Lottery Winner: Inspector Finds Gas Station At Fault For Paying Only $75 On $75,000 Winning Ticket, Investigation Pending


A lottery winner was actually an inspector who was doing some undercover work when he ended up finding a potentially sizable problem. According to AOL News, the inspector went to a gas station in Palmdale, California to cash in a winning lottery ticket (which was a fake). The ticket was worth $75,000, but the gas station attendant only paid out $75. The gas station’s manager, Shamsun Islam, said that the clerk who paid out the incorrect amount realized it right away, and called to notify her within minutes.

Islam decided to release surveillance footage of the man whom she thought turned in the winning ticket in an effort to fix the mistake and to give the person the $74,925 that they were owed. While this story might hold up for some people, the lottery is conducting a thorough investigation.

“Since the store held onto the ticket, it appears the ticket was mishandled. We are currently investigating this case,” said lottery spokesman Russell Lopez.

The lottery winner inspector had his cover blown after the surveillance footage was released. The lottery was trying to keep their investigation private, but they didn’t want to mislead the public.

“This is an odd situation. We don’t want the public looking for a winner that doesn’t exist,” said Mr. Lopez.

Since the gas station chose to release the surveillance footage, it does sound like they were trying to do the right thing, but the lottery isn’t convinced just yet.

According to NewsMax, lottery officials are now trying to figure out if this was truly a mistake, or if the clerk (or his superiors) was trying to make some fast cash.

Islam defended the clerk, saying that this was truly an honest mistake.

“I know my guy, he’s a really, really honest person. He would never do anything wrong. He made a mistake. He realized after the guy left,” she told the media.

The lottery winner inspector likely didn’t think something like this would happen, but this is what his job is meant to uncover.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Islam said that she called authorities right after her clerk called her to report the error. That information hasn’t been checked out yet, but if these people are telling the truth, this is definitely a strange coincidental kind of thing.

What are the chances that the clerk messes up on this level when the winning lottery ticket wasn’t even the real deal? What do you think? Was this just a coincidence or did these people just get caught?

[Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

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