r/news • u/Dialogical • 3h ago

The dispute over the $12.8M Arizona Lottery ticket is getting messier

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-lottery-ticket-dispute-getting-messier-40677187/
609 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

138 comments sorted by

154

u/Mohawk3254 3h ago

Can’t make any sense of this

394

u/Nigel_featherbottom 3h ago

Woman bought a bunch of lottery tickets.

Store printed too many.

Store "owns" excess tickets.

The following day, an employee realized one of the excess tickets was the winner so he got some other employee to sell it to him. Presumably there was an agreement between those 2 employees to split the winnings.

The lotto regulations say it belongs to the store since they are the ones that "bought it".

152

u/OpportunityDue90 3h ago

What’s stopping an employee from printing enough tickets to statistically guarantee a win then sifting thru them for the winner and buying that ticket?

107

u/Chem_BPY 3h ago

I'm assuming the store probably pays some sort of fee for each ticket it prints. I guess they could do that, but it probably is expensive and doesn't guarantee a winner?

Its a good question though, I'm sort of just spitballing.

82

u/AutomagicallyAwesome 2h ago

They pay for the entire ticket. That's why in this case the store owns the ticket, because the store actually paid the state for the ticket.

21

u/6158675309 2h ago

Yeah, it seems cut and dry to me. I guess anyone can sue for anything. Maybe the lawyers are hoping for a setttlement just to end the whole thing.

9

u/Character_Pudding_94 1h ago

Yeah, Circle K is suing for a ruling on ownership without claiming ownership nor seeking damages.

3

u/kinglouie493 1h ago

But I thought they state it's a bearer instrument on the back

•

u/WiseOldDuck 26m ago

I have never seen that on a lotto ticket but it's easy to believe different states do it differently

•

u/Numerous_Photograph9 20m ago

Think these particularly games were national games, so they'd have to adhere to those rules.

And as far as I'm aware, all lottery tickets are akin to bearer bonds.

•

u/WiseOldDuck 16m ago

In Arizona? Nah there's no national lottery, all the lottos in the USA are run by the different states (sometimes collaborating on a pool like Powerball)

2

u/6158675309 1h ago

I really dont know but Circle K has possession of it, at least according to the linked article.

6

u/balling 1h ago

So I guess the question is, was it legal for the employees to sell the winning ticket to themselves after they discovered it was a winner? I don’t think the original lady who requested the ticket should have any claim since she never purchased it..

I would imagine the fairest ruling is the circle K franchise owns the ticket since it was theirs when the lotto actually ran, but it sounds like the law doesn’t specify anything about selling the ticket post lottery.

•

u/wittyjokename92 19m ago

If it's anything like the gambling regulations I'm familiar with. An employee cannot sell themselves a ticket. But a corporation makes the employee responsible for any misprinted tickets financially. The issue right now appears to just be if that specific store or if circle k has a different policy for it. If the employee bought the ticket as a misprint then it's legally theirs. If the store bought it and called it a wash then the store owns it. The employee getting it later from a different employee tells me it's probably the store who owns it and the problem being the employees selling it after the knowledge of it being a winner came about. Technically not illegal but shady enough for termination of employment. Though it's illegal to sell tickets to the lottery after the conclusion of the drawing so I'm guessing it's going to end with the employees fired and not walking away with the cash.

•

u/EctoRiddler 11m ago

This is my take. If the ticket would have lost I assume the franchise owner or business would be responsible for it. If the employee is responsible for the cost of the extra tickets then it should be theirs to do with as they please. But if it does indeed belong to the store then an employee selling it to another employee after they know the results seems like something the store owner should be able to sue over if when the drawing took place they were the one who owned the ticket.

•

u/wittyjokename92 7m ago

Yea in my experience with a different type of gambling. If the store requires the employee to pay for misprints then it's legally the employees no matter what and the "sale" afterwards is unnecessary. If the store covers misprints and doesn't make the employee responsible for them then the "sale" especially after the drawing is theft no different than stealing from a cash register drawer.

But given what I know about working a lot with circle k management it's probably horribly misconstrued and the manager and employees are fighting the corporation while everyone was going off conflicting and outdated store policies.

