A Colorado woman whose months-old scratch-off lottery ticket was rejected when she tried to enter it into a second chance drawing discovered it was actually a $3 million winner.
The Colorado Lottery said a woman named Linda told officials she bought the $45,000,000 Golden Jubilee ticket, a $50 Series game, from a Safeway store in Firestone in July.
Linda scratched off the ticket and, thinking it wasn't a winner, put it into a pile with her other losing tickets to enter in Second-Chance drawings.
The woman said she recently picked up the stack of tickets and to scan them with the Colorado Lottery's app and enter them in the Second Chance drawing, but the Golden Jubilee ticket was rejected by the app.
Linda took a closer look at the ticket and discovered it was a $3 million top prize winner.
"How crazy is that!? If Linda didn't participate in our Second-Chance drawings, the ticket would have gone in the trash. Congratulations, Linda!" the Colorado Lottery said.
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WOW!
Love feel good stories like this, especially around the Holidays.
Yesterday I accidentally shredded my Powerball ticket for tomorrow night's drawing...time still to get another one...maybe on-line this time.
Oh Linda, beware the pile.You could have lost out big time girl. Ain't "rejection " sweet?
I always check my scratch offs and tickets multiple times. You just never know. I am so happy she caught this.
So glad she caught the winning ticket before tossing!
It used to be that NC non-winning tickets were the only ones allowed to be entered into second chance drawings too. They changed it a year or so ago to include winning tickets. I used to rely on rejected tickets needing a closer look as they most likely were winners that I overlooked. Now you have to extra careful, and even then I keep my tickets for at least a year.
Many players don't check tickets with the scanner or app, though they should. However, that was a $50 ticket. If paying that much, one would surely double-check, if not triple-check it to be sure. Maybe she is already a millionaire already.
Anyways, as already pointed out, she is very lucky the second chance drawing rejected the ticket. Many lotteries now allow both non-winning and winning tickets. Pennsylvania does that for numbers games second-chance. Seems only a matter of time before instant scratch offs are that way too. It's an easy way to catch more players off-guard. More winners in the trash, more profit for lotteries.
The image quality is poor, so can't be sure. Assuming the winning number was 14, I can see two ways how that could be easily missed.
Firstly, it's on the second line of "Winning numbers". Some players wouldn't expect there to be two lines of such numbers.
Secondly, 14 is in the far-right position. Sometimes, players don't scratch far enough to either side, and miss some numbers. Or part of them, such as revealing only the first or last digit and not both (ie. seeing just a "1" instead of "14").
While it's ultimately up to players to double-check their tickets, some games seem designed to mislead players to mistake winners as losers. Bonus areas are frequently missed. Confusing rules, unusual layouts, and severe misalignment of the play symbols underneath verses the print on top - some of that could be due to shoddy work, but my suspicion is some of it is intentional. More winners trashed, more profit for lotteries.
The new app has a ticket checker too so you can see if you won.
Awesome, great story!
Agree. PA has been doing it for awhile. We had those tickets that you can match prize amounts or winning #s. I am sure alot of those were missed. Also the game a few years back was a $20. Kinda pyramid shaped gold bars and the #'s never lined up. easy to miss one. It would be 3 #s on one row and then 2 on the next and then 3 again. Easy to not get them all. I feel the lottery is out to trick more and more people. Might not be with super obvious stuff, but def small tactics.
Glad she spotted it before it was too late !
Hey Linda of Colorado, lay off the pot. LOL
a month ago I grabbed a bunch of non-winning tixs in a box at a liquor store that they throw out and I was sitting in my car scanning them to enter the 2nd chance drawing and one was a $200 winner!
Nice!!!
"Yesterday I accidentally shredded my Powerball ticket for tomorrow night's drawing"
Good news. You didn't lose out on Millions. Or even one million.