Anybody who's ever payed into the idiot tax known as "Lottery" , and most people who haven't, are well aware that it's a stacked-deck game. We call it "Idiot Tax" for a reason, but even a true idiot knows the difference between long odds and a truly crooked game. Enter the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation...
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Here's the thing...

In the business world, the corporations are (in theory) liable for their mistakes, or mistakes in their product/service. If you go to Best Buy and find a game with a misprinted price tag, you are legally entitled to the misprint price if it is lower than the actual price for the product. Even if it is a severe loss for the retail establishment, the law states that they must honor their mistake.

So how is it that a misprinted ticket which under the rules and instructions for the scratch game is a clear and undeniable winner, be overruled by whether or not the ticket was intended to win? Yes, I realize the barcode verification exists to prevent fraud such as tampering with the ticket, but this is clearly not the case. Whether or not the barcode says "winner", the play area of the ticket does, and the purchaser of the ticket is entitled to far more than the pathetic $3 compensation of another ticket. The ticket printing company fucked up, let them or the OLG cover the losses. They even admitted that they've managed to recall most of the misprinted tickets, and the OLC will earn enough from the sales of just that one line of scratch-n-win tickets to cover their losses, so I say the government should force them to pay up for any mistaken wins.

That, or shut down the lottery. Bad enough it's a stacked-deck game, but to then refuse payment on the paltry few wins that come along. I say that goes too far, and closing down the games can be a workable solution.

If I play the poor tax I would be pretty pissed if this happened to me, but I'm not surprised it is after all the government and common sense and such do not exist with them.

That's absolute horseshit. Misprint or no, those people all won. If they're allowed to get away with it, they could claim any win is a misprint.

bullshit I say!

Hopefully no one got loans and planned to pay them off with the lottery money.
But really, that really sucks. I would probably spend a few days crying in a corner.

Seriously? Wow. I can't even believe such bullshit like this takes place.

When stuff like this happens, its pretty easy to believe even worse things that go on behind closed doors.

If someone had the time and resources they could probably sue and win, although I'm not really sure what Canadian litigation laws are. The problem is could you sue and win for enough money to justify the cost and time it would take to do so. Who knows, maybe a lawyer will take this case pro-bono and do a class action suit.

I like lottery
Its not like im losing anything, and if I win, its fun!
I play lottery just for the thrill (and its less exspensive than WOW in my country xD)

i do believe it states in the rules, a copy of which you can find online and is easily attainable at any olgc outlet, that if there is a misprint they don't have to honour it

cleverlymadeup:
i do believe it states in the rules, a copy of which you can find online and is easily attainable at any olgc outlet, that if there is a misprint they don't have to honour it

So what? That's just rules for a game, not law. If they legally defined the rules of the lottery, they have ground to stand on. It's much like an EULA in that regard. They have consistently been held up as being unenforcable. Corporate rules are not laws. Legally, unless the state was smart enough to define in their laws that misprinted tickets aren't enforceable then they have no ground to stand on. If a private lottery did something like this, they would pay through the teeth. If a casino had a broken slot machine that, through no user malice, gave out multiple consecutive jackpots they would be legally bound to pay out. They'd shut the machine down rapidly, but one or two would go through.

Bullshit. The same thing happened in Florida about a year ago except I don't think it was a lot of misprinted tickets, it was only one. If they make a mistake, they should be forced to pay the winnings.

"By the time he realized gaming officials weren't likely to give him a penny, he had already made plans to move his family out of their basement apartment, send his children to college and live the life he had always dreamed about.

Ontario policy states that misprinted tickets are void, although the company will refund or replace them."

I bet a replacement ticket will really make this guy feel better.

theshadowslth:

cleverlymadeup:
i do believe it states in the rules, a copy of which you can find online and is easily attainable at any olgc outlet, that if there is a misprint they don't have to honour it

So what? That's just rules for a game, not law. If they legally defined the rules of the lottery, they have ground to stand on. It's much like an EULA in that regard. They have consistently been held up as being unenforcable. Corporate rules are not laws. Legally, unless the state was smart enough to define in their laws that misprinted tickets aren't enforceable then they have no ground to stand on. If a private lottery did something like this, they would pay through the teeth. If a casino had a broken slot machine that, through no user malice, gave out multiple consecutive jackpots they would be legally bound to pay out. They'd shut the machine down rapidly, but one or two would go through.

actually in this case the OLGC is run by the government, so i think they have their bases covered in regards to the law and rules and regulations. in Canada things are VERY regulated, one of the reasons our banks are doing extremely well right now. also in Canada private lotteries must follow the laws on gambling and lotteries

"The indicator of whether the ticket is a winner or not is the actual ticket, not the latex," she said, adding that the only way to determine a winning ticket is to scan the barcode at a retail outlet.

