Imagine winning half a million dollars from a lottery scratch off game, and then imagine the lottery telling you, "whoops, sorry this is a misprint, too bad." That's what happened to Ann Marie Curcio of Ocala.
Her Gold Rush ticket told her she had won $500,000 in 2007. She drove all the way up to the Florida Lottery offices in Tallahassee the next day to claim her prize. They told her it was a misprint. Three years latter she still hasn't received her payout, and now the case is heading to court.
"We don't believe that there is a sufficient excuse for the Lottery not to pay it. . . . There are no disclaimers on the ticket," her attorney, Larry Walters, told the Orlando Sentinel.
"We're sympathetic and empathetic to a player who may feel like they won, but they haven't followed the appropriate protocol," Lottery spokeswoman Jacqueline Barreiros says. "We're not in the business of withholding anything from anyone, but we do have to safeguard the integrity of the game."
It's not clear why exactly the ticket was deemed a misprint.
The chance of winning $500,000, the top prize, from a Gold Rush ticket is apparently 1-in-2.5 million. One Gold Rush ticket costs $20.
