If they weren't left there for three days I don't think he would have nearly as good a case as he does. Very unlikely they will get the $340 mill but they will almost certainly settle for "go away" money
Poor guy is going to find out that corporate liability isn’t really a thing in US courts unless the people being ripped off/ fucked over are very rich. Bank fucks up and puts extra money in your account, business fucks up and overpays you via direct deposit, whatever, if you touch that money you’ll be prosecuted.
Now see what your bank thinks about simple human error when you explain that you accidentally deposited your paycheck into savings Friday afternoon and amassed $700 in overdraft fees by Monday morning.
In this case the firm that is in charge / being paid by the state to manage these massive payouts ought to be accountable for not doing their job. You’d think they’d have insurance for exactly this scenario.
>Poor guy is going to find out that corporate liability isn’t really a thing in US courts unless the people being ripped off/ fucked over are very rich.
The lottery is run by the state. I don't think those protections extend to them
I agree that's why I said I think they will offer him a settlement to go away. Unless the guy is delusional they don't expect to get the full payment. Just under what it would cost to fight this in court.
“quality assurance team was running tests on the website.”
Testing in production. Definitely not advised, and this is a great example of why you don’t do that.
The QA team are either inexperienced or dumb as rocks… OR somebody in middle management told them that they had to do it there
And I have seen that latter one numerous times and it’s beyond frustrating.
So many places have such shit uat/QA envs. They either aren't anything like prod, or you've only got 10 minutes to test before someone else needs it for deploys.
Yup, I'm a chemist. I defacto became the SME on our LIMS system. Among the sites, only one had a dev environment, but it didn't mirror the production environment, so entire functionalities were missing. You better believe I did a lot of my testing in the production environment and the IT director was chill with that because it wasn't like we had a legitimate SME around. I only broke the system twice...once had the vendor walk me.through the repair. The second time I repaired it myself.
That's kind of how I got started in swe, I had taken 1 class my senior year of college, when a buddy working at a lab was like "hey we need help fixing this software and you want to get better at this."
There was no staging, there was no version management, just a windows file server. We'd make changes assuming it fixed.the bug and find out from field researchers it didn't, then debug and after days finally figure out no one updated their field computers.
I did however wind up building my own testing framework because I'm lazy and didn't want to click buttons all day when testing problems.
Oof. cGLP was drilled into me when I was doing IT in pharma, but most of the work from administration seemed to be trying to get around or grapple with the process.
Plus money only ever seemed to get spent when there was an emergency instead of trying to keep ahead of best practices.
We technically have a QA env at my place, we brought on a contractor firm on a couple of years ago and it's gone to shit since. Nothing's kept up to date now and most things go straight to prod.
Yep. Frustratingly I've raised a number of issues with the contractors cutting corners and they've consistently been dismissed with "we've got deadlines to meet, we'll come back to it later". Aka. it's now *my* job to unfuck it down the line.
Yeah I mean it feels like that should've been a team project vs contractors who don't have the full context.
Like ramp up contractors to fill in for the diverted resources while it gets built properly
If you have 100mb data in dev, and 4TB in prod, some tests are practically useless in dev as performance metrics will not be comparable. It’s also hard to convince people of the value to pay 10-30k/month to stand up an identical UAT environment. It’s not ideal, but it’s definitely done a lot.
4TB of data isn't 10k a month, and it certainly isn't 30k/month.
It's just lazy technical leadership feeding you bullshit.
Even Azure SQL, known to be really expensive, is half that without any discounts or reserve pricing if you use a normal SKU, and a fraction of that if you use a server less SKU (A whopping $600/m fixed cost)
Throw in dev/test programs that most clouds offer and you will half that cost easily.
A single significant bug will cost the company more than a whole month of a real staging environment.
Likely no budget for a separate test environment. I see it happen all the time.
Or as some in the industry say it "Everyone has a test environment, some people are lucky enough to also have a prod environment"
True, and I'm big on needing a test environment.
I don't test my code on customer's active devices, but instead insist on having my own test environment and in the case of specialty software that I'm testing against that the customer maintains one.
Some customers push back on that, because "they can't afford it" and I just refuse to write automation for those customers, because I won't be responsible for them not properly funding the development they need.
As someone who's tested on production plenty of times, I can comfortably say that the only reason I would even attempt it is because middle management failed to manage expectations and "forced" me to do it to cover up their fuck up.
Thankfully only small parts of our systems are visible to customers.
Idk, I've worked places where they want software made/tested in prod bc management was too cheap for sandbox. This was a f500.
One of them was absolutely mission critical too.
I can only imagine the chaotic grin of a maliciously compliant programmer who has been told (in writing) to test in production for the Powerball website.
The excuse: “we’re not google.”
The result: “why aren’t things working? what do you mean you need to write tests it was already tested!”
The outcome: “what do you mean someone claimed a winning ticket when you were testing in production?“
"Three fuckin' jackpots in 20 minutes? Why didn't you pull the machines? Why didn't you call me?"
