Clerk's second glance saved the day
By Kate Northrop
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia Lottery player was absolutely sure that her lottery tickets were "losers" so she threw them away, not realizing there was a winning ticket worth $100,000 among them.
Luckily for Maria Pollard of Chester, a lottery retailer clerk saved her from losing a tear-jerking $100,000 when she mistakenly tossed her tickets in the trash.
Pollard had stopped at the Walmart on Sheila Lane in Richmond and picked up three scratch-off's, one of which was a ticket from the $5 "Money Maker Crossword 5X" game.
She didn't realize it, but that ticket held the very first of six $100,000 top prizes waiting to be claimed. Instead, Pollard threw it in the trash. According to the player, none of the tickets she bought appeared to be winners when she scratched them.
A sales associate at the Walmart was in the right frame of mind to double check the tickets that the would-be winner threw out and told Pollard that one of them looked to be a winner.
What did Pollard have to lose? At most, $100,000, so she took a trip to a Lottery office to check it out. Turns out, the "losing" ticket wasn't a loser after all.
Now, the winner said, she'll hope to take her family on a vacation this year, something that might not have been possible were it not for the store clerk's eye for detail.
The "Money Maker Crossword 5X" game, which launched in June, is part of the Virginia Lottery's Crossword 5X series of scratch-off's. Now that Pollard claimed her prize, there are five top prizes of $100,000 remaining, as well as 44 out of 48 second prizes of $2,000 and 100 out of 117 third prizes of $500 left to claim.
The odds of winning the top prize in the game are about 1 in 1.22 million, while the odds of winning any prize are 1 in 3.83.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
Congrats! Glad it was caught in time!
So proud of the clerks honesty
Rare clerk indeed... must've been tough to resist stealing 👍
It isn't stealing. The customer threw the ticket away. What is amazing is what possessed the clerk to go in the garbage and return the tossed ticket to the customer.
Technically may not be stealing. But, there is a right from wrong.
The clerk was an honest person. Which is getting harder to find these days.
I suspect the trash can was full at the time and when the customer tossed the ticket it was on top so the store clerk could see it. I am sure the store clerk has seen enough winning scratch off lottery tickets to know what one looks like. When she saw the customer throw the ticket away she spoke up instead of getting out the trash for herself once the customer left the store.
I saw on a you tube video this guy would go through the garbage and would find winning scratchers that people threw away. Apparently the purchasers of said scratchers don't read the instructions on the ticket. Ironically the store that sells the tickets usually have a bar code reader. All one needs to do is uncover the bar code and scan the ticket. Heck you can do it on a smartphone!!!!
It would not have been stealing if the woman threw it away, now if the clerk had told her it was a loser when it was really a winner that would be stealing.
What gets me is, without the due diligence and honesty of the clerk the woman would not have won $100,000 and yet she doesn't say anything about rewarding the clerk for her keen eye and honesty. I understand wanting to take your family on a much needed vacation, but without the clerk a vacation with no worries about costs or upcoming bills probably would not be possible.
A lot of those "Crossword" scratch off can be a little complicated for people who are not veteran players. I once almost threw away a $500 win because I did not realize that the $10 ticket I purchased had an extra bonus scratch area on the back of the ticket. Sometimes you have to take the time to actually read the instructions. She was very lucky. I would have given the honest clerk some type of monetary compensation.
How is it even possible? I check my tickets(scratchers and lottery ones) carefully before throwing them away.
I'll bet a lot of money goes to clerks who checks tickets thrown away.
True
Though rare indeed, when I win $600 on pick 3 or 4 here I give the clerk a $20. Honestly cannot remember how much the clerk got for the $5K win since she did the paperwork with my chicken scratch penmanship. (As for snail mail, the IRS paperwork came the NEXT day!)
The lady must surely know how lucky she really was.
How would you like to be the player in Florida who let a top prize Florida Fantasy5 ticket worth $234,432.93 EXPIRE? A winning top prize ticket was sold on 7/22/2017 in Inverness, Florida but was never redeemed at The Florida Lottery's Headquarters in Tallahassee. Adding insult to injury, the winning ticket was a Free Ticket. I hope that player does not know how unlucky they really were.
What's the biggest unpaid winning ticket you've seen in your state? G5
The "honest clerk" was a sales associate at the Walmart and obviously not in a store where players stand near or at a sales counter scratching tickets. Many states are going to lottery kiosk and here there usually is a waste basket next to them. Some, but not all are in eyesight from the sales counter.
To me it's very odd that a Walmart sales associate would stop what they were doing, go through the trash and check tickets seconds after a player discarded them.
It's possible a reward was offered but the employee rules at Walmart prevented accepting a reward.
Maria has the Michael J Pollard cheeks. Distant relative perhaps?
"It's very odd that a Walmart sales associate would stop what they were doing, go through the trash and check tickets seconds after a player discarded them."
I'll second that statement. When I read the story I felt something was "fishy" or wrong. It's either that, or details were omitted from the story that explained the sales associates actions.
There's no doubt in my mind the clerk did the right or ethical thing. As far as a Walmart policy preventing an employee from accepting a reward goes, that's easy to go around. The woman could arrange to meet the employee someplace other than at Walmart and give them a reward. But the the Walmart employee appears to be so ethical that they probably wouldn't do that either! Good for them!! G5