They said oops...misprint. Yeah. Right. But her lawyer makes a good point. If the winning tickets can be mistakes, so can the losing tickets. I think it would be funny if thousands of people brought their tickets into the Lottery commission headquarters and had their losing tickets verified.
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link to www.myfoxorlando.com]
Ocala woman suing Florida Lottery
Updated: Friday, 21 May 2010, 9:08 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 21 May 2010, 9:08 PM EDT
OCALA, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Annemarie Curcio of Ocala is a woman on a mission. Her husband of forty years died just four weeks ago of a heart attack, just three years after what they believed was hitting the jackpot, literally.
Curcio says, "It was Mother's Day and we were driving down the turnpike, and my husband said, 'Let's go get a lottery ticket as a Mother's Day gift!' And we did, and it turned out to be a half a million dollar ticket!"
Annemarie's attorney, Lawrence Walters, showed FOX 35 a copy of the $20 "Gold Rush" scratch-off ticket. The Curcio's attorney has the original locked away as evidence. Annemarie says they matched two of the winning numbers, and Orlando attorney Larry Walters confirms.
Walters tells us, "Apparently there is some sort of magical process the Lottery has to look at a number, maybe a serial number or something, to determine if it's supposed to be a winning ticket or not."
Curcio says, "We showed them the ticket, and they said it was a misprint! And we said, 'Uhhh....we had never heard that word before!"
A misprint -- something neither Annemarie Curcio nor her attorney understand.
Though we were unable to reach a Lottery representative tonight, Walters tells us they told him, they're not responsible for misprints. On the back of the tickets, it does say tickets and winners are subject to Lottery rules and state law.
But Walters says his client's lawsuit accuses the Florida Lottery of deceptive and unfair trade practices.
Walters says, "The ticket themselves don't warn consumers they may not have a winning ticket even if it's a match. The advertising the Lottery does doesn't inform people you may have a winning ticket but you may still not be a winner. And more importantly to the general public, they don't tell you that you may think you have a losing ticket, but it's really a winning ticket you threw away!"