Posted on 05/23/2010 11:50:14 AM PDT by Libloather
Woman sues after 'winning' $500,000 scratch-off ticket is called misprint
By Anika Myers Palm, Orlando Sentinel
May 20, 2010
An Ocala woman wants a jury to decide if the Florida Lottery was wrong to dismiss her winning ticket as a misprint.
Ann Marie Curcio claims the Lottery is in breach of its contract with buyers because it will not pay $500,000 she says she is owed for her winning Gold Rush ticket.
"We don't believe that there is a sufficient excuse for the Lottery not to pay it. . . . There are no disclaimers on the ticket," said Larry Walters, Curcio's Orlando-based attorney.
Curcio bought her $20 ticket on May 13, 2007. The winning numbers 28, 1, 12, 32 and 2 appeared on the ticket.
She scratched her ticket to find the number 1, which matched the one of the five winning numbers and had $500,000 printed beneath it as the payout.
When Curcio tried to redeem her ticket at the Florida Lottery's Tallahassee offices the following day, she was told that the ticket was misprinted.
Lottery officials say they need to inspect Curcio's ticket to determine whether it is a winning ticket — and that Curcio has not filed a winner's claim form.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.orlandosentinel.com ...
You can do anything with digital systems!
If no evidence of tampering is found then they owe her the cash.
As long as she didn’t tinker around with the ticket herself, the money will go to her. Any jury will award it.
Sounds like the Florida Lottery should hire Bernie Madoff as their director.
As long as she didn’t tinker around with the ticket herself, the money will go to her. Any jury will award it.
Especially if there is nothing on the ticket that voids it in the case of machine error, as it says above, no disclaimer. That is totally unfair to the ticket-buyer, who simply cannot be held liable for oopsies on the part of the lottery itself. If they cannot prove she cheated (and it sure sounds like she didn't), I'd award her the dough.
“then they owe her the cash.”
I would hope so. I can’t imagine a private company getting away with this. If FL were allowed to use the “misprint” excuse, then all jackpot lottery winnings would have no value as the state could flip any “winning” ticket into a dud by claiming it was a misprint.
Imagine a life insurance company “Oh, we’re sorry, Mrs. Smith. I realize you thought you had a $5 million policy on Mr. Smith and we’re deeply saddened he died. But that was a misprint, so we owe you nothing. The good news is that Social Security will pay you $1500 monthly in survivor benefits...Have a good life and please accept our most sincere condolences.”
Ubama's friend in the State House needs money.
"Would YOU go to a casino that's in Chapter 11?"
Yes. But don't forget that states can claim sovereign immunity, and that bureaucrats are petty.
LOL. Isn’t that the truth!
Would a casino get away with an excuse like this?
What's not to say that the 'winning ticket is actually a misprint?
She didn’t fill out the form and didn’t turn in the ticket for inspection of tampering. I doubt it is even a misprint. She is a con or why else would she settle for $15,000 in small claims when the value of the ticket is $500,000?
She will get the ticket value and should get interest plus court costs.
Maybe lucky for her however. She may have put her 2007 winnings in the stock market and could have lost a lot of it!
Maybe the State did not print a winning ticket and thought they could get away with it.
Casinos can do this as well. I talked with a woman who works in a casino. If the slot machine turns up as a winner, the casino owners go to their computers. If the machine wasn’t scheduled to turn up a winner they declare this a machine error and refuse to honor the payout. She said the law backs them up on this, and was incensed that people feel they were cheated when this happens.
Guess I won’t be buying anymore lotto tickets here in Florida. I do better at Hard Rock Casino anyway. LOL
Agreed.
Not necessarily.There's a good chance that the jurors might not be able to fathom winning that kind of money themslves so "why should *she* get it?"
I don't gamble, but there was a thread on FR a couple of months ago about a casino in Colorado that refused to pay a slot machine mega-win because they said it was a machine malfunction.
I've heard numerous complaints that Indian Casinos routinely refuse to pay out on big wins, claiming a malfunction.
