Virginia Lottery ‘Winner’ Has Ticket Voided after Error
Wednesday September 9th 2015A Washington D.C. woman who was going to use a $20,000 lottery win to help her ill sister pay medical bills has been told that the ticket was issued in error. Ardella Newman’s five-figure win has been voided by Virginia Lottery officials who say the scratch-off had been cut in the wrong place, making it invalid.
Newman insists she deserves the prize that she believed she had won on the $2 scratcher, which she bought on August 22. “When I saw that $20,000, you don’t know how excited I was,” recalled Newman, who has issued a complaint with the Virginia Lottery.
The lottery’s Audit and Security department is investigating the issue, with officials initially stating that, whereas the regular tickets have the winning numbers at the top, Newman’s scratcher had them at the bottom. It is thought that an error meant she had been presented with parts of two different tickets.
Newman is defiant, “I want the money that I thought I won,” she stated, “If you look at the ticket, it says I won this money. It wasn’t anything that I did wrong. It’s what they did wrong”
Jim Hagerty, Communications Specialist with the Virginia Lottery, explained that Newman’s scratch-off displayed the barcode and validation code from the non-winning portion, meaning that the prize cannot be paid. He confirmed that investigators were examining the self-service machine from which Newman bought her ticket, in order to find out if it had been responsible for the issue.
As well as instant games, the Virginia Lottery offers players the chance to win big on Powerball and Mega Millions, as well as with in-state games like Bank a Million.
Latest News