At the busy Sea-Tac airport, Marci Taylor got the itch–to buy a Washington Lottery scratch off ticket. And for a moment it appeared Taylor’s luck had taken flight.
“Are you seeing this, this is $20,000 right? And he says, ‘oh my gosh, you just won $20,000,” recalled Taylor.
But when Marci tried to collect her winnings the state put the brakes on her winnings. Taylor said she was told the ticket wasn’t valid because the serial numbers didn’t match.
“I’m pretty sure I just immediately cried,” exclaimed Taylor.
Taylor played the $2, Frosty Crossword game. If you find 11 words you win $20,000 – which she did. So what happened?
“She goes, ‘wow our machine completely cut this ticket wrong. Somehow the other letters got affixed to your card’,” said Taylor.
The answer portion should be at the bottom of the ticket not the top.
“It was cut that way by your machine, why is it my responsibility if your machine cut it wrong?” questioned Taylor. “I absolutely believe I am owed the money. I believe I have a winning ticket.”
We asked the Washington State Lottery Commission about other invalid or disputed scratch tickets. Out of the $1.1 billion dollars of scratch ticket sales the last three fiscal years, the commission said it doesn’t have any records of non-winning tickets submitted for dispute or review.
“There are other people out there I know have purchased tickets, paid their money to play the game, and won’t have valid tickets either, and who knows how long this has been going on,” said Taylor.
We also asked the commission how many other potential winners were affected by this mistake. A spokesman declined comment because of the investigation into Taylor’s case. A few days after our interview, Taylor got a check in the mail from the State Lottery Commission.
They paid her ... $2, the cost of the ticket
“I said ok, they are going to be honorable,” explained Taylor.
“I was actually pretty angry,” explained Taylor. “They are going to do everything they can to not pay out something they don’t want to pay out.”
The state did tell us that all the winning $20,000 dollar tickets were redeemed before Marci turned hers in. It also fixed the faulty machine at Sea-Tac.
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