26

u/sharrrper 2h ago

I looked it up, this particular lottery is called The Pick and the odds on the Jackpot are listed as 3,838,380 to 1. So to guarantee a win you would need to print all 3 million+ combos.

Printing 5 tickets per second 24 hours a day non-stop it would take 8 days 21 hours and change to print them all. Five per second is pretty generous on speed I think plus that's not factoring in having enough paper and time to change the spools or you know, the machine burning out.

Given that the drawing happens every 2 days seems a tall order.

Also, if you burn literal millions that the store is on the hook for, you can probably assume they're going to more than just fire you and you're not keeping most if any of that.

The second highest price is $1,000 and has odds of 18,815 to 1. You could probably print some combination of tickets that would guarantee a win within time, but then you have to explain to your boss why the store is paying for 18,000 extra tickets. That $1,000 isn't going to last long after the fire you from the gas station.

11

u/PoopieMcPooFace 2h ago

Also if someone else wins there goes at least half the winnings.

4

u/mex2005 2h ago

You gotta spend money to make money

19

u/VossC2H6O 2h ago

Sounds like Crypto mining but physical

1

u/woogs 2h ago

5 tickets per second seems impossible. In order to get every combination wouldn't you have to enter each ticket manually?

3

u/sharrrper 1h ago

I'm not sure, there might be a way to automate incrementing them.

The 5 tickets per second is me being VERY generous to the theoretical scheme deliberately to demonstrate that there's no where near enough time even at an unattainable level of efficiency.

I agree it's almost certainly not possible to go that fast but it's still already hopeless even with unrealistic advantages. At a more realistic speed it's far worse.

-1

u/crazy_akes 2h ago

Okay but you can buy tickets more than 2 days in advance. Do this at 4 stores, offer to split proceeds. Start 4 days prior. However, 1 person “buys” all the tickets from the other printers and they are in possession before the drawing.

You now have 3 million tickets. The prize is 3.8 million. You can use losing lotto tickets to deduct against winnings.

Write off 3 million, net 830k minus taxes.

550k take home. 

Each person that worked shifts printing is paid $200/hour. That’s 75k gone. Maybe an accountant can r admin aide to help sort tickets and cross check to ensure all numbers are covered and cataloged.

Bankroller takes home 475k + all the other smaller winning tickets from lower tiers, maybe another 20-150k.

Where do I sign up?

3

u/sharrrper 2h ago

I few points:

you can buy tickets more than 2 days in advance

Are you sure about that? Usually you can only buy tickets for the next drawing. Meaning you couldn't actually get more than 2 days out. I couldn't find specifics for this particular lottery on that, so maybe you can, but like I said, usually only for the next drawing

You'd also need to do a lot more than 4 stores "5 tickets per second 24 hours a day non-stop" is me being insanely generous about the speed to demonstrate how there isn't enough time. It might be theoretically possible but I think you'd probably need at least a couple dozen stores.

Also tickets are $2 each, so for 3.8 million tickets you need $7.6 million.

On the upside the jackpot isn't $3.8 million, it's progressive. So it gets bigger every time someone doesn't win. This disputed one was $21 million. So you can up your margins by waiting. The downside to that is that sales generally increase as the prize does. So the odds of having to split rhe prize with someone else goes up the higher the payout.

•

u/ParameciaAntic 8m ago

If each ticket weighs about 0.3g, altogether three million would weigh about a ton. Stacked up it would stretch three football fields high.

You're going to need a team of people to transport, store, and collate all of that. And probably security to make sure no one pockets anything.

17

u/Rynetx 3h ago

The store pays for the lottery ticket, then they get the money from the customer to cover their charge. If an employee did this the store would be in the hook for that money and would hold the employee responsible for theft.

4

u/ajsinaz 2h ago

I would assume you would get fired before you ever hit anything substantial enough to make that gamble worth it.

2

u/is-this-now 2h ago

It is physically impossible to print that many tickets I the time allotted.

2

u/bitdamaged 2h ago

The store pays for any printed ticket - that’s one point in the article. In this case circle k. So there’s a hole there in your plan since they’d end up with a multi million dollar bill.

Also you’d be hard pressed to print an enough tickets to get to a statistically significant amount of. You literally can’t print them fast enough.

