A regular lottery player bought a scratch-off and was surprised to find that he won the grand prize - a $500,000 jackpot, but when he tried to claim it from the company, they said it was a misprint, and he wasn't a winner after all.
John Wines bought the $20 Ruby 7's scratch-off ticket from a Roswell, New Mexico gas station, and assumed he won big as the ticket appeared to show two prizes of $250,000, a $75 reward and one for $50.
When he went back to the grocery store, the clerk scanned it and said it came up as 'not a winner.'
John told Fox News: “She scanned it in the machine and told me it isn’t a winner. I couldn’t believe it.”
So, John turned to the parent lottery company to try and collect his earnings.
The company that makes these scratch-offs also told him that the card wasn't a winner, despite what the prize area says.
They say the card John bought was defective, and the serial number didn't match any of their official serial numbers.
Lottery chiefs said a blocked ink jet caused the digits on the man's ticket to be obscured.
Linda Hamlin, a spokesperson at the New Mexico Lottery, said: “Nowhere in the play area did any of the winning numbers come up.”
Ms Hamlin recalled that one player thought she had won $1,000 after cashing in a ripped ticket before realizing she had scooped $50,000.
John’s lawyer at the time, Sam Bregman, said the lottery punter had won and it was a minuscule speck blocking him from claiming his win, as reported by ABC News.
Mr Bregman told the outlet that officials told his client the small speck was just one of the misprints on the ticket.
He said: “We believe the statute is very clear, that the game is about matching numbers. He matched those numbers. They need to pay, or basically they are cheaters."
John was hoping to sue the New Mexico Lottery for half a million dollars, ABC reported, and Mr Bregman said it was important to make sure this did not happen again.
He added: “You get so high when you’re thinking you’re winning that kind of money, and then, of course, he gets so low, once you find out the lottery won’t make good on their terms."
John scratched off his ticket, and his winning numbers were one and two. His ticket appeared to show a number one above the two $250,000 prizes.
John, a retired air conditioning technician, spoke about the stress of the ordeal, in December 2014.
He told NBC affiliate KOB: “I mean, if you thought you won $500,000 and somebody tells you that you didn't, and you can prove to them you did, it's pretty stressful for somebody to say, 'no you're not getting your money.”
John admits that he wouldn’t be “thinking” about it if the prize was $50 or $75. He continues, “I bought the ticket in good faith thinking if I won I was going to get my money.”
John said he'd keep going after it, but his wife 'insists' he let it go.
The lottery company offered Wines $100 in free scratch-offs for their error.
