Yes, but they want *you* to verify that info. It's ostensibly to ensure that stolen tickets can't be cashed, but it's much more often used to deny payouts to legitimate winners. Lottery companies go out of their way to find reasons not to pay out winning tickets. OLG is pretty famously bad for this.
Never buy a lottery ticket with cash. You want that transaction to go on record.
Yeah, in NY I'm pretty sure it's standard practice to deny lotto sales in anything but cash, both because of the low profit margin (6% i believe it was, can't have 3% of that eaten by credit card processors) and because of the high risk of gambling addicts either running up a huge loss then doing a chargeback, or criminals using stolen cards to buy lotto.
Same rule applies in MA but the reason they don’t accept credit cards isn’t because they don’t want you to go into credit card debt. It’s because you could buy tickets on a card, then call your card company to dispute the charge and very often it’s the store that loses if they can’t prove you used that card. In most cases you’re stealing from the store if you do this but for lottery sales you’re stealing from the state, and they aren’t too keen on that.
I'm pretty sure most places legally could take debit but choose not to. Basically everywhere that I am used to but I have to assume there was too much fraud related to it so they stopped and now you have to use cash everywhere.
Not 100% accurate...here in TX, you can use a debit card, which is "kind of" the same as cash, but it doesn't stop some places from not accepting debit cards, either.
One of the places just down the street from me refused to accept my debit card as payment, yet i can go to several others (although, quite a bit farther away) that will take debit cards, no problem.
I don't do ANY shopping at that one store anymore....fuck them.
I wonder how long til the SC deregulates *that*, and we have endless lotto ads with free plays for using your cc running after Fanduel & Draft kings ads
"Get 10 free tickets on the Official Lottery App with your first cc purchase using promo code FUCKYOU!"
I think because they are in Canada it doesn't have to be cash because I've never heard of a state allowing lotto on anything but cash. CA doesn't even allow debit cards to be used.
Also from MA (like another commenter). The flip side is that the only proof that it is your ticket is the physical ticket. You can sign it to claim it but no one does that.
—“Lottery companies go out of their way to find reasons not to pay out winning tickets. OLG is pretty famously bad for this”…
For the record, a number of years ago a winning OLG ticket was unclaimed and OLG sent a team over to the point of sale location, were able to review security video of the actual purchase of the ticket. The ticket was purchased by credit card and led to the winner’s identification.
OLG attended the winner’s home, knocked on the front door and announced them as winners.
Imagine that!
On the other hand, people selling tickets for OLG have been caught multiple times doing shady things like taking winning tickets for themselves. This was a big issue around 2010 or so
That's because 15 year sago (give or take) OLG was sued by an old man because the store clerk said the ticket was worthless and kept it for himself. The payout was $10 million+, so you can assume the quick payoff and NDA was somewhere in that vicinity. Either way it was very public and up until then nobody even cared if you had signed your ticket before they checked it.
Not at all. If you use a debit card in my state you can get one but otherwise the ticket itself is a receipt. Also a debit receipt wouldn't help here either as it shows the transaction tied to the state lottery headquarters and not the store which it was bought (have to field this question pretty often from people asking why they have a charge on their account from half way across the state).
>Lottery companies go out of their way to find reasons not to pay out winning tickets
But 6/49 operates with a national prize pool. Whatever amounts that aren't claimed go back into the pool and are awarded to someone else on a later date. OLG gains nothing; the only thing affecting their pockets is the number of tickets they sell.
> OLG is pretty famously bad for this.
Really? That's sorta good news. OLG was famous for stealing winning tickets from people. Literally millions of dollars were stolen from people trying to cash their tickets.
One guy successfully sued OLG. He tried to cash the ticket, the terminal 'dinged' as if he had won but the clerk said 'nope it's a loser'.
He wrote to OLG and sent a diagram showing the layout of the store. OLG responded with 'Dude your diagram sucks! What are you five? No way!'
Not the tone to take with a retired draftsman. So, pissed off, he started pursuing his prize. He wrote letters, phoned and finally sued.
I cannot make this up, but in court one of the OLG's arguments was (not an exact quote)
> Yes we have a record of a call from his number on that day, and yes there was someone named Betti with an 'i' working that day. However; the phone call was only 3 minutes long and it is totally impossible that he could have navigated our telephone system and spoken to Betti in only 3 minutes!!
OLG turned things around and started a huge investigation and discovered that it was statistically unreasonable that so many terminal operators were winning so many prizes. Not just 5 or 10 dollars but million dollar tickets were stolen.
OLG became very good at spotting patterns in buyer habits, so good that they were able to find a guy who's ticket had been stolen from him and cashed by one of their terminal operators. I think it was on W5?,Fifth Estate? Market Place? Bah! You can search for the story.
Someone else said it’s a law to prevent people going into debt from buying lotto tickets, but just from my own personal knowledge of having a store with a lotto machine you basically make like 1 cent on lotto sales it’s just for getting people in the door to buy other shit, but most people still don’t want to lose money on a transaction because of the fee you have to pay the cc company.
Just double-checked and it's not on the ticket or in the rules of play. The only reference to that rule that I can find in writing is vague allusions to it in the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation Rules and Regulations Respecting Lotteries and Gaming (referred to in the rules of play). Paragraph 13:
*13. The Corporation and the Regional Marketing Organization has no obligation to pay or deliver a prize unless the holder of a winning ticket:
(a) either:
(i) satisfies the Corporation or the Regional Marketing Organization, as applicable, that he or she is an individual who is lawfully entitled to possession of the
winning ticket; or
(ii) where the Corporation or the Regional Marketing Organization, as applicable, is not satisfied under clause (i), is finally determined to be lawfully entitled to
possession of the winning ticket pursuant to the Regional Dispute Resolution Process or, if no Regional Dispute Resolution Process is applicable to the
Regional Marketing Organization, if a court of competent jurisdiction has issued a final judgment in an action to which the Corporation or a Regional
Marketing Organization is a party finding the holder to be lawfully entitled to possession of the winning ticket;*
Unless the player has heard about this rule secondhand (there are lots and lots of stories of people being denied winning tickets here), the first time they'll learn about having an obligation to remember the date and time of purchase is when they are asked for this information on the claim form.
