument". Those are legal terms. "Subject to rules and regulations" etc. They have their rules
In a court of law you can not bend the rules as you see fit. That is bias or prejudice etc. And it would sound from this story that they are bending the rules.
You could do anything you want to a ticket, all you need to claim the prize is the barcode. So if you rip the ticket into a thousand little pieces, then that is a pretty tough ticket to claim. You just need the barcode. I suppose if you had the actual play slip that was used for the ticket and you were also on video, then perhaps perhaps that could be sufficient and legal. There have been stories like that, I think when someone was trying to steal a ticket or something.
Rules are bent in courts of laws ALL the time. Again, there is the legal concept of unjust enrichment. The lottery shoudlnt benefit when they know who bought the ticket. And since they have previously awarded it to people who have not had the ticket, their argument for denying someone else who lost their ticket who can prove that they are the true winner, is even weaker.
In Wisconsin unclaimed prize money is used to offset property taxes. In Ohio it is used to fund K-12 education programs. In New York the monies are returned to the prize pool. I don't see how you are assuming the lottery benefits in any way.
The ticket is a bearer instrument. You can not be the bearer without the instrument. It's really as simple as that.
The lottery is the state. The state is not paying out. They are being unjustly enriched. If it were so simple, they wouldnt have previously paid claims on lost tickets.
They don't pay claims on a lot of lost tickets. How are they being enriched. That money is part of the game. Not to get into the rules and the purpose of the game and the goals of the money raised. They are being enriched and using the money in many places to benefit state run programs that help people? That sounds good to me, I like that kind of enrichment. My kind of goals. In life. The people those education programs benefit are the people being enriched if you get my point. Do you know that if you go into any lotto store and dig through the box or the garbage bin with all the trash, that you will find winning tickets? Why is that? That's not my problem, that's the problem of the person who threw that ticket away. I mean why did they play just to throw the ticket away? That's the way pepole are. I've heard owners of stores tell me they found 4,000dollar 20dollar scratchers in the trash. Showed me too.
It's not surprising to me that someone would lose a ticket. It's surprising to me that they could claim a million without any such ticket.
This....I understand and agree to it, by playing lottery.
I kind of lost some faith in the lottery after reading this story. If anything the CA Lottery paying this man has put a bad image on them and makes me wonder how many other times have they done this. I agree they should have stood their ground and fought it.
Now as I think of it, I have seen some weird lines on my lottery scratchers and it could be due to pinning.
Enrichment is a legal term of are. You are giving it a lay definition. Again, besides the unjust enrichment argument the fact that they paid out some claims and not others where there was no doubt as to the ownership of the lost ticket, the lottery shot themselves in the foot. I hope the person who lost the ticket sues.
Ok perhaps I was too haste in assuming that if you lost the ticket then you lost everything you should've won entirely. All Lotto commissions have claims departments that deal and investigate into these circumstances. It really depends what they find or determine. Your jackpot would be based solely entirely on their decision of whether or not you are the rightful ticket holder. You would have to be able to answer definitively some very specific and detailed questions. If you lose it and someone else finds it, well then the old adage of finders keepers is definitely true. Unless you sign the back of it. I suppose unjust enrichment etc, but I don't see it that way. Because they have rules that govern claims, and they have rules that govern how they do business. Each lottery jurisdiction has different rules I suppose on lost tickets. In NY, on the backs of tickets it says, This ticket is a bearer instrument. That's pretty clear to me what that means.
And since we're getting legal here . The only time I have seen "unjust enrichment" apply against the lottery is if a game was rigged, as in the example of 'Hot Lotto', or if a scratch off ticket was continued to be sold after all the jackpot prizes had been claimed. Those are examples of the Lottery getting unjustly enriched. The example of 'pinning' in this story is an example of being unjustly enriched. That's rigging. But that's not the Lottery doing it, it just says they're not cracking down on the retailers that do. In fact it sounds to me like the alleged winner is the person getting unjustly enriched. Which is what I've said in the first place.