Dateline--show about Lottery Tickets-

15 years ago

Just got thru watching the Dateline special about how some retailers scam people out of money. Very interesting. Most of the investigations were in Riverside CA, but when they asked the officials in other states what they were doing to protect the public, NY really got upset and set out notices to all the retailers about the news reporters and what they were doing.

They had special winning lottery tickets and scratch offs and took them in along with the officials to see if when they scanned the tickets the clerks were honest in reporting you are a winner. The majority were very honest. Yep, the others did jail time and lost their license to sell the tickets. Any one here take a ticket in without checking it first and told they were not a winner?

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Comments (10)

Jasdip
15 years ago
Nope not me. I check my tickets online myself. But over the past couple years there have been millions "won" by the convenience store owners here in Ont.

As of this past January, ALL lottery tickets have to be signed by the purchaser before the clerk can check them. Then they can't keep the ticket as theirs. All the stores have "self-checkers" installed now where we can check our own tickets instead of handing them over.

I won $1800 a couple weeks ago, and the stores can only cash up to $999, so I went in to Toronto to get my cheque.
donna37
15 years ago
I always check mine, online, before taking a winning ticket in. The only one I didn't check for some reason was a $743 winner. lol.

We did have a woman working a local convenience store that got caught stealing scratch offs and if they were winners, she was taking them to another local store to redeem. The other store got suspicious about all the winning tickets she seemed to come up with and called the other store and an investigation revealed she had stolen a huge amount of them. Don't know if she ever cheated a customer or not.

Besides checking them at home, they have a reader machine where you can check them at the place you bought them and I always check them again to make sure I didn't miss something before turning them in.
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lydia1959
15 years ago
My DH used to take his in and have them check them before they had the automatic readers. Maybe we could have been millionaires? lol

I thought it was funny that Dateline was talking about lottery tickets today and I just posted a thread "50th birthday Gift" about giving a friend a winning scratch off ticket.
gneegirl
15 years ago
I stopped playing a very long time ago, but who was just passing through, had a big win recently, at a store up the street from me. I guess I should start again, huh.

I missed the show, but it's good info to know. Thanks for sharing!
Granlan_TX
15 years ago
I saw most of that show...who knew?

Am I the only person who's never purchased a lottery ticket or a scratch off, or whatever?
pkguy
15 years ago
It's been a big fiasco here in Canada with retailers winning big prizes out of proportion to customers so now they've instituted you must sign your ticket and self checkers. I remember a few times a couple of years ago taking lottery tickets into the gas station, getting coffee, having the clerk check them and saying I had no prize then dropping them in the garbage behind the counter.. for all I know that could have been a winning ticket of something and they cashed it in after I left. Now the machines behind the counter also announce whether the ticket is a winner or not so you can hear it.
barbara3
15 years ago
Wow, jasdip! Congrats on the Big Money! And I think I'm doing well if I am a "free ticketaire"! We don't get many big winners in this area. It seems the big $$$$ go to Ontario and Quebec. I guess there are many more tickets sold there so it only makes sense. I hate hearing that "uh uh' sounds coming from the machine - sounds to me like it is saying "loser!".
jannie
15 years ago
I always check mine either in the newspaper or online. Most I ever won was $20 and most I ever spent is $22. So I'm a net loser!
mitchdesj
15 years ago
Our machines in Quebec make a ringing bells sound when the ticket is a winner, and there is a printout they give you as proof.
majaco
15 years ago
when I worked at a grocery,we weren't allowed to buy lottery tickets there(per lottery).We had to buy elsewhere.I know a woman(worked with) won $1000.00 a week for life.At one time she worked at the store where she bought the ticket.The store owner had to fill out all kinds of paperwork saying she had not worked there for 6 years.

Dateline--show about Lottery Tickets-

Comments (10)

Jasdip

donna37

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