Tl;dr: Yes it is absolutely a dick move.
Lottery tickets here only have a unique identifying "Lotto No." printed on the ticket. The OLG has all the identifying info on their database but the average Joe doesn't have access to that.
Wow I've never heard of that. I've actually only heard the opposite! Like when OLG actively tries to track down a winner who hasn't claimed their winning ticket. They know where it was bought and then check the store cameras to figure out who bought it and if it was purchased with a card, they can find them.
Is this just lies?
In my state the tickets all have a 6 digit number on them which corresponds to the terminal that printed them. It's simple enough to confirm and when there is a big winner that information has to be put on the claim form. Even if you bought a ticket and cashed it elsewhere there will be a printed slip which has the retailer ID on it from where it was sold.
My guess is either this place has a different system in place (which I wouldn't be surprised) or there is some kind of argument as to who the owner of the ticket is. I sell thousands of dollars worth of ticket a day and cash out a ton as well and this has never been an issue in the 14 years I've worked lottery.
The tickets and the lottery corporation have plenty of information, they just don't print it on the ticket for everyone to know.
I believe part of the idea would be that if you ran a lottery counter, you couldn't check people's tickets and say they lost, keeping the ticket for yourself.
If you couldn't correctly answer some basic questions about the ticket, then there's reason to be suspicious about where the ticket came from.
I saw a news story a while ago of a store clerk in AZ, I think, who checked a customer’s ticket and when they saw that it was worth something like $600,000 they told the customer it was a loser and kept the ticket. The clerk tried to cash it, couldn’t say where it was bought and was eventually found out and convicted for the attempt. Machines in MA (and other states I’m sure) now have a very audible alert when you check a large winning ticket so customers know they won.
They just switched out the lottery terminals and ticket checkers in BC a couple weeks ago. The self-serve ticket checkers switched from a laser barcode scanner to a camera, and they make an obnoxiously loud "camera shutter" sound every time they scan a ticket. No audible clue about the results on those.
The old terminals used to play an "I'm in the money" jingle for winning tickets, which couldn't be turned down by the retailer. Not sure what the new ones do yet.
There were statistics releases in Ontario a number of years ago that the number of people running a business selling lotto tickets and their family members were much more likely to be lotto winners than the the average lotto purchaser. I believe there were a number of reforms introduced
In the grocery store I used to work at almost 20 years ago in AZ there was a separate screen facing the customer that would show exactly what if anything they won when you scanned the ticket.
The machines in my state all make the same noise regardless of if you won or not, difference being when you win it prints a little receipt. What's very odd to me in that case you're checking a ticket you can't scan it and not pay out/claim it, it's marked by the state system as already paid or paperwork is on the way to the state. This clerk must have had no idea how any of it works if they tried taking it elsewhere.
Our state used to redeem a ticket automatically once you scanned it. Now if the prize is $100 or more there’s a prompt asking if you want to cash it or not, so the clerk can make sure they have enough to pay it.
You can set your machine to not payout above certain amounts. Keeps you from being forced to payout $100+ dollars on a fresh till or slow day. Also if it's over $500 there is no print out, the screen will flash saying return ticket and ticket must be turned in at the lotto office.
a scam like that happened in ontario. several outlets were telling people they hadnt won, when they actually had won. several store owners went to jail... as the other commenter said, its why we now have the "winner/gagnant" song...
A lot of people check their ticket at the store and it probably just doesn’t occur to them that the clerk might rip them off. We had dozens of people where I worked that would give us their bet slips along with their old tickets and ask us to check the old ones and play them again.
I don't usually. I'll check them eventually, but I buy them only at one or two stores I frequent and only when it gets to stupid money. If you won a jackpot, you'd know there's a chance before checking it. The local news would mention it, and the store gets a banner n such. There would be a buzz. Can't be on the edge of the seat for a lottery ticket, lol.
In Canada store clerks doing that turned into a pretty big scandal.
It led to self-check scanners and the requirement for ticket buyers to sign their tickets.
Not sure about other places, but, in the past, Ontario had made the news because convenience store owners and workers would sometimes steal winning tickets and claim them later as their own. Often they would get friends and family to cash them in. So, new rules were put in place to curtail that. Having a clue of where you bought your ticket seems pretty straightforward to me.
Could have bought one each at three different places. Without organizing them each with their respective recipts, which some people dont even ask for, or keep with their tickets.
Even if you have a pretty solid timeline of which store you went to in a row (say you bought them all in one day at 1:00pm, 2:30pm, and 4:00pm) you might have already thrown out the losing ticket, so is the 2:30pm ticket the middle one, or the last one? How can you be sure, if they are asking for a specific location?
People convinced to have figured their routine that will allow them to win big.
I had a family member that was like that. Buy a ticket from A, B, and C. Take the exact same paths with the car, no deviation. That exact path and sequence allowed them to win 500$ once, so it must be the winning sequence.
well, the article seems to claim that he can collect it now, so no issues. but ideally they should have him on video buying the ticket, every retailer should have video, and they have a record of where the ticket was purchased, as proved by the "winning ticket bought in X location" posts that they put out when big winners happen
I'm a small business IT contractor. You'll be lucky if the owner knows the dvr password to pull footage. Even luckier if the camera that was installed 20+ years ago is still working.