They did nothing except accidentally raise the hopes of a few unfortunate people.

I thought this was supposed to be America, land of stupid lawsuits and ridiculously high compensation pays.

(edit: oops it was Americas little brother)

Khell_Sennet:
If you go to Best Buy and find a game with a misprinted price tag, you are legally entitled to the misprint price if it is lower than the actual price for the product. Even if it is a severe loss for the retail establishment, the law states that they must honor their mistake.

I don't know where you live, but in the UK that is not true-the company has the right to sell their product for whatever price they want.

theshadowslth:

cleverlymadeup:
i do believe it states in the rules, a copy of which you can find online and is easily attainable at any olgc outlet, that if there is a misprint they don't have to honour it

So what? That's just rules for a game, not law.

Exactly. That's the rules for the game. You don't play sports expecting the rules of play to be legislated, you expect to follow the rules of the game. That's how games work.
on the note of the rules not be legislated, they are. If anyone bothered to actually read the source article, you might notice the last line "Ontario policy states that misprinted tickets are void, although the company will refund or replace them." says the company is actually right here.

These things happen. It was unfortunate for the people who "won", but that's just how thing's work.

Axolotl:

Khell_Sennet:
If you go to Best Buy and find a game with a misprinted price tag, you are legally entitled to the misprint price if it is lower than the actual price for the product. Even if it is a severe loss for the retail establishment, the law states that they must honor their mistake.

I don't know where you live, but in the UK that is not true-the company has the right to sell their product for whatever price they want.

In Canada, you as the retailer are legally bound to honor the advertised or displayed price, to do otherwise would result in severe penalties for false advertising. There is a stipulation in the law that makes exceptions for cases where it was blatantly obvious that the price was in error, such as when gas went over $1/L in Alberta for the first time, the sign would read 09.9¢/L instead of 109.9¢/L, but for it to count as an exception, it has to be REALLY off. $100 for a $2500 52" plasma TV could be argued a mistake exception, but $500 for the same might not be made an exception, and anything over 500 wouldn't at all be.

Also, of course, exceptions are made where the customer had a reasonable ability to check if the price was the right one for the product (smarter stores have the product name on the price tag, if it says "Deadspace-PC" and it's on the box for MarioKart Wii, they don't have to honor the mistake. Also, if the product was found in the wrong place (in cases where the item doesn't have pricetags but the shelves do, like in a grocery store), they don't have to honor nothing, because (99% of the time) it's usually the customers themselves who put things back in the wrong area, and it would be too easy for someone to pick up a $30 turkey, put it down on a shelf where the price says $10, then argue with the store that the price said $10. Lastly, also when customer deception is involved, such as switching price tags on products, not only is the store not forced to honor the "mistake", but the customer can face charges for theft.

Weeeee. Horay for knowing too much law.

Axolotl:

Khell_Sennet:
If you go to Best Buy and find a game with a misprinted price tag, you are legally entitled to the misprint price if it is lower than the actual price for the product. Even if it is a severe loss for the retail establishment, the law states that they must honor their mistake.

I don't know where you live, but in the UK that is not true-the company has the right to sell their product for whatever price they want.

Yeah I find that wierd too. There are no binding "finders-keepers" laws, that would be
ass-i-nine. Most stores have a policy that if you find a misprinted price in the store, they usualy give you either a discount on the item, or lower the actual price so that it matches the printed price (usually whichever is less). Unless you are talking about mistakes in print adverts, which is an entirely different legal beast.

Edit: After reading above post. I am floored. That law would absolutely RUIN stores in litigious countries like U.S.

guardian001:

theshadowslth:

cleverlymadeup:
i do believe it states in the rules, a copy of which you can find online and is easily attainable at any olgc outlet, that if there is a misprint they don't have to honour it

So what? That's just rules for a game, not law.

Exactly. That's the rules for the game. You don't play sports expecting the rules of play to be legislated, you expect to follow the rules of the game. That's how games work.
on the note of the rules not be legislated, they are. If anyone bothered to actually read the source article, you might notice the last line "Ontario policy states that misprinted tickets are void, although the company will refund or replace them." says the company is actually right here.