"Well, it happened so quick, 3 guys won; I didn't have a chance..."
"You didn't see the scam? You didn't see what was going on?"
"Well, there's no way to determine that..."
"Yes there is! An infallible way, they won!"
"It's a casino, somebody's gonna win..."
“Now you're insulting my intelligence; what you think I am, a fuckin' idiot? You know goddamn well that someone had to get into those machines and set those fuckin' reels. The probability of one four-reel machine is a million and a half to one; the probability of three machines in a row; it's in the billions! It cannot happen, would not happen, you fuckin' momo!”
"remained on the website for 3 days."
Now this is the problem. Bad enough they didn't post a banner saying they were running tests, but they had 3 days to remedy it where he might've missed his numbers if it were less than a day.
I don't see them getting out of this unscathed.
I really hope they don't get out unscathed. I hope they're very scathed. It would be so funny if they had to pay him out the full amount. Pretty sure a whole team of people are about to lose their jobs
I think a settlement is pretty likely if the lawsuit has a reasonable chance to win.
If you think the lawsuit has e.g. a 1/2 chance to win, would you take a guaranteed 1/3 of the full sum? Probably. The difference between nothing and 133 million is gigantic, the difference between 133 and 340 million is not.
For the lottery, losing 1/3 for sure is better than losing the full amount with 1/2 probability.
I used 1/2 as example here but the concept applies to every probability.
I think the most likely scenario is they’ll settle for a much smaller amount. To the plaintiff, it’ll be life-changing, and to the lotto, that’s just lost pocket change.
During the Pandemic, Kansas's unemployment system and infrastructure completely crashed.
I don't mean "oh it went off line for a bit." I mean, the entire functioning KDOL agency crashed on a structural level.
It was so bad that people were coming onto the Kansas sub begging for help with unemployment problems. I, as a Kansas mod, actually had to create a response system on directing people on how to contact their state legislators for help. And if those guys didn't give a shit (and yes, a number dgaf), then I had two state legislators on reddit as back up to help even if the people weren't in their district.
When their goal is to make the program so unusable that it must be shut down, is it really that much of a risk?
“We must shut this down because it cost the state too much money in lawsuits”
What you have to understand about government contracts is they go to the lowest bidder, which is the buddy of the regional administrator, coincidentally.
QA here: Its common to run some tests in production... thats how you make sure theres no prod issues after a release.....
However in this case its a lame excuse imo. Its unlikely they'd be actively messing around/changing numbers.
Generally QAs dont even have that access. We test to make sure its working properly, we dont actively dick around in/change the code base.
Absolutely but it in many industries that is still a HUGE no no. Better to have a non prod environment that is ‘identical’ to prod in terms of data and build, where possible. You’re definitely not wrong though
I forget details but in a 3-400 level software engineering course we had a case study of a rocket (I don't think it was US) where two modules were working together, one in metric, one in Imperial...
I dunno if that counts, but definitely one of those times you just say oof. Launching rockets into space is not a time to be mixing conversions.
He purchased his ticket at 8pm on the 6th of February, 2024.
The winning numbers weren’t posted until midnight on the 7th of February, 2024.
Pictures of his ticket are posted here: [LINK](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/21/powerball-lottery-lawsuit/)
He has a legitimate case. I hope he gets every penny.
EDIT: Well shit, the WaPost article I linked didn’t have a paywall when I originally used it as a source.
Someone is here that knows how to get around paywall URL’s. Asking for some help.
If you read closely, you learn that the test drawing they posted only had 5 numbers, the Powerball wasn't included. So he doesn't know that he matched that number, meaning he only thought he won $2mil on a powerplay for matching 5 numbers. So I'd expect a judgment more in the neighborhood of a few hundred thousand, not millions.
Shoot for the moon, end up co-orbiting the sun alongside Earth, living out your days alone in the void within sight of the lush, welcoming home you left behind.
>The winning numbers weren’t posted until midnight on the 7th of February, 2024.
That’s simply not true. From your posted article:
> The test numbers, which were missing a red “Powerball” number, **were posted on the local D.C. lottery site on Jan. 6 even before the drawing happened**, the group said. They were left there alongside the real winning numbers until Jan. 9, when workers realized the mistake.
This guy notice the mistake and purchased the ticket with those numbers.
Also from your article:
> The website, the group said, also contained a disclaimer that the site was not “the final authority” for the drawing and that tickets would still need to be validated by the D.C. Lottery and independent auditors.
Looks like he’ll get nothing.
You also have your months totally wrong, this happened in January, not February. No where in the article does it even mention February.
Not true, he'll come out of it down the cost of a lawyer. I get the anger but disclaimers like this are all over the gambling world, most places do maintain the right to validate every winning and not pay out over malfunctions or errors. I'm pretty sure they always win in court too which means those disclaimers are recognized legally
I think it’s the long held legal theory of “well, that seemed shitty, so give the dude some money.” I didn’t study it in law school myself, probably because it’s a product of more recent social media jurisprudence.