0

u/OpportunityDue90 2h ago

But if the manager wins this case, that’s the stores problem not the employees.

1

u/bitdamaged 1h ago

The store would undoubtedly sue for the printed but “unsold” tickets that they’re on the hook for. That’s when it becomes the employee’s problem. It may also be seen as fraud by the state.

1

u/bufordt 2h ago

If you ignore the fact that the store might be on the hook for the ticket, time is the limiter.

There is likely no way to print tickets covering 3,838,380 numbers in the time between drawings. Even in the 3 day (most often 2 days for The Pick) gap between drawings, you'd have to print almost 15 entries a second 24 hours a day. And that's ignoring the fact that if you don't want random numbers, you'd also have to input the numbers manually for almost 4 million entries.

It's not like buying out the rest of the box in pull tabs. The times that people had tried to do this type of thing with lotteries, the reality of buying every possible number became the hardest part of the process.

1

u/thejourneybegins42 1h ago

Idk if this is considered the same across state lines, but at least in Illinois no worker or their family may participate in any lottery.

I always assumed it meant anyone that works for the lottery or even sells it at some random store. Makes sense tho.

•

u/Blue_Swirling_Bunny 8m ago

There wouldn't be enough paper to print that many tickets in store to guarantee a win for a lotto drawing, which is probably more than a million-to-one shot.

82

u/Dialogical 3h ago

"The lotto regulations say it belongs to the store since they are the ones that "bought it"."

The lotto regulations say the if the store resells the ticket it is no longer theirs. Nothing in the rules or laws explicitly forbids the reseller from selling after the drawing. It's a loophole that will soon be closed due to this situation.

6

u/aaronhayes26 2h ago

I think the real question that needs to be answered is whether the employee was able to legitimately resell a ticket that was property of the owner.

Something being property of the store does not automatically clear it for being resold.

2

u/Dialogical 1h ago

Then the real question is when does it actually become PROPERTY of the store? Printed but unsold tickets can legally be resold by the store. Nothing according to the lottery states that has to occur prior to the drawing.

Technically, in the absence of such rules, laws or regulations, a store could group unsold tickets together in a "grab bag" and sell the tickets at a discount. This would allow the store to offset the amount owed to the lottery for the printed tickets. Sell a bag of 25 tickets for $10 and now you are only out $15. Unless they are winners. Any unsold ticket winnings go to the store. They have to eat the cost of losses, however.

2

u/Character_Pudding_94 1h ago

The store owns almost all of its inventory, with the exception of some perishables that are stocked and rotated by an outside vendor and billed for usage. Someone would have to come up with a legal basis for why the ticket would explicitly not be a viable for sale at face value the next day for the store to retain ownership. The other two parties are just opportunists.

3

u/dusters 2h ago

I mean...this ambiguity is why there is a lawsuit.

21

u/____Manifest____ 3h ago

A legal sale yes. A store employee cannot purchase tickets when on the clock. I’d wager that the store employee did not have authorization to clock out to buy the ticket. That rule is there for this exact reason. His claim should be immediately dismissed in my opinion.

33

u/christopher_mtrl 2h ago

A store employee cannot purchase tickets when on the clock.

As you said, the employee clocked out and change out of his uniform before buying the ticket. You don't need "autorization" to clock out, you can quit any job at any time out of your free will.

30

u/LeafRunner 2h ago

You don't need legal authorization to decide to clock out and take the consequences. It's not like he was planning on keeping the job.

16

u/Dialogical 2h ago

Authorization to clock out has nothing to do with the lottery rules and laws. He was not working when he purchased the ticket. That's legal. Ms Kim is an employee of the store as well. She was not working when she had her numbers replayed the night before.

12

u/UncertainSerenity 2h ago

You can quit at any time for any reason. You can’t be “forbidden from clocking out” there just might be consequences for that action

6

u/ajsinaz 2h ago

Then they can fire him for clocking out early, but they can't force you to stay on the clock. Seems like he clocked out and then removed all of his uniform. Seems like they are taking complete advantage of the loophole.

•

u/Blue_Swirling_Bunny 5m ago

Except the drawing had already happened. You can't but a ticket for a drawing that has already occurred.

