Posted on 08/02/2005 12:12:07 AM PDT by MissouriConservative
Lottery officials originally told Coley she could have her winning ticket back, but now that they've said 'Sorry, Charlie,' they decided they'd keep the questionable ticket.
As always, getting a good lawyer is the first sensible step in confronting the organized criminals known as government.
If this is a "misprint" the entire print lot from the printer need to be recalled and refunds given to every ticket holder of this lot.
Wonder what would happen if,say,Maxine Waters had gotten this ticket?
More accurately, a tax on the stupid – not all poor play the lottery.
123(t)45(i)6(c)78(k)
I would guess every Lottery commission has some kind of security verification on their tickets...BUT, if this lady's ticket looked like a winner, but the code didn't reflect it as a winner, they (FL) should make 'nice' and honor the winner IF IT IS A LEGITIMATE PRINTER'S ERROR AND NOT TAMPERING.
This is really, really, bad PR for the Florida Lottery. Do they run commercials and print ads? Billboards? Advertising to entice you to take that chance with your pocket change is pretty much negated by a dumb move like this (IMO). If the FL lottery officials played this right (pun intended), showed the ticket, showed the print error, and shown the woman holding one of the giant sized payoff checks, I bet they would have a run on those tickets with people buying looking for more 'errors.' And if the lottery is fairly certain there is only a fraction of a hundreth of a chance there are more out there...it becomes a win-win situation for all involved.
Just my two cents...w/.98 more I would probably buy a scratch off...
I'd take a case of peanut M&M's any day of the week. But a million bucks would buy a lot more than a case.
Check the back of one of your PA tickets. I did last night. It very clearly says that all tickets are subject to lottery regulations and verification. Also that if you get a screwed up ticket, you are only entitled to a replacement. They offered her $300 in tieckets based on a $10 malfunction. There's simply no claim here. (And how would you know it was a legitimate error and no tampering? The only way it can be verified is by the serial numbers and other tracking the lottery does. In other words, by the lottery regulations and verification.)
Someone posted the image of the ticket. You can clearly see that the words under the alleged "2" do not say, simply "two." It's clearly an error.
SD
Certainly a valuable tool: go to the extreme to see where that path leads.
Unfortunately I've seen it co-opted too often recently by people who don't like the reasonable standard conclusions, and go to an extreme to prove you wrong "just 'cuz". I've had to spend a lot of time trying to explain to people "you can't get there from here" or "it would be dealt with long before extremes are reached", which is 10x frustrating when someone goes to the extreme just to insult you instead of facilitating the discussion - and which it is may not be obvious.
Testing extremes must be done in a rational manner, recognizing that certain obstacles must be overcome just to get there. Ex: one misprint is one thing, a million misprints takes extraordinary effort and time with a remarkable, even deliberately negligent, lack of quality control; one misprint should be paid up just to keep customers happy (FL may well lose >$250,000 revenue from people unwilling to play with the risk of unpaid wins), but people would understand "something went horribly wrong, sorry, no payouts" with a million misprints.
In what manner are you using the word "win"?
SD
Don't get too hung up on a million. The general principal should be clear to a conservative: Taxpayers should not be held liable for a simple, honest misprint. It could be a million tickets. It could be 20... Twenty misprinted tickets each "worth" $100 million.
Uh-oh, I bet you're going to do the arithmetic and come back at me with the scandalous observation that the amounts aren't identical ($250 billion vs. $2 billion), instead of concentrating on the principle.
Now, if this isn't a simple misprint, tell us about it. That's an entirely different story and we'll listen. So... My advice is (not that you'll take it, lol)... argue that this isn't a simple misprint and we'll listen, or make the more liberal, democrat argument that person A should be held liable for person B's mistake, and we won't.
Look at #146 carefully. If there's a misprint, it looks like the machine had trouble printing a winning choice - as opposed to accidentally printing something vaguely resembling a win. Clearly there is a matching "2", and the scratch-off clearly reveals a six-digit prize value. The only "misprint" I see is the word "two" confirming the "2", clearly showing "two" following a mechanical stutter.
BTW: lotteries are self-funding. Taxpayers aren't liable.
That's a good point. But ultimately, of course, taxpayers do end up holding the bag if someone who has been denied payment by the lottery commission sues the state and wins. That's why it's particularly important for the state lottery commission not to get into the habit of paying for tickets "produced or issued in error;" the court would look at that. Indeed, that very language is in the Florida statute, I believe for that very reason:
No prize may be paid arising from claimed tickets that are stolen, counterfeit, altered, fraudulent, unissued, produced or issued in error, unreadable, not received or not recorded by the department by applicable deadlines, lacking in captions that confirm and agree with the lottery play symbols as appropriate to the lottery game involved, or not in compliance with such additional specific rules and public or confidential validation and security tests of the department appropriate to the particular lottery game involved.Thanks for pointing out the picture to me. I'm not saying, and never said, that a "two" wasn't printed on the ticket, only that the lottery commission itself claims it was a misprint in the sense that it was "produced and issued in error." And IF that's true, then unfortunately for this lady, she will not and should not (imo) be paid.
My question, which brought me to your unfortunate story, is does anyone know the codes on the Florida scratch of tickets? You know the little letters in the middle of the scratch off -- you will see three letters t w o - means you won two dollars, t i c means you won a ticket, t h r means you won three dollars, f i v means you won five dollars -- anyone know all of the codes?
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