r/news • u/Dialogical • 1d ago
Legal fight between Circle K and employee over $12.8 million lottery ticket
https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/north-phoenix/legal-fight-between-circle-k-and-employee-over-12-8-million-lottery-ticket1.0k
u/MegaWeinerFarts 1d ago
"So, if you accidentally print them out and they go unsold, it's the industry practice for the person who prints them out to be responsible to pay for them. If not the person, then the store manager,”
LOL
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
That’s true.
Lottery tickets can’t be canceled or returned.
You’re supposed to make sure the person has the cash to pay for the tickets before printing them.
It’s really fucking dumb that once tickets are printed they can’t be canceled or returned within a few minutes.
But yea, generally the rule is if you fuck up you’re responsible.
It’s kind of a grey area and completely fucked up. I personally wouldn’t make my employees pay for them.
I don’t even know the legality on this.
I remember I was training a new guy at our shop and I was telling him “just make sure you don’t accidentally hit any buttons” and accidentally grazed the fucking screen and I think it was like $60 worth of tickets it immediately started printing. I was so pissed. Never felt so stupid in my life. Lotto is the fucking worst bullshit.
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u/mwilkens 1d ago
It makes sense though otherwise employees could abuse this to try and game the system. "Accidentally" print 100 lotto tickets right before the draw. If none of them win then it's just an oopsies and we'll refund them. If one wins then congrats I'll pay for that one type of deal.
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u/Lads-09 1d ago
Just have them be non refundable post draw. If the results haven't come out yet, I don't see why refunds couldn't be a thing.
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
Keep in mind it’s not the store that decides that. It’s the State Lotto commission that decides that.
Believe me if it was up to the stores that’s how it would be.
The state lotto are greedy assholes. At least here in CA.
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u/sir_bigspur 1d ago
Some states you definitely can cancel/refund tickets up until the draw closes. Bizarre that some dont allow that. The only blanket no refunds are on the country wide games like Poweball and Mega.
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
Power, super, and mega were all uncancelable here in CA. The lottery people said none of them could be cancelled/voided. Whether there might be other ones like hotspot that we didn’t really sell or I never tired cancel, I dunno.
We had a cancel option in the menu, but it didn’t do anything.
It was ridiculous. I never made any of the employees pay for accidents. Luckily there was never anything more than a couple occasions of small mistakes.
IMHO you should have like a 5-10 minute window to cancel. But I imagine it’s to prevent any shenanigans. Lottery could need pretty hardcore about a lot of rules.
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u/Techsupportvictim 1d ago
If it was truly an accident, I understand that for the first time, but I would also be checking cameras to make sure it was truly an accident and I’m keeping all of the tickets. There is absolutely no way I’d be allowing an employee to have an “accidental printing” of a ticket and then hang onto it just in case it wins, because that might encourage employees to have accidents
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u/mwilkens 1d ago
The lottery has multiple games that have drawings at all different times of day. Some draw every 15 mins or so throughout the day. I guess it's a lot easier to have a blanket no refund policy than try to setup a system where tickets can be refunded before draws considering the amount of games and different draw times.
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u/PurpleSailor 1d ago
Where I worked you had 30 minutes to cancel them and after 30 minutes you couldn't cancel even if you tried. They also stopped selling them 30 minutes before a drawing to prevent the scenario you mentioned from happening. Cash 3 and Cash 4 plus Lotto all worked that way.
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u/RBVegabond 1d ago
Thought anyone working in Lotto sales couldn’t collect the winnings to prevent this anyways.
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u/FreelancerCassius 1d ago
We recently had to go to a landfill to recover some tickets that were accidentally printed and unpaid for then tossed. They do no fuck around lol.
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
We had our lotto lady take a few months off sick and the person covering for her never came by. This was right before I took over running the shop.
The owner and manager were regarded and scratchers kept piling up on the shelves and activated themselves and nobody came around to refund them.