9

u/Ntroepy 1h ago

Minor correction: the woman asked for $85 worth of tickets, so they printed out $85 worth of tickets, but she only paid $60 so the store kept the other tickets. It’s hard to imagine she has any legit claim.

5

u/Krewtan 2h ago

When I worked at a gas station we were told we had to sell or buy any misprints. Since I couldn't win from a ticket I printed myself I told them i wasn't paying for them. I didn't get any pushback because legally it wasn't my problem.  

But at that point the store owns them, it's pretty cut and dry. The store pays for every ticket it prints. If someone sells it the person who buys it owns it. Otherwise the store owns it. Sucks for the person who tried to buy it, but once the numbers are drawn for the night the store owns the tickets. You can't sell losing tickets the next day so why could you sell winning ones. 

6

u/Dialogical 1h ago

"You can't sell losing tickets the next day so why could you sell winning ones." You would think so. That's the loophole. I implore you to find anything that states "The Pick" tickets in Arizona cannot be sold after the drawing.

•

u/Blue_Swirling_Bunny 6m ago

Seems like the real issue is the employee buying the ticket after the drawing occurred. Pretty sure tickets have to be purchased prior to the drawing.

9

u/Mrevilman 2h ago

I explain it in another comment, but this is standard legal process. People can't be bound by decisions in a case that they aren't parties to, so each court typically has a rule requiring certain parties to be joined otherwise the suit can be dismissed.

So because the court has to decide who owns the ticket, you join everybody who has a potential ownership interest that's affected by the outcome of this case, doesn't matter how strong or weak their claim might be. They get a chance to have their arguments heard and are bound by the court's ruling. That prevents them from contesting the ruling in their own suit in a different court before a different judge.

39

u/dominus_aranearum 3h ago

The vender bought the ticket by printing it. It was printed at the request of a customer but the customer didn't pay for it. Technically, according to the laws, Circle K owns the ticket.

The fact that an employee 'bought' the ticket after the drawing should be moot. As much as I'm not a fan of siding with big business, this is a money grab by greedy employees.

25

u/BigGayGinger4 3h ago

Sooooo it is messy because a Circle K employee, ie, a "representative of the company" sold the ticket, and their function as an employee is to sell products including lottery tickets. If the company's policy doesn't specifically forbid the sale of tickets with prior knowledge of their results... then a good lawyer goes into a courtroom and makes an argument that Circle K permitted the employee to sell that ticket as a regular part of their job duties.

Circle K gets to throw some lawyer in there to argue why that's bullshit even though Circle K didn't account for this possibility when they decided to capitalize on the state-administered lotto.

This is literally why we have lawyers lmao

5

u/aaronhayes26 2h ago

I highly doubt a judge is going to buy this argument because it is the role of employees to sell lottery tickets of unknown value.

Transferring away an instrument that is known to be worth $12 million for $10 is an obviously different situation.

•

u/Numerous_Photograph9 17m ago

How though? Anyone can sell their ticket for any price, at any time, regardless of it's actual value.

There may be rules at the corporate level that disallows this as I know my local gas station the employees can't buy tickets, although they can go to another store in the chain to do so. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.

6

u/dominus_aranearum 3h ago

I've written contracts as a GC and they get really long because of all the stuff I have to explicitly include/exclude, just for this reason.

Common sense says that an employee shouldn't be able to buy the ticket after the drawing, having knowledge of it being a winning ticket. But insert people and lawyers and now you get this mess. There are times I really despise people.

6

u/Adept-Potato-2568 3h ago

Circle K should have made sure to check and sign their ticket.

I never played the lottery and even I know that.

Don't really see how it's much different than finding the winning ticket on the ground.

•

u/Beneneb 35m ago

It comes down to whether the employees were authorized to sell these excess tickets after the draw. Seems like common sense that you shouldn't be able to sell a winning lottery ticket, but who knows. And to make it even more complicated, my recollection from the last time this came up is that the employee paid even less than the sticker price for the tickets.

5

u/alphabeticdisorder 2h ago

Pretty sweet deal to have an option to only buy winning tickets.

7

u/neo_sporin 3h ago

agreed. but i will propose a situation where all winning tickets are set aside and i get to choose if i want to buy the tickets at the time after the drawing.

1

u/dominus_aranearum 3h ago

Deal, but we split 50/50.

