Arkansas lottery officials say there have been no issues with electronic ticket scanners since they began selling lottery tickets in 2009.
Interim director Julie Baldridge stated this on Thursday after a convenience store employee testified that a customer discarded a winning ticket because a scanner indicated it wasn’t a winner. US lottery
The appointed ticket was purchased at the Super 1 Store July 15, and Sharon Jones claimed the $1 million prize three days later. On Aug. 22, store manager, Lisa Petriches sued Jones, claiming she had stole the ticket from a store bin in which lottery players discarded losing tickets.
In last week’s trial, store clerk Rondi Smith testified that Sharon Duncan bought the ticket and discarded it after the scanner showed it didn’t win. Smith said that since June the scanner isn’t totally accurate.
But Baldridge said that on the very day, many other tickets were scanned, and every time the scanner worked perfectly. For checking purposes, that same ticket was even scanned at several other scanners in other locations, and it scanned properly each time, she said. Lottery results
“The Arkansas lottery’s ticket scanners are performing like clockwork,” she said.
The lottery’s chief legal counsel, Bishop Woosley, said lottery records indicate the ticket was scanned at the store and shown to be a winner. It was scanned multiple times on July 15 at 6:22 p.m.
Records also indicate that the ticket was even scanned several times afterward, Woosley said, and “was shown, every time, by the scanners to be a winner.”
Though, the issue is that even after they checked the store video, officials are not really sure who was scanning the ticket, said Woosley. “What you can see are two individuals around at the scanner at that point with tickets to scan.”
He said they were Duncan and a man whose identity he doesn’t know. “It had to be one of the two players that’s in that vicinity during that video,” he said.
In her testimony, Smith said there has always been a “Do Not Take” sign on the bin, and the sign was posted on July 14. Huey said he and another lottery official visited the store on July 19, and a “Do Not Take” sign was not on the bin.
Jones’ attorney, James Simpson, said at the trial that Jones’ taking of the ticket from the bin wasn’t a theft since there was no sign up at the moment she did it, as she had done it many other times before.
“The case is still pending,” he said. “I learned a long time ago I just don’t comment on things in the lawsuit.”
The trial judge, Thomas Hughes, told the attorneys Wednesday that it’s possible that neither Petriches nor Jones will win the case because of the circumstances.
For now, many more days and testimonies are pending. It will be up to the judge to decide the result but, it in the end, this all may turn out to be anything but, a ticket scanners issue.