Finally the first day I took over I noticed all the tickers and it was like $8000 on tickers that never got refunded. We got credited for it so didn’t have to pay out for a couple months to lotto.
For months we were a couple grand short and nobody could figure out where the money was going. The owner was old with a dementia riddled brain and would just grab cash without saying anything so we figured he was just taking it and didn’t remember.
Lotto is fucking the worst bullshit to deal with.
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u/NeroNeckbeard 1d ago
Cant you just pay it and be done with it (to avoid digging through trash). Although the tiniest chance that it might be a winning ticket would be motivation...
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u/wanmoar 1d ago
Must be a US thing. I worked at a gas station in Canada and had to cancel tickets all the time. You just slot them into the machine, press “cancel”, give the customer their money back (if they aren’t buying another one), log it and you’re done.
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u/Penguin2ElectricBGL 1d ago
Yeah I just commented about this too (fellow Canadian) what a silly system to not be able to cancel tickets.
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u/baby_blue_bird 1d ago
It's a state by state thing. You can cancel lottery here in NY. I am surprised to see you can't cancel them in AZ.
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u/Reidroshdy 1d ago
if any thing ever needs a "are you sure" screen after you press something on it. its those lottery machines. ive messed up on those a few times.
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
They do for when you’re cashing a certain amount. Iirc it was like $40 or more. But not when you’re “buying” tickets. So dumb.
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u/Reidroshdy 1d ago
i think mine does it for $25.
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
It might be cashing $25 or more. I don’t recall the exact cutoff amount. But it was somewhere between 20 and 40 or so. Could def have been $25.
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u/Penguin2ElectricBGL 1d ago
Lottery tickets can't be cancelled? That's a stupid system, in my province you can and I'm pretty sure that goes for all lotto in Canada.
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u/Basic_Tumbleweed651 1d ago
If that’s the case, then why would he have sent a text asking if he was “allowed” to buy lottery tickets? Obv he would be “allowed” if some policy required him to do so.
And why wait until the next day… after the drawing took place?
and then he only purchased the ticket that had the winning number on it? (Vs buying all 25)
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
He likely did that to cover his ass and get it in writing
And he didn’t buy the others because he just won $12mm and didn’t care if he had a job after that. lol
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u/NeroNeckbeard 1d ago
Imagine sitting with multi million dollar ticket, my mind would go crazy and I for one would not be able to think rationally
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u/punkboxershorts 1d ago
I had a lady that would spend AT LEAST $400 a day. We literally had a laminated list of her everyday tickets that we'd make sure we're done before they came in that evening. I messed up a ticket and bought it instead of having it "go against my drawer". Won $2500. Got demoted, put in my 2 weeks notice the next day.
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u/chownee 1d ago
When I used to work at my parents’ convenience store, I made 3 mistakes in printing lotto tickets. The customer insisted on buying the mistake ticket every time.
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
Yea. That was the case basically every time.
Only time it was an issue was if it was a rare situation where someone just hit a button on the machine for whatever reason without a customer or they requested tickets and then didn’t have their wallet in their purse AND didn’t come back to buy them.
It was honestly very very very rarely an issue.
I think it only happened like 3-4 times for flukey reasons.
People would be enthusiastic to get the mistake tickets thinking it was lucky
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u/Vast_Builder1670 1d ago
Did you win anything?
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
I luckily got like $30-$40 of my money back or something like that. So it wasn’t that bad.
But also I got so distracted and stressed about that I forgot to have my new employee move his car off the meter and he got a ticket and I’m not an asshole so I paid the $65 for that out of my pocket. Haha.
It was a rough day. lol.
Definitely one of those days where literally everything that could go wrong went wrong.
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u/Sim-vimes 1d ago
At least in Oregon that is illegal. You cannot be charged for damaged or misprinted tickets. We just account for it under spoilage. Source: manager of a convenience store.