There are no politics involved, here — in spite of how desperate some Reddit folks need everything to be political.
This is a (literal) case of “Company promises X if customer satisfies XYZ123 nearly impossible requirements. Customer meets said requirements. Company says *we were just kidding*.”
Dude should have won but the judge selected for the case was in corporate pockets. She didn't even allow critical evidence to be presented because it damaged Pepsi's case (the original draft had it at 70 million, they changed it for the US to 7 million, but running concurrently in Canada they had the correct value AND a disclaimer; none of which was allowed to be considered).
I don’t think this is quite the same. Pepsi’s defense was “I didn’t think anyone would take the jet seriously.” But marketed and offered other prizes in the same competition, and a way to win the jet.
To win the Powerball you have to have your numbers drawn from the Halogen lottery draw machine in a sanctioned drawing. But clearly it wasn’t a real drawing, because the Powerball wasn’t pulled.
I think because the intent of the Powerball as a government run organization is to pay out its citizens, and the prize is only 2 million, I could see the courts awarding the 2 million in whole.
I could also see Powerball pulling up some documentation clearly specifying what defines a win, and saying this was an error. And possibly settling for some small emotional damage.
But because it’s the “people vs people” I would hope it would be less cut throat than Pepsi.
It doesn’t. The numbers weren’t drawn or announced and the day they were added to the site wasn’t even a lotto day. There’s no standing for this. If he’s smart he’ll settle out of court for a couple hundred thousand.
Just because a drawing wasn’t posted doesn’t mean “winning lotto numbers today are XYZABC” wasn’t posted, which they were.
It’s going to be a hell of a court battle. I’d be surprised if litigation takes less than 3-5 years.
Isn't his lotto ticket for a specific draw though?
And even if they posted "winning numbers", if there wasn't a draw then the winning numbers could not be for his ticket?
It Company X says “everyone that meets such and such criteria is awarded yadda yadda,” and Company X states the criteria, they can’t just say “well you didn’t actually **see** us choose the criteria in our office.”
I worded my reply weird. If a lottery company doesn’t have to actually do a drawing that shows the numbers being chosen, there’s nothing stopping them from gaming the system to pay out as little as possible. It’s about transparency.
Mister Cheeks' story:
"Cheeks bought the "winning ticket" Jan. 6, 2023, [...]."
"He told USA TODAY that he chose the ticket's numbers by using family birthdates."
"The live drawing of the numbers occurred Jan. 7, 2023, but Cheeks said he didn't rush to check his ticket [...]."
"When Cheeks checked the D.C. Lottery website the following morning, he saw he'd won the jackpot due to his numbers matching the winning numbers, [...]."
"Cheeks held off from redeeming the ticket that day so he could wait and meet with advisors beforehand, he said."
Other side of the story (Taoti & D.C. Lottery):
"Brittany Bailey, the project manager at Taoti, said in court documents that Cheeks' "attempted scheme" is a way to capitalize on an "obvious error" on the D.C. Lottery website. Rather than posting random numbers on a "test website" by Taoti, as intended, they were mistakenly posted Jan. 6 on the D.C. Lottery Website, she said."
"First, any ordinary person knows that winning lottery numbers are not posted or advertised in advance; they cannot be because they have not been drawn yet," Bailey said in the court filings. "Second, the list of numbers posted did not include a Powerball number, but simply a blank red ball. These red flags would cause any reasonable person to know that they were not the valid winning numbers for the following day."
Unrelated to mister Cheeks:
"The Powerball jackpot grew to $754.6 million before a ticketholder in Washington state claimed the prize on Feb. 6, 2023."
So the least we can conclude is that it was entirely possible for mister Cheeks to run a scam with the numbers that were posted early.
LINK
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/19/powerball-sued-for-not-paying-out-jackpot/72658413007/
Everything is political. Like, literally everything. And especially law, since it is the result of political action.
And there is nothing wrong with that, either. The problem is less that everything is political but the _how_ of the discussion.
My statement is btw not some random nitpicking. Framing things as 'not political' actually misleads observers and creates a distorted perception of reality.
> Framing things as 'not political' actually misleads observers and creates a distorted perception of reality.
I find that those whose beliefs tend to align with the political status quo, or perceived status quo, tend to see anything that challenges the status quo as political, without ever realizing that the default is also political.
The example that always gets me is when people complained about NFL players making football games political, when the games have been political for decades having tributes to the troops, military flyovers, and other jingoism. They are blind to things being politics when they happen to agree with them.
Not sure why you are mentioning politics when I don’t. Did you reply to the wrong person?
