WOW - what an unbelievable story ....
Talk about the Texas Lottery giving me a line of crap .... <imagine that ... grin>

With the exception of a short intro, I am going to let a 2007 story and the official letters regarding this incident do all the talking because they are self explanatory. Or maybe I should clarify, my letter is understandable and not in legal talk.

But first, let me give you a little history on the subject ....
To the best of my memory, the first time I received illegible, defective, flawed, non-functioning lottery tickets - after paying for them FIRST - was July 6, 2007. I know this because I posted a detailed story on my website on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 about it - Click here to read. (The scanned defective 2007 tickets are shown as well.)

In my 2007 story, please notice in the 2nd paragraph under the 2nd scanned ticket I wrote: "The G-Tech rep tells store management to advise me to contact the Texas Lottery on Monday and they can provide me with the combinations sold from this terminal." (I underlined this sentence for this story - it is not underlined in the 2007 story)

I hope you did notice, this was written in 2007!

Anyway, on Monday, July 9, 2007, I contacted the TLC to ask for the numbers. And I did receive them a few days later. But, I don't remember the exact details of who gave them to me. I think Security provided the info or maybe it came from Open Records or Communications.

What I do know, is that since then, I've contacted them at least 4 or 5 times and security has always provided the information to me ASAP.

But not this time. Hmmm ....

If you read my 2007 story, then you understand why I will NOT go to a claim center. Not only that, it is my opinion that it should NOT be required for anyone to go to a claim center because of this kind of error. If numbers are not legible on a lottery ticket, then anyone should be able to find out what the numbers are suppose to be by phone.

What You Need to Know About The Lottery Terminals
Sometimes when a clerk is selling a ticket, the terminal may be low in ink, low on paper or the paper may jam causing a ticket to not print correctly. Most of the time, the clerk will just put it aside and run another one for the customer. Most of the time, the retailer loses this revenue.

When I see a problem, I tell them I WANT that ticket because I KNOW that the numbers are registered in G-Tech's terminal. Should the ticket be a winner, then it might go unclaimed and I don't want that to happen. So I buy these tickets because I KNOW (or maybe I should say "KNEW") that I could find out what numbers were suppose to be on the ticket. After all, I've obtained this info at least 5 or so times.

So that you know - ONE of my recent illegible tickets falls in this category. The others were bought from a self serve terminal and I had no way of knowing the tickets were defective until I was finished buying my tickets. And then I was angry, very angry. And so were other customers so I found out later!

Here's the bottom line - I'm going to let the letters (pdf's) tell you everything ...
I asked the TLC to tell me what numbers were suppose to appear on my illegible tickets. They filed for an AG Opinion to keep the information from me. Here are the letters that the TLC and I sent to the Attorney General of Texas.

3/17/22 - TLC's First Letter to AG
Notification that they will ask to withhold info
and will submit legal reasons within 15 days.
(Note: They took their full 10 working
days to respond. Sad but true.)

3/24/22 - TLC's Second "legal letter" to AG
Contains their legal reasons to withhold the
information and misleading/untrue statements.

4/18/22 - My Rebuttal Letter to AG
My letter is self explanatory and understandable.
It includes my two requests (Jan 19, 2022
& March 3, 2022) that was sent to
the TLC seeking information.

In concluding ... here's an interesting tidbit ...
Back in 2009, a player had an illegible/defective lottery ticket too. In the end - after MUCH ado because he went to a claim center and they stalled him - he collected $76 million SEVEN months after the ticket was purchased. The tickets I hold are due to expire in June - of course - I have no way of knowing if they are winners. And even if they are, the TLC can still lie to me in telling me what numbers are "suppose" to be printed on them. That is, if they are bold enough to lie since they don't know which lines are legible and which ones are not. This would be a good logical reason for them to DEMAND seeing my tickets. Huh!!!!

If anyone out there thinks I trust the TLC, you'd be dead wrong.

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Interesting Stories Previously Posted

Lottery's Print Duplicate Quick Picks on Purpose
Click here

Lottery Terminals Err
Click here

Misprint Tickets
Click here

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