The lottery has safeguards in place to ensure winning tickets are handled correctly, including checks to see how employees at stores that sell lottery tickets follow lottery rules. We just completed a new round of checks and it showed a 99.2 percent compliance rate.
The checks involved a lottery investigator and law enforcement officers from local and state agencies presenting to a retailer a special lottery ticket that looked exactly like the other tickets in a scratch-off game with a prize exceeding $600. All but two of the 247 retailers complied with lottery policies and procedures by telling the undercover investigator posing as a lottery player that the ticket was a winner and the prize must be claimed at a lottery office.
The campaign, conducted between November 2016 and June 2018, checked retail locations in 47 counties and 108 cities and towns.
Two retail employees told the investigator the ticket was a non-winning ticket and kept it. Criminal charges are pending against the retail employees involved in both cases. The lottery also took administrative action, including terminating ticket sales at stores involved in one of the cases.
It’s also possible now for all players to check their own tickets. The lottery has put equipment in every store either a ticket checker or a lottery vending machine with a ticket checker. And the lottery’s smartphone app, the N.C. Lottery Official Mobile App, has a ticket-checking function that allows players to use the app’s camera to scan the ticket’s bar code to see if it is a winner.
By using the ticket checker or the app, players with a prize-winning ticket never has to give it to anyone else until they claim their prize.
To keep your winning tickets secure, you should immediately sign the back of the ticket to establish ownership. You also can help keep our games secure by reporting any suspicious activity or concerns you have to the lottery’s Security Hotline at (888) 732-6235.
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I was in Exxon gas 1421 E Andrews Ave, Henderson, 3rd in line for cashier when man ran in and jumped to front of line cussing. He said "You just said my tix wasn't a winner and I took it to Food Lion and they said it was already cashed out $200. You gonna give me my mfing money right now. You thought I was gonna throw it away." The cashier started fumbling with papers and then said "Yea, yea here it is, I made a mistake." meanwhile the man is still ranting, I thought he was going to pull out a gun. The cashier stepped behind the rack of tixs so the man couldn't see, and I witnessed him pulling two $100 bill from his own wallet. He then gave it to the man who left the store. Truly frightening, and if that man had tossed the tix the cashier would have gotten away with stealing his winnings.
I play the lottery daily. I get very frustrated by gas stations not being able to give cash back over 50.00. I see them take in 50.00 to 100.00 sales and immediately put the money in the safe. Some won't let you get tickets instead. What ever happened to getting a money order, then I wouldn't have to run around to cash them. Another problem is the tickets run out and they don't replace them for days, even when the employee in charge of filling up the tickets is just outside smoking. The lottery ends up losing alot of money every day. These stations hate selling tickets. State they dont make any money selling them. Wish pick 3 and 4 were available to buy online. Love the phone scanner feature.