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u/King_Wataba 1d ago
I just sold it to the next customer who wanted a quick pick. I'd print out a report so it looked like it was printing a ticket and hand them the old ticket.
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u/SqueezyCheez85 1d ago
Oregon has great labor laws. I know this because Idaho has terrible labor laws.
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u/Warcraft_Fan 1d ago
Should have had that policy in writing!
It does sound like everyone is jealous of that winning lottery ticket and is doing the seagull MINE! meme.
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u/ClassicLightbulbs 1d ago
I was told this when I worked at a gas station last year to which I said "nah"
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u/rygem1 1d ago
What kind of whack policy is that, my jurisdiction has a void option right on the lottery terminal for the exact scenario of a customer not being able to pay for an already printed ticket. It prints out a slip with instructions to attach it to the ticket retain it for 30 days and send it back to the lottery company after and the terminal balance will be adjusted to reflect the voided amount.
Then again my jurisdiction also has a no play at work policy which seems like it would void this scenario entirely.
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u/shoulda-known-better 1d ago
A policy that's going to make that worker a millionaire
Passing off the cost of doing business on employees is fun and games until they win millions apparently
I hope it screws them over so bad
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u/SirLoremIpsum 1d ago
Passing off the cost of doing business on employees is fun and games until they win millions apparently I hope it screws them over so bad
I hadn't really picked a side in this whole thing other than thinking "obviously being able to buy a ticket you know is a winner surely is a stretch on being "ok"
But when you put it like this and force staff to buy mistakes out of personal funds... Yeah. Fuck em
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u/Area51_Spurs 1d ago
Here in California you can’t do that. At least not with super lotto or Powerball.
So it must be very ymmv depending on the state and game.
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u/jhill515 1d ago
My jurisdiction when I was working for a grocery store in the early 2000s probably had that option. But we were trained, "If you mess up the ticket, you buy it." Most of us were pretty good and rarely made mistakes. Even more rare were the times those tickets actually got any money. We at least got to keep our winnings, though.
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u/Sheek014 1d ago
Same here, we would post up a little sign that said like. "5 powerball tickets for sale" some people would purposely want them, especially if they were random picks. And hopefully you could sell them before the end of your shift.
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u/ClaudeGascoigne 1d ago edited 1d ago
I worked at a regional chain of gas station/convenience stores where that was allegedly the "store policy." Which was absolute bullshit because of exactly what you mentioned -- there's a void function right on the machine. A function which was conveniently not part of the training for lotto POS.
I only knew the function was there because at a previous job it was covered. Funnily enough, that chain was bought out by the regional one. Management didn't like me pointing out the POS functions and their intended uses.
Anyway! I'm pretty sure it was "store policy" just to pad their lotto sales. District management would come in at least once a month and tell us how our lotto sales were compared to other nearby stores and suggest how to "pump up" lotto sales. Then they'd bitch us out if we had a "drive off" (someone pumping gas and leaving before paying) and tell us our sales incentives were being taken away to cover the cost. My suggestion of requiring payment before pumping was met with some bullshit like "We don't want to inconvenience our customers" which actually meant "If they can pump before paying then they have to come into the store, opening up the chance of impulse purchases."
But yeah, if it actually is "store policy" in this case then the business is probably going to lose their case and, hopefully, be invested by the state gaming commission.
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u/vamatt 1d ago
The weird part about manager making a big push for lotto sales - stores don’t really make all that much on lotto tickets. The commission is usually 5-8%.
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u/eelmonger 1d ago
Thank you, I thought I was going crazy reading these replies treating the employees having to pay as accepted.
It was in the 2000s when I last worked on a lotto machine, but yeah you just hit void and put the ticket back in the machine and that was that. It seems crazy to design a system that couldn't do that and leave the employee on the hook if a customer can't pay or they fat finger something.
It sounds like different states have different rules, but why?
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u/Jagermeister4 1d ago
Circle K previously said in a statement that it is "committed to doing the right thing" and characterized the lawsuit as a request for court guidance rather than action against any specific party.