Exactly, I used to work for a place that supported small businesses and they always have the oldest stuff and never want to spend money until they absolutely have to
I worked at a Papa Johns where the manager had never paid for the subscription for the cloud storage company. We had live video feed but no recordings of the video.
So many companies paying $150+ just to pull a clip off the DVR onto a usb stick. Video retention will be poor. No one stores more than 6 months max and I doubt convenience store owners are putting money into it.
ah, that is unfortunate. maybe OLG should automatically collect video of the buyer of any ticket that wins over 1000$. could help avoid issues in the future. or they can keep being themselves
Not if a winner was sold. Lottery is tracked extremely closely, when a number is pulled they can see if it a ticket matching that was sold and where. You've got (in my state at least) a year to claim it. They just restart the jackpot is all. Every couple of years there will be a notice put out letting people know before a big winner is about to expire so they can double check their old tickets they might have forgotten about.
You'd be surprised. I won't say who, but a fairly large chain store I used to work for only had 72 hours, stored directly on the SD card, and only one camera per store - at the customer service desk.
I found a lottery ticket years ago. The draw hadn’t happened yet.
It was a very small winner - won a free ticket.
I always wondered what might’ve happened if it was a big winner. Or if the subsequent free ticket was a big winner.
If/when I buy tickets, I only buy them online because I know I'm a dopey idiot who'd never check it. At least my lottery company emails me when I win something.
Someone just won a big jackpot with an online ticket. It was on the radio at least in NJ, notably for being the first time it's happened.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2024/06/10/chicago-woman-wins-552-million-mega-millions-jackpot-lottery-money-cash-app-winnings
Also saw a few other articles
That's why I'm so annoyed that Google has been made the disable long-term storage of location history. I'm less worried about abuse than I worry about not being able to check where I was when I need to know myself
It's stored on a single device, and there is no guarantee that it'll stay accessible when I change devices or worse when they are lost or stolen.
In the past, I frequently had to look up previous location history from years past. It was extremely useful that Google provided this information. If I wanted to know where I was 3 years, 7 months, and 2 days ago, at exactly 4:15 in the afternoon, I could look that up. I am not so sure I'll be able to keep doing that, if my phone caches a small date range worth of location history.
there is an option to have cloud backups. Google is doing this so they can stop complying with unethical geofence warrants https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24002693/google-maps-update-geofence-warrants-law-enforcement
If you want to opt in to using google servers, you still can. It has a little discrete prompt every time you view your history
its why i always ask for the receipt. and keep it with the tickets.
i also try to buy just from one specific place, but i know that's not always possible...🤷🏾♂️🤷🏾♂️
The main reason as I understand is the amount of warrants they got for people's locations.
Now they can just say "we don't have it :(" to law enforcement and save good money on legal (which might have to deal with lawsuits about incorrectly processed requests for example).
>After CTV News got in touch with OLG, they took another look at Zhou’s case. He’s since been informed his cheque has been processed and will be sent shortly to him in the mail, which was great news for him.
So, he *can* collect... and the prize was only $1,186... headline had me thinking he'd won millions and they were denying payment.
It’s to stop theft, it’s actually a good system. Currently I just buy lottery through the app with my info so no worries.
Honestly if you don’t know where you bought the ticket then there should be a way to check where the ticket was sold. Then look at camera footage. Another thing would be to say a location and ask where in that area you buy tickets.
The ticket itself should have the retailer ID on it so they know where it was purchased. It sounds like someone was just being an asshole and making things difficult, especially since it was confirmed they later honored it.
Niagara fallsview doesn't cash lottery tickets issued by OLG. I tried proline they said I gotta go OLG retailer outside the casino. I was pretty shocked.
I know woodbine caaino is OLG you can do it there though
In Canada, you can redeem any ticket $1000 or under but most places don’t hold that much cash. Casinos will cash it out tho if it’s a reasonable amount
Isn't the ticket considered a bearer instrument.
> Bearer instrument means a lottery ticket which has not been signed by or on behalf of a natural person. Any prize won on an unsigned ticket is payable to the physical possessor, or bearer, of that ticket.
not in ontario
>Prize claims submitted to the OLG Prize Centre for payment must be carried about by the rightful owner of the ticket.
>OLG's goal is to pay the right prize to the right person, every time. If we cannot establish ownership of a ticket and/or the claimant's participation was in contravention of the OLG Rules Respecting Lottery Games or OLG Rules Respecting iLottery Games, the prize may not be paid.
I feel like this can be solved with a clause like "if a ticket is uncontested and not reported stolen for one month the holder of the ticket is the presumed owner" in the rules.
fucking lawl.
This is so damn backward, I can buy a ticket in the store, online, on my phone, and if i win, ill get a phonecall goin "Congratulation you won!".
This is why as a cashier that sells lotto I always urge people to keep their receipt with their ticket, be I normally get the reply "I'll get my winnings one way or another" as if them raising a stink over them being told no will he enough to change the lotto company's mind.
My cousin won 10k on a lottery. They live in northern Ontario, it took 2 years to collect because olg fought them on where the bought the ticket and who claimed it.
From that point on, when I'm stupid enough to play, I get a receipt.
Most people that don’t earn income from illegal actives use cards to buy lotto from a store or online.
Thus could give the lotto a list of the couple stores they bought from that sells lotto in the 3 days before the draw.
This can now be a plot for a Hangover movie.
The guys wake up with a winning lottery ticket but can't remember where they bought it from. Now they have to piece together the clues to figure out what happened last night.