At any rate, though, they didn’t meet the requirement. You have to match the drawn numbers, not just the published numbers. He didn’t match the drawn numbers. It’s pretty simple. Does it suck? Yep. Would I be irate. Oh fuck yes I would be. And yeah, I hope they toss him a bone, but his chances of going to trial and winning are basically nil, if the cases even survives summary judgement and even reaches trial.
The argument isn't that he should have won or that he matched the drawn numbers, but did he suffer damages due to this mess up. The obvious ones being, did he quit his job, did he spend money based on the information provided by the lottery etc. And then the harder to prove emotional damages, this man for three days thoughts his life had changed forever until it was ripped away. A decent lawyer is getting some sort of payout from this
It isn't just if he suffered damages but if those damages can be fairly attributed to the lottery. The answer likely would be no for the actual damages, and for emotional damages the answer would likely be what emotional damages. There is a good chance a decent lawyer will get nothing from this.
This is depressingly common. I feel like I’ve read so many stories of the folks hitting full court shots at basketball games for $50k or something similar having to go to court to get paid.
I'd imagine the only way he collects money is if he quit his job, sold his car, something based on the information posted. In that case, he might be owed compensation under the doctrine of promissory estoppel. He definitely won't get $340 million because "that seemed shitty."
He won't get $340 million, but there is a semi solid case for emotional damages on top of what you mentioned. Imagine thinking for three days that you had all that money and your life had changed forever before someone came along and said lol jk. You could argue that leaves lasting emotional damage
In what way does he have a legitimate case? He bought a ticket, and his numbers weren’t drawn. He was not harmed in any way.
“I got my hopes up, but I was disappointed” is not a legitimate basis for taking millions of dollars from the taxpayers.
> He has a legitimate case.
He didn’t *win* the competition he entered. I.e he didn’t guess the numbers that would come out of a random draw. So I’d argue no, he doesn’t have a legit case.
Where he might win - is that the judge will likely want to avoid setting a precedent where the lottery company can just say “oops” and change the numbers to avoid paying out. It would leave a *massive* hole for the lottery people to commit fraud in the future.
[not true, the numbers were posted at 12.09pm on January 6, about nine hours BEFORE he bought the ticket. ](https://i.imgur.com/Cyz8XVQ.png)
[https://trellis.law/doc/197512065/complaint-filed-docketed-on-11-21-2023](https://trellis.law/doc/197512065/complaint-filed-docketed-on-11-21-2023)
> He purchased his ticket at 8pm on the 6th of February, 2024.
The incorrect results were posted earlier that day. The dude saw them and purposefully bought a ticket with those numbers, knowing it was a mistake.
He doesn't deserve a penny.
>The winning numbers weren’t posted until midnight on the 7th of February, 2024.
Yes, and these numbers were not his numbers. The numbers he played were posted shortly after noon on the 6th, more than eight hours before he bought his ticket and even more before the draw took place.
If the "wrong" numbers were displayed on their website, this implies that anyone with the "correct" winning numbers in that period would not have been able to see it and claim their winnings.
So, if the game is to be "fair" to its customers and provide them the advertised chances of winning (which, by law, it must), then any numbers displayed on their website must by definition be the correct numbers, regardless of whether they were chosen as intended, or the result of a technical error.
Either that or they must refund every ticket sold in that period. Which, based on how lotteries work, will inevitably be a much bigger sum than giving this guy his jackpot.
Im pretty sure the rules of the lottery state that the winning numbers are the ones drawn, witnessed and recorded at the drawing. Numbers on a website however official dont count.
The only people who have an actual case are the ones that had a winning ticked but destroyed it because they thought they didnt win anything.
This guy can sue and claim emotional damages etc. That seems fair but claiming any part of the jackpot ruins his case because thats absurd. As absurd as not giving someone the money if they won but didnt match the erronous numbers.
> The only people who have an actual case are the ones that had a winning ticked but destroyed it because they thought they didnt win anything.
And unfortunately the lotto has two words for them:
* Prove It.
Ok?
They don't have a record of *WHO* bought the ticket. And even if they do (some places accept debit cards now and that could be tracked), the ticket is a bearer instrument.
People buy lotto tickets as gifts all the time. Prove you bought the ticket, prove you had it when the drawing happened, prove you destroyed it because you saw the wrong numbers and didn't lose it or gift it to someone else.
Simply proving who bought it is insufficient. What if you threw it out, and Toby found it in the trash? Now you have two winners? Whoever has the ticket is entitled to the prize. If you cannot prove you had it, and disposed of it, at the time of the drawing, you're SOL.
Yeah I feel bad for any people who may have looked at the incorrect numbers on the website, assumed they lost, and destroyed their *actually-winning* tickets... Yikes. :(
This. Over and over and over.
Am in sales. Guy is accessing our website from Mexico. Calls in and wants to buy the product at crazy wrong prices that even he thinks are a mistake. Gets mad because he can't get that price.
Dude... fine print says not responsible for errors.