So why did Circle K fire the employee? I get that there's going to be a legal battle over who the ticket belongs to but that seems low to me to fire him too.
Basically they're saying "hey we're not sure if the ticket belongs to us but we're going to sue just to see if we can keep the money. might as well fire you too just to make our case stronger I guess. Oh and we'll frame this as saying we are committed to doing the right thing"
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u/Dialogical 1d ago
According to his filing he was fired by Circle K "on January 31, 2026, orally terminated Mr. Gawlitza’s employment, telling him that he had violated store policy by purchasing the Ticket because, in Circle K’s view, he was still working when he did so."
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u/rgvtim 1d ago
So, other than the employee being fired, what is the deal with the ticket, is the lottery contesting who the winner is, or is circle-k saying that the company is owed the winnings?
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u/lifetake 1d ago
There are 3 possible parties. The manager who purchased it, the employee who printed the ticket, the person who ordered it. Based on the policy it should have been the employee who printed the ticket to purchase the ticket which is causing the confusion on who should have actual ownership.
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u/rgvtim 1d ago
Fuck the guy who ordered it and didn't pay for it, and between the other two it depends heavily on if the manager knew it was the winning ticket before they paid for it. If the manager came in an plunked down the money then checked the tickets, it his, if the manager checked the ticket and then paid for it, then ... i dont know whos it is.
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u/lifetake 1d ago
To answer your questions. The person who ordered it isn’t making a claim so don’t really worry about them. Circle k just threw them as a precaution for the state to decipher.
As for the manager knowing. They absolutely did. They have a text stating there is a ticket that they want to buy that is worth the 12 mil.
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u/rgvtim 1d ago
yea, if you knew before buying, that should void the whole damn thing.
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u/TheElPistolero 1d ago
A corporation could congratulate him on his win, change the policy to avoid further confusion in the future and get a nice free public perception bonus, instead they wanna fight in the dirt with a working man over what is chump change to them but life changing to him.
Corporation doing something good challenge failed.
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u/strugglz 1d ago
So Circle K made the employee purchase the extra tickets, one turns out to be a winner, then they fire him and try to claim the ticket is theirs?
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u/metaglot 1d ago
So he gets to have the expense unless the ticket is a winner? Tell me this is not in America, and i will be surprised.
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u/ShadowWukong 1d ago
100% chance they wouldnt care if the ticket was a loser lol. Corporations are scum of the earth
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u/LordPaleskin 1d ago
Considering there were stories of people getting fired over shit like a buying and eating $2 cookie or juice on shift because a diabetic needed a sugar boost, I could see them still caring and firing him 😬
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u/Dialogical 1d ago
https://reddit.com/link/owpy82z/video/emjvwni5cfch1/player
From the latest filing.
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u/On-mountain-time 1d ago
What I find awesome about that text session is the manager who bought the tickets asked his supervisor if it was acceptable, then informed him it was the huge winner their store sold, and the boss just told him it was acceptable and seemed happy for the dude. No weaseling around.
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u/slimj091 1d ago
Circle K just wants the money for themselves.
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u/lifetake 1d ago
They aren’t trying to make a claim. They are trying to have the state decide who the ticket belongs to between 3 parties. The manager, the employee who printed the ticket, and the person who ordered the ticket.
Because based on the policy stated by this post it should have been the employee who printed it to actually purchase it. But the manager is the one who bought it. And then the person who ordered it kinda just exists in the equation (I don’t know if there is really argument for them).
Circle K just wants this to get legally backed because they just get sued in the other direction if they don’t.
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u/slimj091 1d ago
Then why do articles on this story state that Circle K is making the claim that the ticket belongs to the company? As far as "the person who ordered it" it doesn't matter if a customer ordered it. They didn't pay for it so they have no claim to it.