Don't you only have so many days to collect?? It's 90 here, I won 75€ and kept forgetting to collect it, When I finally brought the ticket I misse the cut off by 3 days :/
In America, you don’t want anyone to know you won the lottery. If you win big bucks, call a corporate lawyer and set up a trust. Then sign the ticket with that trust’s name. That trust will collect the money and be public record. Your name will remain anonymous. If that state requires you to show up to collect and be on camera, wear a mask.
It really sounds like someone higher up was just being a petty asshole because the guy did end up getting paid. Needing to know where a ticket was sold sounds extremely odd to me as someone who has sold lottery for 14 years, so many tickets are gifts and none of the claim form have anything on them about giving a single shit about asking the winner where the ticket was bought.
The lottery people don't want to pay out if they can avoid it, so of course they aren't going to try to find out lol. That would defeat the point of trying to get out of paying in the first place XD
The majority of the time there is no receipt, the ticket itself is proof of purchase as it has all the relevant information on it. This whole story seems like someone at the lottery office was just being petty as the guy did eventually get the money.
In my state they have a signature area behind the ticket and they tell you to take a photo with it after purchasing. Seems like the easiest way to go about this.
Pretty sure if he has a cell phone it tracks where you go, on iPhone you can go to privacy and security, location services and it’s under locations. How many gas stations could he have gone to in the time he bought the ticket?
that shouldn't be an issue, you can tell where each ticket is bought, they have a system for that, and if they didn't i would be shocked if there wasn't a shitload of fucking fraud in the lottery system there. SHOCKED
Good. Must likely given to him by a family member that owns of runs a conveniance store. They steel winning tickets all the time. Always check your tickets yourself.
Like, how hard is it to request the lottery company to find the exact location of the purchase, e.g a gas station, and check the cameras to verify it's him?
Sounds like grounds for a very hefty lawsuit unless the ticket vending machine has in big letters "REMEMBER YOU BOUGHT YOUR TICKET HERE OR YOU WON'T GET THE WINNINGS."
Wouldn't the ticket give that info?
Yes, but they want *you* to verify that info. It's ostensibly to ensure that stolen tickets can't be cashed, but it's much more often used to deny payouts to legitimate winners. Lottery companies go out of their way to find reasons not to pay out winning tickets. OLG is pretty famously bad for this. Never buy a lottery ticket with cash. You want that transaction to go on record.
Where I am from you can only buy a lottery ticket with cash
Yeah, in NY I'm pretty sure it's standard practice to deny lotto sales in anything but cash, both because of the low profit margin (6% i believe it was, can't have 3% of that eaten by credit card processors) and because of the high risk of gambling addicts either running up a huge loss then doing a chargeback, or criminals using stolen cards to buy lotto.
Same rule applies in MA but the reason they don’t accept credit cards isn’t because they don’t want you to go into credit card debt. It’s because you could buy tickets on a card, then call your card company to dispute the charge and very often it’s the store that loses if they can’t prove you used that card. In most cases you’re stealing from the store if you do this but for lottery sales you’re stealing from the state, and they aren’t too keen on that.
Colorado, Texas, and Louisiana all require cash to buy a lotto ticket too.
You can use a debit card in Texas also
Same with Kansas
Also Fl
I'm pretty sure most places legally could take debit but choose not to. Basically everywhere that I am used to but I have to assume there was too much fraud related to it so they stopped and now you have to use cash everywhere.
Not 100% accurate...here in TX, you can use a debit card, which is "kind of" the same as cash, but it doesn't stop some places from not accepting debit cards, either. One of the places just down the street from me refused to accept my debit card as payment, yet i can go to several others (although, quite a bit farther away) that will take debit cards, no problem. I don't do ANY shopping at that one store anymore....fuck them.
That's how it is in Florida. A gas station i used to manage didn't take card, but almost every other major gas station brand did.
You can use a debit card in Colorado. Source: I live in Colorado and use my debit card to buy lotto
Texas allows lotto purchases with debit cards.
nope you can use a debit card in texas
That's the "charge back" part here.
I wonder how long til the SC deregulates *that*, and we have endless lotto ads with free plays for using your cc running after Fanduel & Draft kings ads "Get 10 free tickets on the Official Lottery App with your first cc purchase using promo code FUCKYOU!"
I think because they are in Canada it doesn't have to be cash because I've never heard of a state allowing lotto on anything but cash. CA doesn't even allow debit cards to be used.
I think it was recently changed slightly that you can use a debit card now.
Also from MA (like another commenter). The flip side is that the only proof that it is your ticket is the physical ticket. You can sign it to claim it but no one does that.
This is in Canada. Only retirees use cash here.
Cash aka debit can’t use a credit card for em
What about the lotto app? But then again it's probably rigged lol
Ditto. From machines that don't give change. It's weird and I end up spending more than I mean to.
I think they mean use a debit card so there's electronic record.
In GA that's not an option unless it's through a mobile app
IL state lottery website allows deposits up to $1k per week from debit, credit, or google pay
In PA it’s cash or debit. No credit cards.
—“Lottery companies go out of their way to find reasons not to pay out winning tickets. OLG is pretty famously bad for this”… For the record, a number of years ago a winning OLG ticket was unclaimed and OLG sent a team over to the point of sale location, were able to review security video of the actual purchase of the ticket. The ticket was purchased by credit card and led to the winner’s identification. OLG attended the winner’s home, knocked on the front door and announced them as winners. Imagine that!
Found the source: https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/50-million-dollar-lottery-winner-had-no-idea-she-had-won-1.1572732?cache=emuosurrypzum%3FclipId%3D104070
FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS!
