A truck driver lost out on what he thought was a winning ticket in North Carolina earlier this month.
Truck driver James Kinard was passing through Statesville, North Carolina when he decided to play the 50X multiplier game, where winning numbers are printed on tickets and players know if they’ve won immediately.
“I didn’t look at my ticket then and there,” Kinard said, but a few days later he checked the ticket to find a 3, one of the winning numbers.
“I got happy and said, ‘Hey, hey, hey! … Thank God!’” Kinard said to Concho Valley Homepage.
“I see there was $500 under the 3. It’s a 50-times multiplier, so by my calculations, that’s $25,000,” he said.
But when he went to cash in the ticket, the barcode came back faulty.
“She looks at it and says, ‘Hmm, that’s supposed to be a winner, but it’s not scanning as a winner,’” said Kinard.
The lottery office was then informed of the issue, and determined that an issue with the printer had created an accidental mark that obscured a number that should have been in front of the 3.
“The black line that unfortunately runs down the side of the ticket obscures the first winning number and makes it appear as a ‘3,’” said lottery spokesman Van Denton.
“The lottery certainly understands Mr. Kinard’s question about this ticket. We regret that the printing issue created the impression of a winning ticket when it was not,” Denton wrote. “The lottery would gladly pay Mr. Kinard a prize if the review had determined it was a legitimate winning ticket.”
“That’s something in the printer,” Kinard said. “[The ticket] wasn’t ripped or damaged at all.”