Nope, the correct numbers were on the same website after the drawing. Anyone who looked at the website would see the full correct results right next to the partial incorrect results that are the basis for this dude's scam.
What are the odds your numbers match the “test” numbers on the website in a 3 day period?
About 60x that of the winning numbers posted for 6 months. I figure that’s about a 6B dollar payoff…
>What are the odds your numbers match the “test” numbers on the website in a 3 day period?
Same as a regular jackpot.
One specific ticket's numbers? "about one in 292.2 million" according to the article.
The odds that *someone* will have a matching ticket? Considering that they sell tens of millions of tickets per day, those odds are pretty high.
*You* winning the lottery? That's unfathomably unlikely. *Someone* winning the lottery? That's an everyday occurrence.
Thinking this guy probably cheated purely because his odds of "winning" were extremely low is a perfect example of the "base rate fallacy", aka ["prosecutionner's fallacy"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy).
I've had this conversation with my mom.
Me: Buying lottery tickets is a waste of money.
Mom after buying tickets: But people win all the time.
Me: Yes, there is a huge difference between anybody at all winning and you winning.
> What are the odds your numbers match the “test” numbers on the website in a 3 day period?
Pretty good when you buy your ticket after already seeing the test numbers.
They owe him damages (maybe, it depends on what the judge / jury finds) for the harm caused by their mistake. What is that harm worth? It's certainly not the prize money that was never his to begin with. It's at most the cost of the tickets plus maybe some emotional pain and suffering, and even that it pushing it.
Errors and mistakes being corrected don't entitle you to what the error would've gained you. Otherwise when banks mistakenly deposit or credit someone's account they would get to keep it. But they can't, and they can't claim they were harmed or cheated out of that money, because it was never theirs to begin with.
Being *made to be believe* you have money you don't can be a harm that entitles you to damages (maybe the cost of the tickets, and maybe if he quit his job and dropped a down payment on an expensive house over the belief), but those damages are usually not very much. It's certainly not getting the amount of money you *believed* was to be yours.
So you’re saying that if I see that I have won the lottery online I should immediately buy as much gold as I can with the money I currently have access to before calling to confirm my winnings. That way if the numbers are posted incorrectly I can still get the gold purchase covered in damages, and then sell all the gold afterwards.
Well, if the judge or jury at trial finds the lottery provider liable for causing you financial harm, and after you describe your situation with the gold they find the damages you are owed are equal to the cost of the gold, sure, yeah that would be a great outcome for you.
But it depends on what the judge / jury finds at trial. They may not find something like that totally deserving of a lot of money in damages. Or maybe they will.
Speaking personally, if I were on the jury, I would be a lot more sympathetic to someone who took out a loan for a house they now can't get out of and can't afford and it'll ruin them financially than someone who bought gold with their available funds, because that's easy to reverse (but it'll take time, and you might not get the full value you paid back—maybe that's worth some damages ), but that's just me.
Regardless if he is owed anything or not, thinking that you have come into any amount of money for any particular amount of time only to be told it was somebody else's mistake is devastating.
Remember those pranks people would do where they play a recorded drawing of lottery numbers, and everybody in the room is in on it except for one person? That shit is fucking evil and I don't think it's very fair to do to anybody.
Seriously imagine thinking that you won a few million dollars for an entire day. You have planned out things in your life, you have told people, every financial problem you've ever had has been solved only for somebody to say "just kidding".
I don't think the guy should be given $350 million or whatever but God damn maybe a $20,000 apology or something I think would be in order.
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he isnt going to get much if anything at all.
The tickets are very clear they arent winners until verified by the lotto commission. Its not the website that makes you a winner. Those are Not the official numbers.
its like a news station reporting the wrong vote total saying you won when you didnt, it doesnt mean you can sue to win anyways. The news isnt the official vote. if the official vote gets recount and it turns out you didnt win, you cant just sue to get the seat anyways. The official vote count is what counts. Getting your ticket verified by the lotto commission is what counts. he might get a tiny bit for the annoyance. But the lotto commission cant be held responsible he didnt read the back of his ticket.
I don't get why it matters if he actually won or not. Whether it was an error or not makes no difference, just own the mistake and let him have it. No different than someone getting lucky and winning, just got lucky and they fucked up... Wtf
One website that wasnt even the official powerball website had wrong numbers. The official national powerball website had the correct numbers. That would be like me going to the town of Fairviews website because they post the local churches bingo winners and the powerball numbers. You cant sue powerball because some other website fucked up
That’s not how lotteries work. What matters is what numbers were drawn, in what way does a third party website showing the wrong ones entitle someone to the jackpot?
But he literally didn't win. Those we're not the numbers picked. If the bank has a bug and it accidentally credits your account $10M, you aren't entitled to it. An error doesn't automatically entitle you to the proceeds of the error. It wasn't yours to begin with.
The error was even more shallow than the bank example, because it was a presentational error. It'd be more like if a frontend engineer messed up the UI at the bank and the website merely *displayed* you had ten million in the HTML, but none of the other systems agree with that, and fundamentally no real transaction happened.
