US Man Told $500k Winning Scratch Card A Misprint

On December 6th, New Mexico resident John Wines got the biggest surprise of his life after buying a $20 “Ruby 7s” scratch card at a gas station, which subsequently revealed five winning numbers for a massive windfall of $500,625. Unfortunately, Wines’ jubilation soon turned to despair after the clerk at the station scanned the ticket and told him the top prize for the New Mexico Lottery scratch-off ticket was $250,000, and that it was obviously a misprint.
Naturally, Wines needed to explore all possibilities he was entitled to some payout, and as he explains: “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.”
Nevertheless, the New Mexico Lottery only confirmed the gas station clerk’s verdict that the ticket was flawed, and in an effort to compensate him for his emotional roller coaster ride offered to give him $100 in free scratch-off tickets. While that seems a paltry response unlikely to soothe its customer’s huge come down, the reality is that the organization wasn’t even obliged to do that, as a disclaimer in the fine print on the back of the lottery ticket states:
“NMLA is not responsible for lost, stolen or misdirected tickets. Liability for void, altered or misprinted tickets or disputes, if any, is limited to the refund of the retail sales price.”
According to New Mexico Lottery spokeswoman Linda Hamlin, the error was actually caused by the ink dispenser which prints the tickets becoming clogged, and while the company thought it had collected all the defective tickets, obviously at least one was missed. Responding to the explanation, Mr Wines said:
“I struggled all my life, but I never cheated anyone out of anything. And when I was in business, if I made a mistake, I paid for it. They just act like, ‘So what?’ I didn’t misprint it. I bought the ticket in the good faith that if I won, they would pay me.”