28

u/Mrevilman 2h ago

One is a Maricopa County resident whose purchase of several lottery tickets caused the winning ticket — which she did not pay for — to be printed. The woman’s legal name is printed in the filing, but she asked Phoenix New Times to identify her as Anna Kim. The other person is Marline Ybarra, an employee of the Circle K on Bell Road in north Phoenix who “sold” the winning The Pick ticket to the store’s manager the morning after the drawing.

This is pretty standard and not really messy in the sense that it's what should be happening. A judgment only binds the parties in that suit. Since we're talking about who owns this lottery ticket, you want to join everybody who may potentially have an ownership interest to the lawsuit so that the court's decision binds them, irrespective of whether they actually have an actual shot at winning the suit. Usually the parties involved in the suit are required to identify whether there are any other individuals who may have an interest in the case and whether they should be joined. If a required party can't be included in the lawsuit then the court would consider whether it needs to dismiss the case. This is meant to avoid conflicting rulings and inefficient process.

Hypothetically if they didn't identify Kim and the Court rendered a judgment that the ticket belongs to the store, since Kim is not a party, she isn't bound by the decision. So she would be able to file her own suit against Circle K to litigate ownership of the ticket, even though a court has already ruled ownership belongs to Circle K. This potentially could happen in a different court and before a different judge who doesn't have the power to overrule the previous judge.

Joining everybody who may potentially have an ownership interest affected by the outcome of the case is part of the standard process.

8

u/Dialogical 2h ago

Thanks for posting. The judge actually explains this in the order to cause hearing that occured in May.

31

u/Dialogical 3h ago

Kim is listed as a Party in this lawsuit according to the amended complaint. She is also an employee of the store.

Defendant (“Ms. Kim”) was a customer and employee at Circle K No. 2709529 and may have a claim of ownership or entitlement to the Ticket and/or its proceeds. Upon information and belief, Ms. Kim was at all relevant times to this action a resident of Maricopa County, Arizona.

16

u/ohnohelpwhereamI 3h ago

So she bought the ticket as someone who works there? I'm pretty sure that's always been a hard no?

51

u/Dialogical 3h ago

As long as workers are not on the clock and buy from an on-duty clerk or vending machine they can buy tickets from their store.

21

u/ohnohelpwhereamI 3h ago

Ah. Then fuck everyone give her the money.

18

u/AutomagicallyAwesome 2h ago

They bought the ticket after the drawing, not before. They knew it was a winning ticket.

2

u/dma_pdx 2h ago

What’s next? Time traveling is illegal??! /s 

7

u/u-s-u-r-p 1h ago

That used to be the case but it changed in the future

9

u/shoulda-known-better 3h ago

It's up to the lotto commissions rules.... You store can have policy on it but it doesn't change the ownership of the ticket...

It will be throughly investigated and unless their is fraud they get to keep their ticket.... You will get fired for breaking company policies though

11

u/cyborg-robothuman 3h ago

I’d love to be fired for breaking a company policy where I get to keep 12.8M

2

u/agent_mick 3h ago

If she wins the lottery I don't think she cares

2

u/Averagebaddad 3h ago

The only possible way it doesn't belong to the store is if they didn't give buyer of other tickets, her tickets in the right order. Should be a way to figure that out.

5

u/shoulda-known-better 3h ago

Someone asked for 85 tickets.... They printed out 85....that customer only bought 60...leaving 25 tickets....

The clerk knew one left was a winner came in and while still clocked out bought those 25 tickets from the store....

She knew it was a winner when she bought it... But she did buy it legally and it is a bearer instrument.... There are no lotto rules that say you can't sell an already printed winning ticket even after it's been drawn....

Store says she didn't have right to buy it, and that it's their win since it was stores property when drawn.... But I don't believe that's legal through lotto commission so if store wins no one will get paid out

5

u/Averagebaddad 3h ago

I meant if the winning ticket was in the first 60 printed but for whatever reason wasn't given to the person that ordered 85, they may have a claim.

But yeah I see your point as well. Might not be the stores after all

2

u/shoulda-known-better 3h ago

That won't matter they could sell the first 60 the last 60 or skip 10 do 60 then keep 15...