These things happen. It was unfortunate for the people who "won", but that's just how thing's work.

Read it, noticed it, but are you aware where it says that little blurb on an actual ticket? It's in microprint at the very bottom of the backside of the ticket. And not only is it bullshit, and assholious of them, there's legal leeway to argue that it's an illegal clause in their disclaimer. Thing about the terms and conditions on things is they can say that the rules are A, B, C, but the courts may not uphold the conditions. It is a reasonable expectation that if the ticket shows a win, they must honor the win.

Khell_Sennet:
[
Read it, noticed it, but are you aware where it says that little blurb on an actual ticket? It's in microprint at the very bottom of the backside of the ticket. And not only is it bullshit, and assholious of them, there's legal leeway to argue that it's an illegal clause in their disclaimer. Thing about the terms and conditions on things is they can say that the rules are A, B, C, but the courts may not uphold the conditions. It is a reasonable expectation that if the ticket shows a win, they must honor the win.

it doesn't matter if it says it in tiny print or in 22pt font, it still says it, you are also able to request a larger version of the rules and regulations. also i do believe it's been tried before in court and the lottery corp won

they are also providing due diligence by offering to replace the ticket with a new one, sure there's a good chance it's not a winner but at least they're replacing it

*Sigh* This is so sad...

EvilEngineNumberNine:

Axolotl:

Khell_Sennet:
If you go to Best Buy and find a game with a misprinted price tag, you are legally entitled to the misprint price if it is lower than the actual price for the product. Even if it is a severe loss for the retail establishment, the law states that they must honor their mistake.

I don't know where you live, but in the UK that is not true-the company has the right to sell their product for whatever price they want.

Yeah I find that wierd too. There are no binding "finders-keepers" laws, that would be
ass-i-nine. Most stores have a policy that if you find a misprinted price in the store, they usualy give you either a discount on the item, or lower the actual price so that it matches the printed price (usually whichever is less). Unless you are talking about mistakes in print adverts, which is an entirely different legal beast.

Edit: After reading above post. I am floored. That law would absolutely RUIN stores in litigious countries like U.S.

Actually the U.S. has the same law, I work for target and if we mess up a sign we eat the cost. Kmart, Wal-mart, kroger, food city, all do the same thing.

Dele:
I thought this was supposed to be America, land of stupid lawsuits and ridiculously high compensation pays.

(edit: oops it was Americas little brother)

you mean America's big brother.

cleverlymadeup:
it doesn't matter if it says it in tiny print or in 22pt font, it still says it, you are also able to request a larger version of the rules and regulations. also i do believe it's been tried before in court and the lottery corp won

they are also providing due diligence by offering to replace the ticket with a new one, sure there's a good chance it's not a winner but at least they're replacing it

There is actually considerable legal president to the contrary. It's the whole "reasonable person" thing. It is similar to the price adjustment laws for mislabeling as described by khell above.

Basically it is held that a person cannot be held legally responsible for issues that a reasonable and responsible person would not be aware of. Example: say you wanted to visit a new theme hotel, upon arrival they dump a 200 page contract for you to sign before you can enter the cave-man room, you do and then proceed to your room, but one of the cieling rocks falls down as you enter landing on your foot and breaking your toe. Now in the contract you signed on page 68 paragraph 7 it clearly states in epic legalise that the hotel is not responsible for falling rocks in their rooms. In court, that doesn't fly whether you signed the contract or not.

1. It is unreasonable to assume that a person would read a 200 page contract before going up to their hotel room
2. It is unreasonable to assume they would not sign the contract preventing them from accessing their reserved room
and 3. it's unreasonable to expect them to anticipate that large rocks would be falling from their ceiling.

The hotel is liable.

This doesn't mean they should try to sue to get their winnings back, they wouldn't win for two reasons. Primarily it is perfectly reasonable to understand that in the case of a misprint the lottery would not honor the win, but secondly it is because there has been no actual damage done, they didn't actually lose that money, and I am certain that a $3.00 cash refund would have been offered if they really wanted it.

This is the same reason injury from things like skydiving or bunjie jumping isn't good material for liability lawsuits, you have to realize if you are jumping out of a plane there is a high probability that you will get injured. Same with those software agreements we never read, whether you read them or not, as reasonable people we all know putting up a copy of the software "on the torrents" is illegal.