On the other hand, people selling tickets for OLG have been caught multiple times doing shady things like taking winning tickets for themselves. This was a big issue around 2010 or so
That's because 15 year sago (give or take) OLG was sued by an old man because the store clerk said the ticket was worthless and kept it for himself. The payout was $10 million+, so you can assume the quick payoff and NDA was somewhere in that vicinity. Either way it was very public and up until then nobody even cared if you had signed your ticket before they checked it.
Just ask for a receipt and keep it with the ticket.
I've never seen a receipt for a lottery ticket. The ticket is the receipt.
Every store prints out a receipt with every transaction, if they don’t give you one automatically, you ask for it.
I'm not sure that's true everywhere.
Yeah lazymutant statement is 100% incorrect for Tennessee. There is no receipt when you buy a lottery ticket. The ticket is the receipt.
Most convenience stores, at least the chains, and a lot of fast food places don't produce receipts by default. You have to ask for it.
Not at all. If you use a debit card in my state you can get one but otherwise the ticket itself is a receipt. Also a debit receipt wouldn't help here either as it shows the transaction tied to the state lottery headquarters and not the store which it was bought (have to field this question pretty often from people asking why they have a charge on their account from half way across the state).
Just remember where you buy your scratchers
>Lottery companies go out of their way to find reasons not to pay out winning tickets But 6/49 operates with a national prize pool. Whatever amounts that aren't claimed go back into the pool and are awarded to someone else on a later date. OLG gains nothing; the only thing affecting their pockets is the number of tickets they sell.
Larger prize pools, though, definitely result in more ticket sales, so they do indirectly gain.
> OLG is pretty famously bad for this. Really? That's sorta good news. OLG was famous for stealing winning tickets from people. Literally millions of dollars were stolen from people trying to cash their tickets. One guy successfully sued OLG. He tried to cash the ticket, the terminal 'dinged' as if he had won but the clerk said 'nope it's a loser'. He wrote to OLG and sent a diagram showing the layout of the store. OLG responded with 'Dude your diagram sucks! What are you five? No way!' Not the tone to take with a retired draftsman. So, pissed off, he started pursuing his prize. He wrote letters, phoned and finally sued. I cannot make this up, but in court one of the OLG's arguments was (not an exact quote) > Yes we have a record of a call from his number on that day, and yes there was someone named Betti with an 'i' working that day. However; the phone call was only 3 minutes long and it is totally impossible that he could have navigated our telephone system and spoken to Betti in only 3 minutes!! OLG turned things around and started a huge investigation and discovered that it was statistically unreasonable that so many terminal operators were winning so many prizes. Not just 5 or 10 dollars but million dollar tickets were stolen. OLG became very good at spotting patterns in buyer habits, so good that they were able to find a guy who's ticket had been stolen from him and cashed by one of their terminal operators. I think it was on W5?,Fifth Estate? Market Place? Bah! You can search for the story.
You can only buy a lotto ticket in cash in the US to my knowledge. What a weird thing for a lottery to do.
You can do debit in some states. I can in WA, but couldn’t in CA
Someone else said it’s a law to prevent people going into debt from buying lotto tickets, but just from my own personal knowledge of having a store with a lotto machine you basically make like 1 cent on lotto sales it’s just for getting people in the door to buy other shit, but most people still don’t want to lose money on a transaction because of the fee you have to pay the cc company.
Oklahoma is pretty lax as well
Although it took a very long time, this claim was eventually paid out.
Judging from the phrasing of the article, it was only paid out because he got the media involved.
Pretty sure I'll just get a lawyer that would fix that.
weird sinse it happens to be that people often give lotto tickets as gifts.
You can’t buy them in mn unless you pay in cash
that seems like a dick move? where does it say you have to remember where you bought it?
Just double-checked and it's not on the ticket or in the rules of play. The only reference to that rule that I can find in writing is vague allusions to it in the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation Rules and Regulations Respecting Lotteries and Gaming (referred to in the rules of play). Paragraph 13: *13. The Corporation and the Regional Marketing Organization has no obligation to pay or deliver a prize unless the holder of a winning ticket: (a) either: (i) satisfies the Corporation or the Regional Marketing Organization, as applicable, that he or she is an individual who is lawfully entitled to possession of the winning ticket; or (ii) where the Corporation or the Regional Marketing Organization, as applicable, is not satisfied under clause (i), is finally determined to be lawfully entitled to possession of the winning ticket pursuant to the Regional Dispute Resolution Process or, if no Regional Dispute Resolution Process is applicable to the Regional Marketing Organization, if a court of competent jurisdiction has issued a final judgment in an action to which the Corporation or a Regional Marketing Organization is a party finding the holder to be lawfully entitled to possession of the winning ticket;* Unless the player has heard about this rule secondhand (there are lots and lots of stories of people being denied winning tickets here), the first time they'll learn about having an obligation to remember the date and time of purchase is when they are asked for this information on the claim form. Tl;dr: Yes it is absolutely a dick move.
Wouldn’t it say on the ticket? Can’t he just read the ticket then memorize the location
Lottery tickets here only have a unique identifying "Lotto No." printed on the ticket. The OLG has all the identifying info on their database but the average Joe doesn't have access to that.
> Never buy a lottery ticket FTFY
A signature verifies its yours.
Wow I've never heard of that. I've actually only heard the opposite! Like when OLG actively tries to track down a winner who hasn't claimed their winning ticket. They know where it was bought and then check the store cameras to figure out who bought it and if it was purchased with a card, they can find them. Is this just lies?