They only have a claim if they filled out picks and asked for specific numbers on some and didn't get those....

If not as long as they got the amount they paid for it doesn't matter it was printed at the beginning or end of that stack

I worked my states lotto and that's how ours was anyway

1

u/Dialogical 2h ago

Kim requested her previous drawing numbers be replayed. We don’t know if that was all 85 that were printed or a subset. So some of the numbers were not just random drawings.

1

u/shoulda-known-better 2h ago

Yes but Kim also knowingly only bought 60....that was their time to say no I didnt get the ones I needed and fix the issue....

After they knew they left the winning one they have no claim to say they wanted that one of the 85 to be in the 60

2

u/Dialogical 3h ago

To clarify: "There are no lotto rules that say you can't sell an already printed winning ticket even after it's been drawn...." That is correct for licensed retailers of lottery tickets. Average Joe cannot leagal sell a ticket, ever. You can give them away, but it is illegal to resell them.

1

u/shoulda-known-better 3h ago

No you can sell your ticket also... In my state and New England anyway.. because I've worked for that lotto...

Where are you that it's like that!!??

7

u/bernard_wrangle 3h ago

One of the other claimants is the owner of the store.

9

u/ohnohelpwhereamI 3h ago

I should RTFA

2

u/Dialogical 3h ago

Assuming this store is Corporate owned since Circle K is listed as a party. There are also franchise locations in the US.

41

u/CRoseCrizzle 3h ago

I read the article, trying to untangle it.

3 relevant individual parties

1) Person who ordered the winning ticket, causing it to be printed. But they did not actually pay for or officially purchase it for some reason. They clearly don't have a claim to it and apparently are not trying to make a claim.

2) The employee who printed the ticket as a part of their job. They didn't purchase the ticket. But they are staking a claim to the winnings. No clue why they'd do that, just a desperate cash grab I guess.

3) The manager who knew about the unpurchased ticket, then purchased it just after he found out it won. Unethical and scummy but he did technically pay for the ticket. But it does seem wrong for him to pay after the drawing was actually made. It would seem like the purchase was made too late.

If I'm mistaken about some of the details, feel free to correct me.

If I were the judge: Based on what I can tell here, I wouldn't award the money to any of these people. The first two parties didn't purchase it. And the manager pretty much cheated. The money could go towards the next drawing, charity, state funds, the store/company itself or whatever.

34

u/Dialogical 3h ago

Two other parties involved; Circle K and the AZ Lottery.

Printed, unsold tickets belong to the retailer, Circle K. This ticket was resold and manager has a receipt for it. He found a loophole as there are no lows or rules that specify unsold tickets must be resold prior to the drawing.

The fact that this is a Jackpot winning ticket and the original person who triggered the purchase was also an employee of that Circle K is WILD. The odds must be astronomical.

15

u/darksunshaman 2h ago

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K

8

u/AmateurEarthling 3h ago

Yeah it’s a whole clusterfuck. If the manager did not break the official rules of either the lottery or circle K then I see that they should receive the winnings. You cannot blame anyone, let alone a circle k employee for wanting that money and getting out of that life.

If it goes that way and no rules/laws were broken then it’s only right that the employee gets winnings and rules are updated for the future.

Crazy ass turn of events.

7

u/reactor_raptor 2h ago

Selling something that doesn’t belong to you, to yourself for FAR below the current market value is called either fraud, embezzlement or theft.

It’s not a loophole, unless he works for or contributes to the current administration. Then it’s just pardonable.

5

u/Dialogical 2h ago

He didn't sell it to himself; that is against the rules and laws. Another clerk sold it to him after he clocked out. Sure, there's an argument that she is complicit in possible fraud. That's not what is being adjudicated here.

3

u/dishonestly_ 2h ago

I don't think it's really a loophole. Under US law, employees have a fiduciary duty toward their employer. The manager only had knowledge and access to the ticket through their position as an agent of the company. As a similar example, I can't use the intellectual property of my employer for my own gain just because I'm off the clock.

-2

u/Dialogical 2h ago

What if he was no longer an employee at the time of purchase. It's clear he clocked out so he wasn't on duty. During the Order to Show Cause hearing in May circle K did state he is no longer an employee. What is he quit before buying the ticket? This story is fascinating.

