LOTTERY LOST TICKETS CASES AND HOW BLOCKCHAIN AND LOTEO CAN SOLVE IT

LOTEO
LOTEO
Published in
4 min readMar 19, 2019

As highlighted in the articles before, the blockchain has the potential to transform and disrupt the gambling industry and prevent its participants from frauds, scams and cheating by ensuring fairness, safety and transparency.

If you want to read a lot more about this topic, join our medium platform.

Nowadays, it is inevitable and definitely clear that the secure blockchain and smart contract technology will move the gambling industry from operators and regulators forward to a completely higher level.

Today we are going to show you one example why the above mentioned is really true.

LOST TICKETS STORIES

What would you do if you knew you had purchased a lottery ticket and the winning numbers were your lucky numbers; except when you wanted to go and claim the prize, you lost the ticket? Imagine how devastating that would be and how messy your house would be from you tearing everything apart, looking for that ticket.

Believe it or not, lottery prizes worth billions of dollars go unclaimed every year.

Sure, most of the time, prizes go unclaimed simply because people don’t bother checking their numbers. However, sometimes it’s a more serious and difficult situation: lost lottery tickets.

Although it sounds like something nightmares are made of, it has happened to people. Some were lucky and found the tickets, some tickets were found by other people, and some were lost forever. These are their stories.

KATHRYN JONES — LOST TICKET, WIN CASH

On January 7th, 2014, Kathryn Jones, a woman from Hamilton, Ontario, claimed $50 million check. Sounds like a normal lottery winner, right? The winnings had been unclaimed for a year and it had been the largest ever in Canadian history. What makes the story intriguing is that Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation sought her out. They were able to identify and locate Kathryn through their claims investigation process.

The investigation included various interviews with Kathryn, checking surveillance videos that show her purchasing the ticket and cross-referencing her credit card statements.

In Kathryn’s case, it’s a good thing she paid with her credit card, otherwise, there would have been no way to confirm the win.

MARVIN ROSALES-MARTINEZ — FINDERS KEEPERS

When Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States in 2012, it devastated the entire coastline. Many people were out of homes and if ever there was a need for good fortune, they would be it.

Marvin Rosales-Martinez the recipient of that much needed good fortune.

While Marvin and a co-worker was blowing leaves after the hurricane tore its way through Bayville, New Jersey, Marvin noticed a paper stuck between some levels. When he looked at the paper, he saw that all three numbers on the “Win $1,000 a week for Life” scratch card were winners.

Marvin attempted to claim the prize at the New York Lottery customer service center on Long Island and explained the situation. After a standard and thorough investigation, and no one claiming the ticket, the “finders keepers” rule applied.

The NY lotto agency made Marvin wait a year to allow for a report to be placed by the original owner of the lost ticket. No one did, so at the end of that year waiting period the agency contacted him and told him the great news.

IAN GALTRESS — UNLUCKY LOSER

March 15, 2014, Ian Galtress from Wirral, England, thinks he may have thrown away his chance of becoming a millionaire. He initially purchased two lottery tickets, one for himself and one for his girlfriend. To the engineer’s dismay, his girlfriend’s raffle ticket was only one number away from winning the £1m prize — but he lost the other ticket. Because of this, he thinks he may have been the winner.

Camelot lottery organizers appealed for a missing winner in the Wirral area. This search for the winner has left Ian distraught over what he thinks he could have lost.

Ian believes the anxiety of this whole situation has ruined his life. He reports that he has lost a lot of weight, cannot sleep, and consistently lives with the feeling of being robbed, ripped off, or kicked to the curb. The devastating loss has made him want to rebuild his life.

As you can see, there is no happy end every time and be sure that there are many unpublished stories where the winners even do not have idea they won because they simply forgot to check or unfortunately they really lost the tickets.

Americans forego about $2 billion in total unclaimed prize money annually, the founder of mobile lottery app Lottery.com told FOX Business. And the higher the drawing, the higher the likelihood there will be multiple, smaller unclaimed prizes.

THERE IS NO TICKET IN PAPER

After reading the LOTEO articles you sure know that a decentralized lottery on the blockchain allows full transparency and there is no ticket in the paper form that we got used to.

Smart, self-executing contracts are built into the transaction, ensuring that participants understand how their money is being pooled and especially that the winnings are automatically calculated and sent to the winner address on the blockchain.

Thanks to smart contracts and blockchain, the winner gets the prize without checking any ticket. Hence no more tears.

I believe it is amazing how the technology evolves and we at LOTEO team are on the same path forward and therefore we highlight its importance not only for gambling industry but also for the whole mankind.

Stay tuned for the more examples, articles and educational videos to be published with the approaching launch!

For more questions do not hesitate to contact us as mentioned below or read the official whitepaper.

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LOTEO
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Loteo is digital automated lottery platform that uses blockchain and smart contracts to create a fully transparent lottery with bigger chances to win.