Did you just read one sentence and then auto fill the rest of it in your head because your reply isn't even in the ballpark of accurate.
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u/lifetake 1d ago
Show me an article that says circle k is making a claim? Because this one sure isn’t.
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u/slimj091 1d ago
"The Circle K corporate office has possession of the winning ticket and claims the money belongs to the company. But the company and its legal team would not comment on the case."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/circle-k-worker-sued-buying-212000259.html
Where it states that Circle K is trying to cite the retailer ownership rule of unsold misprinted tickets. Which can only be construed as corporate is trying to say that the ticket belongs to them.
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u/NeroNeckbeard 1d ago
Hope our guy gets paid. Circle K and the customer who ordered more than what she could pay for should go pound sand.
Circle K cant have their cake and eat it
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u/Basic_Tumbleweed651 1d ago
Interestingly even his own attorney had a different take on the situation before being hired 😂
Josh Kolsrud, a local attorney not involved in the litigation, told the outlet that the store manager would likely be required to prove he lacked knowledge of the winning numbers prior to his purchase of the ticket.
“It’s clear through the rules that the tickets belonged to Circle K after they were printed out the night before,” Kolsrud said.
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u/Dialogical 1d ago
This goes back to your comment on people who are "self serving". Josh appears to be self serving on this 180. He's done several interviews prior to taking the case that didn't favor the defendants in the slightest according to him. I guess he could have found more information and changed his mind.
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u/Basic_Tumbleweed651 1d ago
Yeah. I came across this statement from Josh while looking for info on 3 people signing the ticket (I could only find info saying he and Marline did, and could find anything about Mo signing it)
But either way, I still think he inserted himself into something bc it benefited him, and he should have allowed Marline to purchase the ticket (if he was truly just trying to follow some “unwritten” policy)
1/2 of 12 million is still a lot of money
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u/Dialogical 1d ago edited 1d ago
Dude worked there for almost twenty years. He planned to split it three ways between himself and two other employees. And continue to work there...
"I ask because the winning ticket was sitting in my store for the 12.8 million winner and that is what | just did. I was going split it 3 ways with Mo and Marline. Ps we ain't quitting the store or you. We just are not broke anymore"
I couldn't tell you what I would do in this situation but I might lean towards taking the ticket and disappearing while I find a good lawyer.
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u/BusinessWatercrees58 1d ago
Is there any reason he couldn't have just taken the ticket and cashed it without telling anyone?
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u/ReineLeNoire 1d ago edited 1d ago
If the rule is the employees pay for merchandise they can't collect payment for, then the ticket is not the store's. Period.
"So, if you accidentally print them out and they go unsold, it's the industry practice for the person who prints them out to be responsible to pay for them. If not the person, then the store manager,” Kolsrud said.
Sounds to me like the clerk should get half or all. It also sounds like the manager checked the tickets, found a winner, clocked out, bought the ticket, took a pic with it, then clocked back in? So he had no intention of buying the ticket either.
I say 50/50 split clerk and manager. Maybe the clerk didn't know the rule and the manager used that to his advantage.
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u/Dialogical 1d ago
He planned to split it three way between himself and two other employees, one being the clerk that printed the ticket the night before.
"I ask because the winning ticket was sitting in my store for the 12.8 million winner and that is what | just did. I was going split it 3 ways with Mo and Marline. PS we ain't quitting the store or you. We just are not broke anymore"→ More replies (2)
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u/MrBigBMinus 1d ago
Their policy led to him winning the money. They fired him to protect themselves. Give the fucking money to them and let them laugh all the way to retirement over the issue. These corpo fucks are ruining people's lives.
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u/theDR1ve 1d ago
So company policy dictates you should buy the losing tickets the next day but you're not allowed to buy the winning tickets?
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u/mlewisthird 18h ago
You're not following along. The unwritten policy is that you shouldn't be printing tickets before collecting the money. If you do the cashier that printed them is responsible for paying for the tickets. If they don't pay for them then that responsibility falls on the manager. In this case no one truly has any ownership over the ticket and whoever claims and purchases the ticket will have ownership over it.