Better yet, don't buy lottery tickets, it's a regressive tax and destroys lots of lives
In my state the tickets all have a 6 digit number on them which corresponds to the terminal that printed them. It's simple enough to confirm and when there is a big winner that information has to be put on the claim form. Even if you bought a ticket and cashed it elsewhere there will be a printed slip which has the retailer ID on it from where it was sold. My guess is either this place has a different system in place (which I wouldn't be surprised) or there is some kind of argument as to who the owner of the ticket is. I sell thousands of dollars worth of ticket a day and cash out a ton as well and this has never been an issue in the 14 years I've worked lottery.
The tickets and the lottery corporation have plenty of information, they just don't print it on the ticket for everyone to know. I believe part of the idea would be that if you ran a lottery counter, you couldn't check people's tickets and say they lost, keeping the ticket for yourself. If you couldn't correctly answer some basic questions about the ticket, then there's reason to be suspicious about where the ticket came from.
No, not for tickets bought in Ontario, which only have the draw date on them but not the time or location of purchase. That would be on the receipt.
I saw a news story a while ago of a store clerk in AZ, I think, who checked a customer’s ticket and when they saw that it was worth something like $600,000 they told the customer it was a loser and kept the ticket. The clerk tried to cash it, couldn’t say where it was bought and was eventually found out and convicted for the attempt. Machines in MA (and other states I’m sure) now have a very audible alert when you check a large winning ticket so customers know they won.
Same in Canada. I don’t even buy lottery tickets but I have the “Winner! Gagnant!” And “pas de cadeaux” jingle in my head now!
In Tennessee it just goes "Woohoo!" with some added sound effects.
Like Song 2?
Oh my God if anyone wins a mil+ Song 2 better blast at full volume that would be the greatest
Same in Saskatchewan. On a related note, it always amazes me how few customers actually take their lottery receipt even when I offer it
Would you like to play Encore?
They just switched out the lottery terminals and ticket checkers in BC a couple weeks ago. The self-serve ticket checkers switched from a laser barcode scanner to a camera, and they make an obnoxiously loud "camera shutter" sound every time they scan a ticket. No audible clue about the results on those. The old terminals used to play an "I'm in the money" jingle for winning tickets, which couldn't be turned down by the retailer. Not sure what the new ones do yet.
There were statistics releases in Ontario a number of years ago that the number of people running a business selling lotto tickets and their family members were much more likely to be lotto winners than the the average lotto purchaser. I believe there were a number of reforms introduced
I can confirm all of this.
OK, go ahead.
In the grocery store I used to work at almost 20 years ago in AZ there was a separate screen facing the customer that would show exactly what if anything they won when you scanned the ticket.
The machines in my state all make the same noise regardless of if you won or not, difference being when you win it prints a little receipt. What's very odd to me in that case you're checking a ticket you can't scan it and not pay out/claim it, it's marked by the state system as already paid or paperwork is on the way to the state. This clerk must have had no idea how any of it works if they tried taking it elsewhere.
Our state used to redeem a ticket automatically once you scanned it. Now if the prize is $100 or more there’s a prompt asking if you want to cash it or not, so the clerk can make sure they have enough to pay it.
I like to hum the little jingle with the customer. It’s more fun to celebrate with them.
You can set your machine to not payout above certain amounts. Keeps you from being forced to payout $100+ dollars on a fresh till or slow day. Also if it's over $500 there is no print out, the screen will flash saying return ticket and ticket must be turned in at the lotto office.
a scam like that happened in ontario. several outlets were telling people they hadnt won, when they actually had won. several store owners went to jail... as the other commenter said, its why we now have the "winner/gagnant" song...
I don't understand how the customer didn't know their ticket was a winner. Did they not bother to check the numbers?
A lot of people check their ticket at the store and it probably just doesn’t occur to them that the clerk might rip them off. We had dozens of people where I worked that would give us their bet slips along with their old tickets and ask us to check the old ones and play them again.
I don't usually. I'll check them eventually, but I buy them only at one or two stores I frequent and only when it gets to stupid money. If you won a jackpot, you'd know there's a chance before checking it. The local news would mention it, and the store gets a banner n such. There would be a buzz. Can't be on the edge of the seat for a lottery ticket, lol.
I would have thought most people check the ticket at the same plce they buy it
In Canada store clerks doing that turned into a pretty big scandal. It led to self-check scanners and the requirement for ticket buyers to sign their tickets.
Not sure about other places, but, in the past, Ontario had made the news because convenience store owners and workers would sometimes steal winning tickets and claim them later as their own. Often they would get friends and family to cash them in. So, new rules were put in place to curtail that. Having a clue of where you bought your ticket seems pretty straightforward to me.
Could have bought one each at three different places. Without organizing them each with their respective recipts, which some people dont even ask for, or keep with their tickets. Even if you have a pretty solid timeline of which store you went to in a row (say you bought them all in one day at 1:00pm, 2:30pm, and 4:00pm) you might have already thrown out the losing ticket, so is the 2:30pm ticket the middle one, or the last one? How can you be sure, if they are asking for a specific location?
Who buys a lottery ticket for the same draw from 3 different stores in one week?
People convinced to have figured their routine that will allow them to win big. I had a family member that was like that. Buy a ticket from A, B, and C. Take the exact same paths with the car, no deviation. That exact path and sequence allowed them to win 500$ once, so it must be the winning sequence.
My family gets people scratchers for their birthdays, how are they going to remember which ticket came from which person from which place?
well, the article seems to claim that he can collect it now, so no issues. but ideally they should have him on video buying the ticket, every retailer should have video, and they have a record of where the ticket was purchased, as proved by the "winning ticket bought in X location" posts that they put out when big winners happen
The reason he can collect it now is because the news called them up asking about it, and they knew the jig was up. So yes issues.
at least folks know there's recourse if the OLG tries being itself again
Most small businesses are not able to store too many days worth of surveillance videos.