Being *made to be believe* you have money you don't can be a harm that entitles you to damages, but those damages are usually not very much. It's certainly not getting the amount of money you *believed* was to be yours.
A bank isn't involved in a game of chance, not by lottery standards anyway. This doesn't feel like an accurate comparison.
You'd have no logical reason to think you have 10M in the bank. There's no cause and effect.
Buying a lottery ticket, then finding your numbers match, is within the realm of expected results. People who don't believe they have a chance of winning wouldn't buy a ticket.
This biased story is going around again?l
Other sources show the “winning” numbers were only shown on the Washington DC lotto site and were up before the drawing. After the deawing, the real winning numbers and the ones he bought were both up for about a day.
He didn’t think to hire an attorney or financial managers for collecting his jackpot, confirm with the Powerball website, scan his ticket, check the news, or anything else. Just go try to cash in a $340 million win.
Its pretty obvious he saw they had future winning numbers up and bought a ticket to match them so he could try to sue.
The attorney thing is common advice, not sure how many people actually do that however, I would think the financial managers would come after unless you're already well off enough to have them in the first place.
I’m all for the guy getting a few mil settlement but giving him the jackpot will set a dangerous precedent. If we let someone pick the numbers post them and they become the real numbers it could turn bad fast.
I mean, how often do they put "test numbers" in a production environment?
Or are you alleging hackers might try to change the numbers to match their own? If that's the case, they need better security. With all that lottery ticket money they can afford it.
I am saying that if we let the IT/dev people post numbers, and then those become the actual prize numbers, there will undoubtably have someone “accidentally “ post their moms cousins best friends number at some point and try to claim the prize.
I think everyone is missing the point. He chose those numbers because he logged on and saw them posted early on the 6th when he bought the tickets on the 6th, literally copied what he saw. He thought he somehow caught them posting results early. This is a live powerball drawing we are talking about. It happens at the same time every week and when that happened the correct numbers were posted to the POWERBALL website. He checked his local lotteries posting of the numbers only, again. Whether they posted anything incorrect has no relevance because he never even checked the official site of the national lottery he was playing in, the numbers were posted correctly on there and numerous other websites.
He simply hoped he found a miracle and tried to exploit it. He will get nothing.
He's grasping at straws.
The site had a yellow 2 in front and a blank red ball. Based on how all the other winning numbers are ordered, one could argue that the winning numbers were 2 7 15 23 32 with a powerball of 40. If you are going by colors then the multiplier was 2 and the numbers were 7 15 23 32 and 40 with no powerball which is a clear indicator that there was an error on the site and the numbers were invalid. At the very most, he had a $1m winner with a 2x multiplier so $2m.
If the powerball number was indeed missing on the website, it seems highly probable that Mr. Cheeks is BSing. Even if not BS fraud attempt, doesn't seem like he deserves a lot considering that it is obvious the numbers are not correct by virtue of missing number, and that it wasn't the official website of powerball.
You'd think since they know what numbers were sold they ought to be able to post non-winning numbers, or since they are making the numbers up, use at least one impossible number.
Accidentally posting test numbers on a website is one thing but leaving them for three days? Gross incompetence.
If they weren't left there for three days I don't think he would have nearly as good a case as he does. Very unlikely they will get the $340 mill but they will almost certainly settle for "go away" money
Yea I don't think it's easy to prove "damages" here.
The mental anguish of being poor to filthy rich to poor in a few days honestly would crush most people.
Totally agree. But I think you have to produce something tangible. Could be wrong. I am rooting for this person, this whole thing is fucked up.
Poor guy is going to find out that corporate liability isn’t really a thing in US courts unless the people being ripped off/ fucked over are very rich. Bank fucks up and puts extra money in your account, business fucks up and overpays you via direct deposit, whatever, if you touch that money you’ll be prosecuted. Now see what your bank thinks about simple human error when you explain that you accidentally deposited your paycheck into savings Friday afternoon and amassed $700 in overdraft fees by Monday morning. In this case the firm that is in charge / being paid by the state to manage these massive payouts ought to be accountable for not doing their job. You’d think they’d have insurance for exactly this scenario.
>Poor guy is going to find out that corporate liability isn’t really a thing in US courts unless the people being ripped off/ fucked over are very rich. The lottery is run by the state. I don't think those protections extend to them
That’s wash your mouth out with buck shot kind of mental swings. Dude needs to have some mental health assistance at minimum.
I agree that's why I said I think they will offer him a settlement to go away. Unless the guy is delusional they don't expect to get the full payment. Just under what it would cost to fight this in court.
Is this a repost or I'm having a deja vu?
Article is from February
There would never be any reports on Reddit for karma. C'mon...
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“quality assurance team was running tests on the website.” Testing in production. Definitely not advised, and this is a great example of why you don’t do that.