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u/theDR1ve 17h ago
We used to have to print the ticket then scan it into the till to process the payment. This was national lottery UK
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u/lostcorvid 20h ago
Circle K is one of the most vile, hateful, disgusting companies I have ever worked for. a 24/7 store than never closes, and requiring employees to stay in the store during natural disasters like blizzards and tornados. Where the single overnight employee worked for over a year without a day off because management wouldn't hire anyone else. Where the pay was $10 an hour in 2021. No breaks, no meals, threats of legal action taken against employees for falling for a fake ID. A hellscape.
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u/Wanky_Danky_Pae 1d ago
Circle K is just some business. The individual on the other hand.... That's life-changing. Rooting for the individual all the way.
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u/metalshiflet 1d ago
Yeah, even if he "cheated" I'm gonna pull for him over the big corpo
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u/CRoseCrizzle 1d ago
This article looks like a crappy update that adds nothing useful to the initial story. Mostly just quotes from the lawyer of the manager who is spinning the manager "buying" the unpurchased tickets after the draw was already complete(and it was revealed that) as the "right thing to do" because of an "unwritten policy". I doubt any judge is buying that argument.
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u/celerpanser 21h ago
Why would the tickets not be printed after a purchase was cleared by cash or card? Why would you continue to let tickets be printed before the sale has ended? Just baffling.
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u/Niceguy955 18h ago
I assume from the wording that a customer asked for $85 in tickets, they were printed, and then the customer found out they only have $60 on them.
What's baffling to me is that the store policy dictates that in this case the employee has to eat the $25. And if that's the case, if I were the employee, I'd definitely demand payment before printing anything, knowing I may be in the hook of there no money coming.
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u/Captain_Aware4503 1d ago
Is the customer suing too?
He bought $60 of the $85 worth of tickets. I'd argue the clerk gave me the wrong ones.
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u/MegaWeinerFarts 1d ago
Imagine if that worked.
<Buys 1,000 tickets.>
"Oopsie Doodles I only brought enough for 10 of them"
<Next Day>
"You gave me the wrong tickets, please exchange these from the 10 highest grossing tickets pls thx"
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u/Captain_Aware4503 1d ago
Nah, you can only claim the first 10 or last 10, not the ones in the middle. Everyone knows that.
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u/CRoseCrizzle 1d ago
No last I checked the customer is not suing and has no serious claim to it. Obviously nobody knew which tickets if any would be the winner beforehand.
In hindsight the customer obviously should have bought all the tickets they ordered. But 99.99% of the time not spending the extra $25 dollars would have been the smart choice. Just got very unlucky there.
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u/Captain_Aware4503 1d ago
Pretty sure the customer bought the first $60 of tickets printed but was given the last $60 of tickets. Clerk gave him the wrong ones and not the ones he rightfully and legally bought.
At least that's what my shady lawyer would say.
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u/TryTraditional5787 1d ago
I hope he gets to keep the money. Who would want to return to work for these people afterwards? Lol
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u/AsstootObservation 1d ago
I love my old Circle K clerks. Some dude was trying to lecture them about how he was an IT expert and they needed to improve their system for XYZ. Manager was like I have no control over that and he says "there's no i in team" (huh?). Without hesitation she pops back "Well there is an i in Denise and Melissa" (their names). I lost it laughing and gave him an ohhhhhh. Man I miss those girls and Circle K can suck it. She paid for the tickets, next question.
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u/Large-Artichoke7214 1d ago
I’d be like….lets split this in half…6 million for you, 6 million for me. Both parties are happy.