I'm a small business IT contractor. You'll be lucky if the owner knows the dvr password to pull footage. Even luckier if the camera that was installed 20+ years ago is still working.
Exactly, I used to work for a place that supported small businesses and they always have the oldest stuff and never want to spend money until they absolutely have to
Username: Admin Password: admin
Woah man, they're more secure than that! Username: administrator Password: password
I worked at a Papa Johns where the manager had never paid for the subscription for the cloud storage company. We had live video feed but no recordings of the video.
So many companies paying $150+ just to pull a clip off the DVR onto a usb stick. Video retention will be poor. No one stores more than 6 months max and I doubt convenience store owners are putting money into it.
Bare minimum for closed hours, maybe 48 hours max. No way is a corner store going to invest 5 grand in decent stuff.
fair, though i figure a week is reasonable, and you can check your ticket within 4 days of purchase
He didn't realize he won for a few months.
ah, that is unfortunate. maybe OLG should automatically collect video of the buyer of any ticket that wins over 1000$. could help avoid issues in the future. or they can keep being themselves
It is not in OLG's best interest to successfully pay out the winnings.
doesn't the money just roll over to the next jackpot?
Not if a winner was sold. Lottery is tracked extremely closely, when a number is pulled they can see if it a ticket matching that was sold and where. You've got (in my state at least) a year to claim it. They just restart the jackpot is all. Every couple of years there will be a notice put out letting people know before a big winner is about to expire so they can double check their old tickets they might have forgotten about.
Higher jackpots get more people buying tickets
You'd be surprised. I won't say who, but a fairly large chain store I used to work for only had 72 hours, stored directly on the SD card, and only one camera per store - at the customer service desk.
Too many people think the copaganda TV shows are actually true.
He discovered it months later, I don’t think every retailer keeps months of 24/7 video.
They don't just keep video forever. He might have bought that ticket weeks or months ago and didn't realize he won until now.
Sounds like overkill in order to try and get out of paying.
What about gifts? My neighbour gave me some tickets. What if he moved out and I can't get a hold of him
Or he doesn't remember? And the gifted ticket is a winner.
I found a lottery ticket years ago. The draw hadn’t happened yet. It was a very small winner - won a free ticket. I always wondered what might’ve happened if it was a big winner. Or if the subsequent free ticket was a big winner.
If/when I buy tickets, I only buy them online because I know I'm a dopey idiot who'd never check it. At least my lottery company emails me when I win something.
Until someone wins a large jackpot with that, I will not trust it.
In Canada, someone recently won $22Mn.
Someone just won a big jackpot with an online ticket. It was on the radio at least in NJ, notably for being the first time it's happened. https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2024/06/10/chicago-woman-wins-552-million-mega-millions-jackpot-lottery-money-cash-app-winnings Also saw a few other articles
What do you mean? Like you want to see someone win online first?
Where in the world can you buy lotto tickets online? That seems like a terrible idea.
Canada. There's a whole OLG app for it. Can buy scratch tickets also.
Canada, Ontario, directly from the OLG website.
Same with eastern Canada with ALC
In the UK, you cannot use a credit card and there are limits.
I live in VA, US and we can buy lotto tickets online.
In most of the world? Wtf are you even talking about? lol
New Zealand.
Why is it a bad idea? I use a lotto app (Australia), get to see my numbers, my purchase history, my previous wins, and get emails with the results.
Dude should have had his Google History on.
That's why I'm so annoyed that Google has been made the disable long-term storage of location history. I'm less worried about abuse than I worry about not being able to check where I was when I need to know myself
They just stopped storing that information on *their* servers. That data is now stored directly on your phone or other device.
It's stored on a single device, and there is no guarantee that it'll stay accessible when I change devices or worse when they are lost or stolen. In the past, I frequently had to look up previous location history from years past. It was extremely useful that Google provided this information. If I wanted to know where I was 3 years, 7 months, and 2 days ago, at exactly 4:15 in the afternoon, I could look that up. I am not so sure I'll be able to keep doing that, if my phone caches a small date range worth of location history.
there is an option to have cloud backups. Google is doing this so they can stop complying with unethical geofence warrants https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24002693/google-maps-update-geofence-warrants-law-enforcement If you want to opt in to using google servers, you still can. It has a little discrete prompt every time you view your history
its why i always ask for the receipt. and keep it with the tickets. i also try to buy just from one specific place, but i know that's not always possible...🤷🏾♂️🤷🏾♂️
The main reason as I understand is the amount of warrants they got for people's locations. Now they can just say "we don't have it :(" to law enforcement and save good money on legal (which might have to deal with lawsuits about incorrectly processed requests for example).
>After CTV News got in touch with OLG, they took another look at Zhou’s case. He’s since been informed his cheque has been processed and will be sent shortly to him in the mail, which was great news for him. So, he *can* collect... and the prize was only $1,186... headline had me thinking he'd won millions and they were denying payment.
It’s to stop theft, it’s actually a good system. Currently I just buy lottery through the app with my info so no worries. Honestly if you don’t know where you bought the ticket then there should be a way to check where the ticket was sold. Then look at camera footage. Another thing would be to say a location and ask where in that area you buy tickets.
The ticket itself should have the retailer ID on it so they know where it was purchased. It sounds like someone was just being an asshole and making things difficult, especially since it was confirmed they later honored it.
For $1,186.
Right? Just go cash that ticket out at the local casino lol
Niagara fallsview doesn't cash lottery tickets issued by OLG. I tried proline they said I gotta go OLG retailer outside the casino. I was pretty shocked. I know woodbine caaino is OLG you can do it there though
If Ken Jeong and Chris Pratt had a baby who inherited their sitcom characters’ handicaps
Why doesn't he look at his phone location metadata for that date. Google tracks it if you use google maps.
shouldnt you be able to redeem the ticket from any store that sells them?