Wouldn’t anybody “feel they were cheated” to be treated in that manner? Computers should turn out virtually perfect results if they have been programmed competently. The frequency of cases like this should be like one a decade, not one a week. The machines are probably allowed to “fail” this often in order to create false buzz.
Happened in the CO casinos a couple of times, apparantly:
http://cbs4denver.com/news/casino.jackpot.slot.2.1703556.html
"What's not to say that the 'winning ticket is actually a misprint?"
Maybe there's a bar code on the ticket that doesn't correspond with the numbers?
LOL! -- On the other hand, she will eventually get paid and the tax rate will be 85%!
That right there is a joke. You buy a $20 ticket and you "win" $20. That's not a win in my book. It's as if you didn't even play. But the lottery gets to count it as a winner so it sounds as if they are giving out a lot of prizes.
They should set up their machines to push your money right back out and say, "YOU WIN!" It would save them the cost of printing the stupid ticket.
The Indian Casinos have had several situations where people thought they won big bucks or a car and been told it was a mistake and they couldn’t seem to collect either. One not too long ago the casino even handed the guy a cardboard check with win pictures and fed him a steak and shrimp before they told him it was an error. I don’t know how his case came out or if it is over- seems like that was about a year ago.
"Curcio also is seeking more than $15,000 in damages, the statutory minimum for a civil suit in circuit court. The suit was filed Wednesday in Leon County."
This indicates the $15,000, or more, is in addition to the actual value of the ticket. Am I reading this wrong?
Important to remember that Florida has more con artist/sleazey operaters per square inch than the rest of thee world combined!
I wish I had known that before I bought 200 acres of 'beachfront' property from ReemU Properties! LOL!
“If no evidence of tampering is found then they owe her the cash.”
In a similar vein, a couple of the indian-run casinos have tried the “trick” of claiming the machine ‘malfunctioned’ when a slot machine rings up a big payout.
What are the chances of a misprint? It’s still chance.
Maybe the state knows it didn’t print a winning ticket, and now refuses to pay, but doesn’t want to let the public know it intentionally picks losing numbers.
I view that as ~3:1 odds against getting your 20 bucks back...
Some indian run casino’s have gotten away with that....
Wonder what kind of designer diseases will be on our records?
Am I reading this wrong?
Nope, I am an idiot. However, she is filing a suit before Lottery officials inspect her ticket to determine whether it is a winning ticket and she has not filed a winner’s claim form. Seems backwards and didn’t pass the smell test, maybe that is why I read the other thing wrong?
If the ticket costs $20 and the odds of winning $20 are about 1 in 3, then on average you get back about $7 for every $20 ticket you buy.
It’s called your “mathematical expectation.”
I know the statement gives the odds of winning “at least $20,” but the larger prizes are awarded so infrequently that they’re down in the statistical noise.
She has good reason not to simply hand over the ticket. My counsel would arrange a session with neutral observers (such as bonded mediators) present at all times the lottery officials are within arm’s reach of that ticket.
And we’d have videocameras rolling from at least three angles.
True.
The cool thing is that a person who only bought one $20 ticket ever and “won” $20 has a perfect winning record, but they didn’t end up with any more money than they had before.
"We've heard of at least a few other instances of winning tickets that were presented and the Lottery claimed they were misprinted and refused to pay," said Walters.
It's also possible that if a winning ticket could be a misprint, so could a losing one, Walters said. "We know that if it happens one way, it happens the other way as well," he said.
The lottery commission is on big trouble if this is true. Did I win that $20 million dollar lottery? Because of a misprint on my losing ticket, how will ever know?
Curcio also is seeking more than $15,000 in damages, the statutory minimum for a civil suit in circuit court. The suit was filed Wednesday in Leon County.
Read my response, “Nope, I am an idiot.” Yep, I said that...
Well, FRiend, you can’t be an idiot if you are on FR, otherwise you would be on DU! ;^)
Following your link, I’ve got to point out that even an idiot knows he won’t win $42,000,000 from a penny slot machine.
I wouldn’t think you could win $42 mill... but, when you go into a store and they have a price out on a product, they will honor it. Of course we aren’t talking cents difference here, but still.
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