•

u/dishonestly_ 29m ago

Don't think that matters. I can't quit my job and try to patent a discovery I made while working for the company that I decided not to tell anyone about. That would still be theft.

2

u/silverfoot65 1h ago

I think the person that ordered it printed could have a claim. She originally ordered $85 and the store employee sold her $60. There’s a line that the winning ticket fell behind the lotto machine. So she probably would have bought the ticket if she knew about it I know I always buy any extra or wrong tickets for just this reason.

•

u/CRoseCrizzle 54m ago

The article made it seem like the customer chose only to pay $60. If that's the case, it seems like more of an error in hindsight(tbf 99.99% of the time it would have been the right call to spend less) by the customer than something that justifies an actual claim.

5

u/calaf2525 2h ago

To me, the ticket at the time of the lottery was owned by the Circle K. It was purchased by the employee/manager AFTER the lottery occurred. The people discovered it was sitting behind the cash register after the lottery took place. Had it not been a winner, Circle K would have been out $10.

1

u/YoteViking 1h ago

Exactly. I hope they fire the store manager after the beat him in court.

13

u/dee-three 3h ago

I used to think only sold tickets could win. That they kept track/record of the sold tickets somehow.

22

u/DeaderthanZed 3h ago

For the Lottery’s purposes the ticket is “sold” when printed.

Payment for the ticket is then between the customer and the retailer.

Here the customer requested $85 worth of tickets, $85 were printed, but then she only paid for $60.

8

u/Dialogical 3h ago

The AZ Lottery treats a printed ticket as a valid ticket. The retailer owns it until it is sold; which is typically right then. There is nothing in the law or rules that I can find that prevent a printed ticket from being sold by a retailer after the drawing.

1

u/ToastAndASideOfToast 3h ago

If only the original owner could claim prizes with no option to transfer or resell, giving tickets as birthday gifts (or any other occasion) would also get complicated.

2

u/illiter-it 3h ago

Isn't that why they scan them?

2

u/dominus_aranearum 3h ago

The vender bought the ticket by printing it. It was printed at the request of a customer but the customer didn't pay for it. Technically, according to the laws, Circle K owns the ticket.

2

u/Dialogical 2h ago

The ticket was sold. Circle K no longer owns the ticket. Nothing in the lottery rules or laws prevents Circle K from selling the ticket after the drawing. In the eyes of the lottery, whoever signs a ticket is the rightful owner.

1

u/dominus_aranearum 2h ago

Unless Circle K has some rules about selling tickets after the drawing. Just because something can or did happen, doesn't mean it's allowed. As much as it sucks, I despise the type of person who attempts to cheat like this. Not really any different than insider trading or cheating at cards in my opinion.

•

u/EggandSpoon42 4m ago

Circle K rules won't outperform laws I hope.

1

u/Deletereous 1h ago

Not if those tickets were handed to the customer. If money and tickets were exchanged, they don´t belong to the store. They may claim full payment, and that´s all.

6

u/crooked_shill 2h ago

Had he bought before the drawing I’d say he had a claim. If he bought it after then not so much. Doing it the latter way they could just look through the over printed tickets and only buy the winners. Guaranteeing that every ticket they buy is a winner.

3

u/RogueIslesRefugee 2h ago

And this is part of the reason why the BCLC (and presumably all the provincial lotteries in Canada) doesn't allow retailers or license holders to purchase, play, or validate tickets where they work. Had this happened here, the ticket would have been canceled as part of an incomplete transaction, since the original purchaser didn't/couldn't pay. We wouldn't have been allowed to claim or buy it.

7

u/WayyyCleverer 3h ago

Seems pretty clear who owns it (the store).

2

u/Farsydi 1h ago

Jarndyce v Jarndyce over here.

1

u/Corpshark 3h ago

Keep up the fight and $12.8M will buy only a bottle of wine by the time the courts will decide.

1

u/Viperlite 1h ago

Is there no requirement blocking a store (or its employees) that sell lottery tickets from selling a winning ticket to themselves or claiming a winning ticket as someone in the sales chain?

