{"id":396351,"date":"2026-09-11T00:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T00:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/396351\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T00:04:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T00:04:22","slug":"florida-lottery-agents-catch-tampa-store-clerk-trying-to-steal-winning-ticket-officials-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/396351\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Lottery agents catch Tampa store clerk trying to steal winning ticket, officials say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/wtvt-00001-12.jpg\" alt=\"A Pinellas County man won a $1 million scratch-off.\" width=\"764\" height=\"432\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-v-653d32e2=\"\"\/> article    <\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">TAMPA, Fla. &#8211; A Tampa store clerk was issued a Notice to Appear after allegedly telling an undercover Florida Lottery agent that a winning $1,000 lottery ticket was only worth $5, according to officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>   Tampa lottery sting investigation <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">The Florida Lottery stated that special agents conducted an undercover investigation on Aug. 19 at Zoya Shell, located at 3602 W. Gandy Blvd.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">During the operation, an undercover agent handed store clerk Amar Yasser Hamden a winning ticket valued at $1,000, along with a non-winning ticket and two energy drinks, according to officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Hamden scanned the winning ticket on the Florida Lottery terminal, which generated a player claim instructions receipt confirming the ticket&#8217;s value was over $599. Investigators say Hamden then lied to the undercover agent, claiming the ticket was worth only $5, and kept the $1,000 winning ticket with the intent to claim the prize later.<\/p>\n<p> Evidence found in clerk&#8217;s car <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTVT\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Special agents said when they identified themselves and asked Hamden about the winning ticket, he initially claimed he threw it away. During a search, agents found the $1,000 ticket and the printed player claim instructions inside Hamden&#8217;s car.<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Following the investigation, the Florida Lottery suspended all activity at the Tampa retailer and removed its inventory. Hamden was issued a Notice to Appear for violating Florida laws against the unlawful assignment or transfer of the right to claim a lottery prize.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: The information in this story was gathered from official Florida Lottery reports detailing an undercover investigation on Aug. 19.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox13news.com\/tag\/us\/fl\/hillsborough\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hillsborough County<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article TAMPA, Fla. &#8211; A Tampa store clerk was issued a Notice to Appear after allegedly telling an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,629,115,135,137,136,628],"class_list":["post-396351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-fl","tag-hillsborough","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}