What's the most you've ever won on a scratch off? (1 Viewer)

[Scott Leopold]

Alex-C, I was in charge of my area's lotto pool several years ago. We had a winning ticket, and I took it to be cashed in on that Friday after work. The girl at the counter was busy replacing tape in the machine and refilling the scratch-offs. We chatted for a few seconds, and she asked me if I played often. I told her no, and that we had just started our pool a couple weeks earlier.

She scanned my ticket and asked me if I wanted $1 in cash, or a free ticket. I figured the group would want the free ticket, so I took that. When I went back to work on Monday, everyone told me that we had actually won $10. I explained that the girl told me it was just $1, but they insisted I had stolen their money. There were 15 of us in the pool, so I offered to give everyone their 67 cents back, as long as they agreed to let me keep any winnings off the ticket the girl gave me. One person insisted on his money, so I paid him. We didn't win anything on the ticket, and I never ran the lottery pool again. As for the girl who took my $10 (or at least $9 of it), I tried to get my money back, but the manager said there was no way to tell if what I had turned in was a winning ticket or not.

 

[Moe Maishlish]

In my office, when we do a multi-person lottery pool, what we do is photocopy the ticket(s) that we bought and give everyone in the pool a copy of the numbers. That way, if we win on a personal ticket that we bought outside of the pool, no one can accuse us of stealing the group money because we all know what our numbers were.

Oh yeah... I once won $100 in high school on a peel & win, on my way home from school. I was so excited that I called home & told my mom. That $100 lasted me a few weeks (I was in high school, what did I have to spend my money on?!?).

Moe.

 

[Fred Seger]

My old roommate won $100,000 last year on a $10 scratch off

 

[JustinCleveland]

30 bucks, and haven't won more than 2 dollars since. I've bought a few more than a dozen over the years.

 

[Malcolm R]

Your group could also have been mistaken.

I had a customer present what they said was a $60 winner a few weeks ago. When I scanned it, it was only $30. I had to spend five minutes explaining to this customer why they only won half of what they thought they did, going over the ticket, the rules of that particular game, and pointing out that what they had actually matched wasn't what they needed to win the $60.

After all that, I'm still not sure they were entirely convinced even after I showed them the cash-in ticket printed by the lottery machine after scanning their ticket.

 

[Scott Leopold]

I thought that at the time, but since we also photocopied our tickets, I looked up the rules online and verified that we did indeed have a $10 winner. The frustrating thing was that the manager at the store where I bought and redeemed the tickets was unable to help me, and unwilling to address the issue with his employee.

 

[Malcolm R]

Sort of a reverse of your situation, I had a customer yesterday who purchased a combination of lottery tickets while cashing in several small winning tickets. He paid cash for some, used his winnings for others. When I was all done calculating his purchases and winnings, I tried to give him $4 remaining of his winnings as indicated by the lottery terminal. However, he was insistent that we were even, that he had it all figured out, and that I had figured it up wrong (I was trying to give HIM money, understand, as indicated by the lottery terminal). So he left.

After reflecting on our conversation for a few moments and looking over the claim tickets, I finally figured out that HE was indeed wrong because he thought he only won $8 when he really had won $12. So that was the $4 difference which I tried several times to give back to him.

So because he miscalculated, and left the store in such a hurry, I ended up with $4.

 

[MikeSerrano]

Did you use that money to buy any lottery tickets?

-Mike

 

[Travis Hedger]

$25. Which just breaks even on the $25 cards.

On the otherhand, I rarely play in Indian Casinos here in Oklahoma. But a friend and I wanted to go check one out, I was only going to put in $10 max, so I got bored with the video slots after losing $4, so I went over to the Stud Poker and put in a buck, and out came a card that was a $25 winner. So I cashed out and moved on.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I bought 4 scratch tickets ever (a habit i started to pick up from an ex), on the 4th, I won $150. I retired from the lottery game, $146 ahead.

 

[Zen Butler]

another scratch off. In the end, zero.

 

[Nathan*W]

I have never won more than a free ticket. I have played less than 10 times in my life.

 

[Malcolm R]

Thinking of this thread I purchased a few tonight and won a total of $102.

 

[MarkWC]

My wife was given 3 $5 scratch tickets for her birthday about seven years ago. She won $30 and we bought two more $5 tickets and got $20 in cash; we were poor college students and needed the extra for groceries.

Well, as I was unpacking a 12 pack of coke, I remember this clear as day, she turns to me and says "I think I won something big." Me, typical guy, finished putting the cokes away knowing damn well she probably got some symbol, number, or instructions transposed or confused, but when I looked at it, sure enough, $25,000.

We drove up to the gaming commission in Manchester, NH where we got a check for $18,000 on the spot and later after tax season, we (she is my wife now) got an additional $4,500.

Thank god we banked it all!!!