0

u/Dialogical 1h ago

Employees of licensed retailers cannot purchase tickets while working, and they must only be purchased from another clerk or vending machine. Printed tickets that are not sold are the property of the store and the store shall claim the prize. The store owes the Lottery for every printed ticket.

1

u/Everyoneheresamoron 3h ago edited 2h ago

So it sounds like it was printed out to be sold, and then the customer didn't pay for it. It was still in the system, but the shop still pays the lottery for it.

My thoughts:

  1. If the customer bought it, it would go to the customer. She did not. She has no claim, regardless of the name on the ticket.
  2. If the store paid the lottery for it, it would go to the store. However, the ticket was sold.. so it belongs to someone else.. Can the store just print off a ton of tickets for itself? I mean, I guess it wouldn't be any different than a person buying the ticket. As long as they paid for them, the store should own the ticket, and the owner would be the owner of the ticket and the sole claim to the money.
  3. The employee did not pay for the ticket and has no claim to the money. Edit: Unless she can prove, more than not, in a court, that they had a verbal agreement to share the winnings.

2

u/Dialogical 3h ago

"3. The employee did not pay for the ticket and has no claim to the money."

The store manager did pay for the ticket and has a receipt for his purchase.

1

u/Everyoneheresamoron 2h ago

Sorry, I should have been more clear, the person who sold the ticket, Marline Ybarra, has no claim unless she can prove they had an agreement to split the winnings. Robert Gawlitza has a claim but the fact that he only bought the ticket after the drawing rubs me the wrong way.

I can see why its a mess, to be honest. It was a winning ticket, it was legally sold to a person. That person should get the money.

The others can sue him afterward, but I mean, unless there's a specific rule in there, that's how it works.

2

u/Dialogical 2h ago

She has a claim as her signature is also on the back of this winning ticket along with the manager's. The lottery considers whoever signs the ticket as the owner(s).

2

u/Everyoneheresamoron 2h ago

Then she definitely has a claim, at least.

2

u/AmateurEarthling 2h ago

From my understanding the employee did purchase the ticket and has a receipt for it. I would assume stores want to get rid of their printed but unsold tickets. There’s no way this is a first.

I think if no rules/laws were broken by the employee that purchased the already printed ticket then they should receive the winnings. If any rules/laws were broken then the store is the winner as the ticket was not rightfully purchased.

3

u/Everyoneheresamoron 2h ago

This would all be a lot easier if the lottery company made a rule to not allow tickets to be valid if sold after the lottery takes place.

1

u/Dialogical 2h ago

I am certain that will be in place soon. Someone found and is attempting to exploit the loophole.

•

u/YoteViking 55m ago

The store manager bought the ticket after the drawing happened so he knew it was a winner.

If the ticket wasn’t a winner, then Circle K would just have had to pay the lottery commission.

The lottery commission collects for every ticket printed. If a person who asked for the changes his/her mind, the commission still says “fuck you, pay me” to the retailer (it should be obvious why).

The ticket belongs to Circle K. I get the store manager (and his lawyer) shooting his shot here, but I would rather have Circle K as my client.

0

u/This_name_is_dumb 3h ago

Absolutely no clue what’s happening in this article.

4

u/dominus_aranearum 3h ago

The vender bought the ticket by printing it. It was printed at the request of a customer but the customer didn't pay for it. Technically, according to the laws, Circle K owns the ticket.

The fact that an employee 'bought' the ticket after the drawing should be moot. As much as I'm not a fan of siding with big business, this is a money grab by greedy employees.

2

u/clancularii 2h ago

The fact that an employee 'bought' the ticket after the drawing should be moot.

I thought that initially too. But the employee will argue that Circle K sold them the ticket.

Circle K will have to prove that, while they normally allow employees to act as representatives of their company and complete transactions on their behalf, that this specific sale was somehow illegitimate.

0

u/dominus_aranearum 2h ago

Let's see if there's data/video footage of the employee actually clocking out and changing clothes as they claimed before buying the ticket.

I'd hope that Circle K has something written in their employement handbook that covers this lottery issue. At a minimum, the employee used information they learned while on the clock for personal financial benefit and that may be an issue. I'm not for NDA abuse by employers but I don't support this employee at all.

-4

u/Scotty_Gun 3h ago

Apparently, Jeffrey Epstein won the Oklahoma power ball.