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A man in Australia sued a state lottery for claiming he was denied the jackpot he won two decades ago, all because a store clerk allegedly threw away his ticket.
David Owen Renshaw is suing the New South Wales (NSW) Lotteries, saying he won AUD$3.3 million (almost P134 million), news.com.au reported today.
According to Renshaw, he made the bet on the lottery on September 1997. Returning after a week, he gave his ticket to a Granville Railway Station newsagency attendant. He said he saw how the ticket was put through a computer terminal.
The attending worker informed him that he did not win the prize and discarded the ticket afterwards. But Renshaw claimed he saw the words “provisional winner” appear on the machine.
During the court proceedings to hear his case, Renshaw said, “I believe my ticket was destroyed by an employee of the Granville [newsagent]. I asked him what the words meant.”
It was not until Boxing Day 2015 when he and a friend of his discussed what the words “provisional winner” actually meant. When they discovered an unclaimed prize from the 1997 draw, he “dropped to the ground” and “started writing letters to NSW Lotteries straight away.”
Renshaw also stated that the worker who assisted him did not speak English well. The report quoted Renshaw, “I don’t mean to be rude to the man, but he shouldn’t have been using that machine.”
Disproving Renshaw’s claims, NSW lawyer Justin Hogan-Doran argued that the case was “doomed to fail.” He also denied that the lottery used the phrase “provisional winner” in its machines. If it did, Renshaw would have only won AUD$1,000 (around P40,500).
“He has no record of that ticket, we have no record of that ticket, therefore it cannot be produced,” Hogan-Doran said in court. As of this writing, the court has not reached a decision on the case. Katrina Hallare/JB
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