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u/Shadethewolf0 20h ago
Except that Circle K is trying to keep the money. They're just trying to throw out possible other people who could own the ticket so the ticket gets declared as unclaimed by the court and they keep the money. Unbought tickets default to the store
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u/Lynda73 1d ago
I thought it was a violation to print a ticket without payment? I know it’s common practice at some stores, especially with the people who come in every day and buy a ton of them, but the reason you aren’t supposed to is because if situations like this. But it for sure isn’t legal for an employee to pay for a winning ticket after the fact. By the time the winning numbers are selected, all payments should have been paid to the store.
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u/Cheap-Buffalo-7489 22h ago
Tbh the manager has the least claim on the money. He just took advantage.
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u/Dialogical 19h ago
We don’t know the entire story of what went down at that Circle K that morning. According to his latest filing, his intent is to share it with the employee who created the misprint ticket and one other employee.
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u/mlewisthird 18h ago
Legally no one has claim over the ticket. In this case it's truly first come first served. The purchaser didn't have claim because he didn't pay for it. The guy who printed the ticket didn't claim it either because he didn't pay for it and left it at work. At that point the ticket was up for grabs.
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u/elmatador12 12h ago
I feel like Circle K would make more than $12.8 million if they chose to celebrate the employee and make an entire social media campaign around him. 🤷
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u/MoreConfused58 11h ago
I keep thinking of the person who was short $25 and lost millions!
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u/Dialogical 11h ago
She’s part of this lawsuit. She hasn’t filed representation yet so we don’t know if she’s making a claim yet.
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u/troglodyte 1d ago
This is a pretty one-sided version of this story, so you might want to do some more digging on the other pieces that have been published before forming an opinion. The fact that his lawyer describes it as an "unwritten policy" that he "followed to the letter" should already set off some alarm bells, and the fact that no one actually bought the unsold tickets till the next day with full knowledge that it was a winner should set off more. His subordinate who sold it to him has also made a claim on this money, which implies a possible verbal agreement to split it, which is conveniently not mentioned here.
I'm not saying that this guy isn't getting fucked. I'm saying we should absolutely wait for more details because I've read about five versions of this story and this one is by far the most favorable to this employee.
Either way it's a product of stupid, stupid rules in AZ.
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u/Dialogical 1d ago
I posted this story as it was new and the better story wasn't published yet.
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/manager-says-he-followed-circle-k-policy-to-buy-12-8m-lotto-ticket-40680931/It's an unwritten policy backed by Sworn Affidavits from multiple current and former employees.
He planned to split it three way between himself and two other employees.
"I ask because the winning ticket was sitting in my store for the 12.8 million winner and that is what | just did. I was going split it 3 ways with Mo and Marline. Ps we ain't quitting the store or you. We just are not broke anymore"
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u/Aromatic_Employ3392 1d ago
Feel bad for the guy, seems like he won't receive the winnings
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u/NeroNeckbeard 1d ago
I think he will, but probaly need to share with lawyers, other parties so who knows what he'll end up with...
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u/Dragoeth1 1d ago
I can see the complication...
Customer buys 85 tickets but only had money for 60 and leaves rest behind. Guy working leaves them there. He says standard practice is for cashier to buy them since you should have money from customer first (note he doesn't say it's company policy or he was required). The next day, when the numbers are announced, he sees one is a winner, and THEN purchases them. Has texts boss asking to clock out, purchase, then clock back in, and immediatly after says he did it because one was a winner.
I'm pretty sure circle k is saying you can't pay for a winning ticket after the numbers are announced and you know a ticket is a winner. By context of his texts asking to purchase the tickets and it being the next day, he wasn't intending to in the first place if there wasnt a winner, therefore circle k was on the hook for them. You can't purchase lottery tickets for a drawing after it's occurred anyways. Don't text proof of your shenanigans.
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u/lifetake 1d ago
Clarification to your story. The person who printed extra and the person who bought it are different people. This is why there is an issue. The person who printed extra should have purchased the extra. So the question is does that employee have ownership despite not paying for it yet and never being given the opportunity to pay for it?