But if Microsoft sues you because you forgot to site MS word at the end of a published grad thesis as described in their end user agreement, that will not hold up in court (no such clause exists in the MS office end user agreement, it is just an example)

If the barcode decides if you win or not, why even bother scratching the ticket anymore? Why not just pay for the ticket and have the cashier scan it right away. In fact, why even have scratch tickets at all? Why not just have a computer that has a price list and barcode list. You pay the cashier a certain amount of money, he/she enters the amount in to the computer and it prints off a receipt with a barcode on it. The receipt could be scanned right away, and the only disappointment would be losing, not thinking you won, only to find out your ticket was invalid. You could say that scratching the ticket is part of the fun/thrill, but I think I might actually kill someone if I won $100,000 and was then told that my ticket was invalid.

In the case of this ticket, I think it's hardly fair to say they've won- it's not like they did anything but buy a 1 in nth chance to win. They haven't been cheated out of the odds of the game, just mistakenly mislead. I think they could do better compensating those who thought they had, else they're not going to be retaining those customers (and possibly others with the subsequent news coverage).

To clarify the UK approach, displaying prices is something that's termed "invitation to treat" which does not legally bind the seller to any kind of sale. When you're selling a product, you have a right to refuse to sell for any reason that is not discriminatory. This covers deliberate sabotage or mislabelling of products by an unscrupulous customer.

Some large stores do have different policies, such as selling something for the lowered price, or in some supermarkets, simply giving you the product for free, but that is their discretion (something that probably keeps customers happier, while falling under acceptable losses). Also, when ordering online, some retailers specify that the contract is only formed when the item is dispatched in the terms and conditions.

However, should the price continued to be displayed incorrectly once they have been made aware of the error or the mistake was deliberate, it's then considered deliberately misleading, which is against trading standards, and some legal recourse may be available.

To be honest the reasoning in the original post doesn't quite have a leg to stand on.

The play area isnt the price tag, it's decoration. The bar code is all that counts, all that matters.

As for just scanning the barcode, in the uk at least, you have to get the code that goes with the barcode to put in the machine to verify the winner.

mark_n_b:

cleverlymadeup:
it doesn't matter if it says it in tiny print or in 22pt font, it still says it, you are also able to request a larger version of the rules and regulations. also i do believe it's been tried before in court and the lottery corp won

they are also providing due diligence by offering to replace the ticket with a new one, sure there's a good chance it's not a winner but at least they're replacing it

There is actually considerable legal president to the contrary. It's the whole "reasonable person" thing. It is similar to the price adjustment laws for mislabeling as described by khell above.

actually it's not and it would also fail on the same thing, as a reasonable person would know that a misprinted ticket would be considered invalid and recalled as they make recalls of tickets a very public thing, i've seen it on the news and in the paper a few times when they've had a recall of the tickets

Basically it is held that a person cannot be held legally responsible for issues that a reasonable and responsible person would not be aware of. Example: say you wanted to visit a new theme hotel, upon arrival they dump a 200 page contract for you to sign before you can enter the cave-man room, you do and then proceed to your room, but one of the cieling rocks falls down as you enter landing on your foot and breaking your toe. Now in the contract you signed on page 68 paragraph 7 it clearly states in epic legalise that the hotel is not responsible for falling rocks in their rooms. In court, that doesn't fly whether you signed the contract or not.

1. It is unreasonable to assume that a person would read a 200 page contract before going up to their hotel room
2. It is unreasonable to assume they would not sign the contract preventing them from accessing their reserved room
and 3. it's unreasonable to expect them to anticipate that large rocks would be falling from their ceiling.

The hotel is liable.

actually it's simpler than that, the contract is invalid because it was forced to be signed under duress and without the ability to seek legal council. anytime you are given a contract you must be given at least 24 hours in order to seek legal advice on the contract or it's invalid, tho you may waive this right.

the job i currently have has a clause in the contract that you must sign, initial and check off saying "i am giving up my right to not seek legal advice/council" as part of the agreement you have to sign before working there

This doesn't mean they should try to sue to get their winnings back, they wouldn't win for two reasons. Primarily it is perfectly reasonable to understand that in the case of a misprint the lottery would not honor the win, but secondly it is because there has been no actual damage done, they didn't actually lose that money, and I am certain that a $3.00 cash refund would have been offered if they really wanted it.

actually they did offer him a replacement ticket, it's in the article