After identifying that one of the abandoned tickets was the winner, Gawlitza allegedly clocked off, changed out of his uniform and purchased the unclaimed tickets, including the jackpot winner.<\/p>\n
Circle K became aware of the incident soon after and ordered the ticket to be held at its headquarters.<\/p>\n
Local media reported the company has now opted to sue Gawlitza and the Arizona Lottery so a court can determine who the ticket\u2019s rightful owner is, and who is entitled to claim the prize.<\/p>\n
Circle K has referenced Arizona state rules which state lottery tickets are legally owned by the retailer if a customer refuses to pay for them and they remain unsold.<\/p>\n
That interpretation was supported by state representative Jeff Weninger.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is in the administrative rules that basically says if they overprint that the retailer owns the tickets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might be something after the court case is played out that we look at and say, OK, do we need this in actual law if a situation like this happens?\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Arizona Lottery acknowledged the \u201cunique situation,\u201d telling local media it was not aware of \u201cany prior litigation of this sort\u201d in the state.<\/p>\n
The US$12.8m prize is the fourth-largest \u201cThe Pick\u201d jackpot sold in Arizona, and the biggest since 2019, the New York Post reported.<\/p>\n
Retailers earn a 6.5% commission on ticket sales and may receive additional incentive rewards for major wins.<\/p>\n
Lottery prizes must be claimed 180 days of the draw, giving the court until May 23 to resolve the dispute.<\/p>\n
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After identifying that one of the abandoned tickets was the winner, Gawlitza allegedly clocked off, changed out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,7818,50327,1558,4057,138,3595,6932,2741,112420,6852,12765,101,46880,93,111,139,69,2735,22193,10507,61,28355,3040,18457,12767],"class_list":{"0":"post-301135","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-allegedly","10":"tag-attempting","11":"tag-been","12":"tag-behind","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-by","15":"tag-cash","16":"tag-claim","17":"tag-convenience","18":"tag-customer","19":"tag-employer","20":"tag-left","21":"tag-lottery","22":"tag-manager","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-store","27":"tag-sued","28":"tag-ticket","29":"tag-to","30":"tag-trying","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-winning","33":"tag-worker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}