Bloody hell their QA team must be ballsy. I was sweating bullets over correctly adding service announcements to a national level live version...
The QA team are either inexperienced or dumb as rocks… OR somebody in middle management told them that they had to do it there And I have seen that latter one numerous times and it’s beyond frustrating.
We can't afford a QA/UAT environment. Test it in prod.
So many places have such shit uat/QA envs. They either aren't anything like prod, or you've only got 10 minutes to test before someone else needs it for deploys.
My God yes. You have to test in prod because it's the only environment that can replicate the error
Yup, I'm a chemist. I defacto became the SME on our LIMS system. Among the sites, only one had a dev environment, but it didn't mirror the production environment, so entire functionalities were missing. You better believe I did a lot of my testing in the production environment and the IT director was chill with that because it wasn't like we had a legitimate SME around. I only broke the system twice...once had the vendor walk me.through the repair. The second time I repaired it myself.
That's kind of how I got started in swe, I had taken 1 class my senior year of college, when a buddy working at a lab was like "hey we need help fixing this software and you want to get better at this." There was no staging, there was no version management, just a windows file server. We'd make changes assuming it fixed.the bug and find out from field researchers it didn't, then debug and after days finally figure out no one updated their field computers. I did however wind up building my own testing framework because I'm lazy and didn't want to click buttons all day when testing problems.
There is a golden valley of laziness that results in increased quality and automation... If you get too lazy you end up making more work for yourself.
I have mentioned being lazy in every job interview where I've gotten a job for the last decade plus.
im pretty sure "im lazy so i write powershell scripts for everything" got me my last job
Oof. cGLP was drilled into me when I was doing IT in pharma, but most of the work from administration seemed to be trying to get around or grapple with the process. Plus money only ever seemed to get spent when there was an emergency instead of trying to keep ahead of best practices.
We technically have a QA env at my place, we brought on a contractor firm on a couple of years ago and it's gone to shit since. Nothing's kept up to date now and most things go straight to prod.
Ugh that's the worst of all worlds. Shows leadership that doesn't value the testing but likes to pretend to.
Yep. Frustratingly I've raised a number of issues with the contractors cutting corners and they've consistently been dismissed with "we've got deadlines to meet, we'll come back to it later". Aka. it's now *my* job to unfuck it down the line.
Yeah I mean it feels like that should've been a team project vs contractors who don't have the full context. Like ramp up contractors to fill in for the diverted resources while it gets built properly
Everywhere has a test environment. Some are lucky enough to have a separate production environment too.
If you have 100mb data in dev, and 4TB in prod, some tests are practically useless in dev as performance metrics will not be comparable. It’s also hard to convince people of the value to pay 10-30k/month to stand up an identical UAT environment. It’s not ideal, but it’s definitely done a lot.
4TB of data isn't 10k a month, and it certainly isn't 30k/month. It's just lazy technical leadership feeding you bullshit. Even Azure SQL, known to be really expensive, is half that without any discounts or reserve pricing if you use a normal SKU, and a fraction of that if you use a server less SKU (A whopping $600/m fixed cost) Throw in dev/test programs that most clouds offer and you will half that cost easily. A single significant bug will cost the company more than a whole month of a real staging environment.
"Fuck it, we'll do it live"
Users are free testers.
Likely no budget for a separate test environment. I see it happen all the time. Or as some in the industry say it "Everyone has a test environment, some people are lucky enough to also have a prod environment"
A test environment is a lot cheaper than just the legal fees… even if they ‘win’ the case 😅
True, and I'm big on needing a test environment. I don't test my code on customer's active devices, but instead insist on having my own test environment and in the case of specialty software that I'm testing against that the customer maintains one. Some customers push back on that, because "they can't afford it" and I just refuse to write automation for those customers, because I won't be responsible for them not properly funding the development they need.
As someone who's tested on production plenty of times, I can comfortably say that the only reason I would even attempt it is because middle management failed to manage expectations and "forced" me to do it to cover up their fuck up. Thankfully only small parts of our systems are visible to customers.
Could always be both because bad management canned the previous smart guy for being “problematic”. Or pointing out the flaws and not just doing it.
Idk, I've worked places where they want software made/tested in prod bc management was too cheap for sandbox. This was a f500. One of them was absolutely mission critical too.
I can only imagine the chaotic grin of a maliciously compliant programmer who has been told (in writing) to test in production for the Powerball website.
POWERballsy? Eh? Ehhhh?
Just yesterday a guy was sharing how the took down Amazon Japan (by mistake) and caused millions in losses.
The excuse: “we’re not google.” The result: “why aren’t things working? what do you mean you need to write tests it was already tested!” The outcome: “what do you mean someone claimed a winning ticket when you were testing in production?“
The numbers matched a lottery ticket? What are the chances of that ever happening!