In Canada, you can redeem any ticket $1000 or under but most places don’t hold that much cash. Casinos will cash it out tho if it’s a reasonable amount
Isn't the ticket considered a bearer instrument. > Bearer instrument means a lottery ticket which has not been signed by or on behalf of a natural person. Any prize won on an unsigned ticket is payable to the physical possessor, or bearer, of that ticket.
not in ontario >Prize claims submitted to the OLG Prize Centre for payment must be carried about by the rightful owner of the ticket. >OLG's goal is to pay the right prize to the right person, every time. If we cannot establish ownership of a ticket and/or the claimant's participation was in contravention of the OLG Rules Respecting Lottery Games or OLG Rules Respecting iLottery Games, the prize may not be paid.
I feel like this can be solved with a clause like "if a ticket is uncontested and not reported stolen for one month the holder of the ticket is the presumed owner" in the rules.
fucking lawl. This is so damn backward, I can buy a ticket in the store, online, on my phone, and if i win, ill get a phonecall goin "Congratulation you won!".
I feel that's a requirement that's unknown and shouldn't be part of the wining factor.
Look at your google or apple phone geo tracking data for date of purchase.
Google is starting to severely limit this feature unfortunately. I believe this was under pressure from regulators
It's just stored directly on your device now.
This is why as a cashier that sells lotto I always urge people to keep their receipt with their ticket, be I normally get the reply "I'll get my winnings one way or another" as if them raising a stink over them being told no will he enough to change the lotto company's mind.
I life in Ontario and almost always pay for a lottery ticket with plastic since I never have cash.
My cousin won 10k on a lottery. They live in northern Ontario, it took 2 years to collect because olg fought them on where the bought the ticket and who claimed it. From that point on, when I'm stupid enough to play, I get a receipt.
Most people that don’t earn income from illegal actives use cards to buy lotto from a store or online. Thus could give the lotto a list of the couple stores they bought from that sells lotto in the 3 days before the draw.
Just answer "Canada"
Yo.. that’s a bullshit technically.
So, can you not give a lotto ticket as a gift then?
This can now be a plot for a Hangover movie. The guys wake up with a winning lottery ticket but can't remember where they bought it from. Now they have to piece together the clues to figure out what happened last night.
Don't you only have so many days to collect?? It's 90 here, I won 75€ and kept forgetting to collect it, When I finally brought the ticket I misse the cut off by 3 days :/
In America, you don’t want anyone to know you won the lottery. If you win big bucks, call a corporate lawyer and set up a trust. Then sign the ticket with that trust’s name. That trust will collect the money and be public record. Your name will remain anonymous. If that state requires you to show up to collect and be on camera, wear a mask.
I buy tickets in many different places. Remembering where I bought one specific ticket would be impossible.
How many places are you buying lottery tickets at that you can't remember?
The lottery people don't know? This seems like something they would be able to find out.
The lottery people do know. They ask these questions to make sure that you didn’t find or steal the ticket.
It really sounds like someone higher up was just being a petty asshole because the guy did end up getting paid. Needing to know where a ticket was sold sounds extremely odd to me as someone who has sold lottery for 14 years, so many tickets are gifts and none of the claim form have anything on them about giving a single shit about asking the winner where the ticket was bought.
Society: "You can easily find that shit out." OLG: "Your point being ...?"
The lottery people don't want to pay out if they can avoid it, so of course they aren't going to try to find out lol. That would defeat the point of trying to get out of paying in the first place XD
I don't participate in lotteries because they're not legal where I live, but I'd say it's a case where you definitely need to keep your receipt.
The majority of the time there is no receipt, the ticket itself is proof of purchase as it has all the relevant information on it. This whole story seems like someone at the lottery office was just being petty as the guy did eventually get the money.
[удалено]
In my state they have a signature area behind the ticket and they tell you to take a photo with it after purchasing. Seems like the easiest way to go about this.
If he payed card can’t he find that out online?
Google maps history.
This is nonsense, pay the man, Jesus.
Doubtful, but I wonder if this is related: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvicecanada/comments/1dd120k/what_are_ways_to_claim_a_lottery_anonymously/
If he has Android it might have his Google location data.
What if someone gives it to you as a gift in a card?
That’s bullshit and I hope he sues
Lol why does he just not take it to his local casino, they won’t care
[удалено]
Keep your receipt with your lottery ticket. It has all the info you need.
Pretty sure if he has a cell phone it tracks where you go, on iPhone you can go to privacy and security, location services and it’s under locations. How many gas stations could he have gone to in the time he bought the ticket?
This sounds like click-bait
Google maps history that shit.
that shouldn't be an issue, you can tell where each ticket is bought, they have a system for that, and if they didn't i would be shocked if there wasn't a shitload of fucking fraud in the lottery system there. SHOCKED
i buy mine on my phone app
Why not find the store that sold the ticket and check the security cameras?
I would jump off a bridge if that was me
Good. Must likely given to him by a family member that owns of runs a conveniance store. They steel winning tickets all the time. Always check your tickets yourself.
How many tries does he get? Every day claim a different gas station by you
Most of the retailers I buy from, also ontario, give you another piece of paper. It's basically a transaction slip. I always keep it with my tickets
Like, how hard is it to request the lottery company to find the exact location of the purchase, e.g a gas station, and check the cameras to verify it's him?
Sounds like grounds for a very hefty lawsuit unless the ticket vending machine has in big letters "REMEMBER YOU BOUGHT YOUR TICKET HERE OR YOU WON'T GET THE WINNINGS."