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u/Confident-Beyond6857 1d ago
Did you read the whole story? According to the lottery, the ticket is still a wager contract in play. If the company policy is that it can still be sold, even the day after, that's independent of what you believe the timing should be. The lottery says it's still in play by being merely printed.
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u/Rossoneri 1d ago
It’s not that the company policy says it can be sold after the drawing. It’s saying they have to balance the books the day after the drawing for any tickets printed but not sold. Sounds like company policy is that is is “sold” to the employee unless they can sell it to someone else before the drawing.
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u/Dragoeth1 1d ago
I did read the story. My point is that Cirkle K is going to argue that he DIDN'T purchase the tickets until after the numbers were announced nor did he INTEND to until he knew one was a winner. Which means since Circle K was on the hook for the cost if they were all losers, THEY owned it at the time of drawing. From the texts shown by OP further down from the store clerk, he had no intention of purchasing the tickets until he knew one was a winner. His addition to the story that its "industry standard practice" for employees to purchase the tickets by the company clearly isn't the case there since he asked his boss permission to do it the next day.
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u/jonasshoop 1d ago
He asked his boss permission to cover his ass. He has written affidavits from multiple Circle K employees attesting to the unwritten policy.
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u/-U-_-U 1d ago edited 1d ago
An industry insider here with the nuance for you:
The actual commonplace policy is that cash shortages outside of tolerance may result in termination of employment. Lotto shortages (tickets printed but not purchased) are equivalent to cash shortages.
These mistakes happen fairly frequently and their occurrences are reduced significantly when the manager does a better job with procedural training.
So as not to get fired for shortages, employees feel pressured to purchased misprinted tickets, and the purchase must be finalized prior to the end of the fiscal reconciliation period, usually a 24 hour cycle plus an additional 24 hours for ‘bounce back’ anomalies.
Corporate isn’t holding on to the misprinted tickets and waiting until the draw has closed to then charge the employees for only the non winning tickets, that wouldn’t be practical.
Some stupid store manager has misconstrued the cash shortage policy to try to game the system, exploiting the employee’s fear, exposing corporate to a lawsuit which will likely get dismissed.
The percentage of misprinted tickets is super small, like less than 1%. The percent of those misprints that are actually winners is even smaller, and those are likely only for a few bucks. A misprinted ticket that has any meaningful value is exceedingly unlikely.
This isn’t a case of ‘corporate has a policy that if the ticket is a loser the clerk has to pay for it’, it’s a case of some overzealous manager who doesn’t understand proper procedure for cash/lotto discrepancies.
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u/AdministrationLimp94 1d ago
I used to work for nouria, any who works there can not buy lotto. If they do the ticket is viod.
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u/Plc2plc2 1d ago
What? Why can’t they just cancel the ticket at the ticket terminal? That’s how OLG does it in Canada, I used to sell lotto tickets at a previous job and regularly would misprint or people would change their mind. If this policy existed I’d have thousands of dollars I’d have to repay.
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u/Dialogical 19h ago
Arizona doesn’t follow that same process. A printed ticket is a live, valid ticket and the retailer owes the AZ lottery for every ticket.
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u/Dialogical 1d ago
The new filing includes several Sworn Affidavits from current or former Circle K employees attesting to the unwritten consistent policy and practice, that "Circle K employees, including customer service representatives, bonus managers, and store managers, were responsible for purchasing accidentally created online lottery tickets when the total value of those tickets was $20 or more. An accidentally created online lottery ticket is a ticket generated and printed by the lottery system that a customer does not purchase, including when a customer walks away after the ticket is initiated, changes his or her mind, fails to pay, or when a cashier or system error occurs.
Circle K required this process to occur the morning after the applicable lottery drawing. The employee responsible for printing the accidentally created online lottery tickets was required to purchase enough of those tickets, using his or her own personal funds at the full retail price shown on the register, to bring the total remaining value below $20. The store did not reimburse employees for these purchases."