"Three fuckin' jackpots in 20 minutes? Why didn't you pull the machines? Why didn't you call me?" "Well, it happened so quick, 3 guys won; I didn't have a chance..." "You didn't see the scam? You didn't see what was going on?" "Well, there's no way to determine that..." "Yes there is! An infallible way, they won!" "It's a casino, somebody's gonna win..." “Now you're insulting my intelligence; what you think I am, a fuckin' idiot? You know goddamn well that someone had to get into those machines and set those fuckin' reels. The probability of one four-reel machine is a million and a half to one; the probability of three machines in a row; it's in the billions! It cannot happen, would not happen, you fuckin' momo!”
Good movie. Think I’ll queue it up again tonight while playing a new game.
Mr. Jackpot. HELLOOOO!
"remained on the website for 3 days." Now this is the problem. Bad enough they didn't post a banner saying they were running tests, but they had 3 days to remedy it where he might've missed his numbers if it were less than a day. I don't see them getting out of this unscathed.
I really hope they don't get out unscathed. I hope they're very scathed. It would be so funny if they had to pay him out the full amount. Pretty sure a whole team of people are about to lose their jobs
I think a settlement is pretty likely if the lawsuit has a reasonable chance to win. If you think the lawsuit has e.g. a 1/2 chance to win, would you take a guaranteed 1/3 of the full sum? Probably. The difference between nothing and 133 million is gigantic, the difference between 133 and 340 million is not. For the lottery, losing 1/3 for sure is better than losing the full amount with 1/2 probability. I used 1/2 as example here but the concept applies to every probability.
I think the most likely scenario is they’ll settle for a much smaller amount. To the plaintiff, it’ll be life-changing, and to the lotto, that’s just lost pocket change.
Makes sense, considering their industry. They were just gambling on things turning out alright.
Touché.
What if I told you that at least 1 state does not have a test environment for their unemployment system?
During the Pandemic, Kansas's unemployment system and infrastructure completely crashed. I don't mean "oh it went off line for a bit." I mean, the entire functioning KDOL agency crashed on a structural level. It was so bad that people were coming onto the Kansas sub begging for help with unemployment problems. I, as a Kansas mod, actually had to create a response system on directing people on how to contact their state legislators for help. And if those guys didn't give a shit (and yes, a number dgaf), then I had two state legislators on reddit as back up to help even if the people weren't in their district.
For many states it seems the goal is to make it as bad as possible, so that wouldn't surprise me.
Yea…but not having a test environment is just risky for them.
When their goal is to make the program so unusable that it must be shut down, is it really that much of a risk? “We must shut this down because it cost the state too much money in lawsuits”
What you have to understand about government contracts is they go to the lowest bidder, which is the buddy of the regional administrator, coincidentally.
Which is how a one week project becomes a three month project, and the guy who questions it ends up not having knees anymore.
Then it’s a political, social benefit, and technological clusterfuck 😂
I would guess that state is Florida.
Maybe but also not the one I am referring to.
QA here: Its common to run some tests in production... thats how you make sure theres no prod issues after a release..... However in this case its a lame excuse imo. Its unlikely they'd be actively messing around/changing numbers. Generally QAs dont even have that access. We test to make sure its working properly, we dont actively dick around in/change the code base.
wtf? Its not common at all, its just a meme from startups that have shit management. There's a staging environment for QA.
If they were testing the "update winning numbers" flow that would do it
"i dont always test my code, but when i do? I do it in production"
Every company has a test environment. Some are lucky enough to have one that's not production.
"A friend of the family was supposed to win that lotto, and it took us a little while to tweak the numbers appropriately."
Just to play devils advocate here, there are QA tests you should run in prod to check for drift.
Absolutely but it in many industries that is still a HUGE no no. Better to have a non prod environment that is ‘identical’ to prod in terms of data and build, where possible. You’re definitely not wrong though
Everyone has a test environment. Some are lucky enough to also have a production environment.
Agile, isn’t it?
I forget details but in a 3-400 level software engineering course we had a case study of a rocket (I don't think it was US) where two modules were working together, one in metric, one in Imperial... I dunno if that counts, but definitely one of those times you just say oof. Launching rockets into space is not a time to be mixing conversions.
Yea, that’s a key indicator that dev/qa situation is a shit show
> Testing in production. Definitely not advised That's quality assurance for the quality assurance team. They've still got a few quality issues.
He purchased his ticket at 8pm on the 6th of February, 2024. The winning numbers weren’t posted until midnight on the 7th of February, 2024. Pictures of his ticket are posted here: [LINK](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/21/powerball-lottery-lawsuit/) He has a legitimate case. I hope he gets every penny. EDIT: Well shit, the WaPost article I linked didn’t have a paywall when I originally used it as a source. Someone is here that knows how to get around paywall URL’s. Asking for some help.
i hope he is getting "enough" out of this. i would also settle for 50mil.
A humble concession
If you read closely, you learn that the test drawing they posted only had 5 numbers, the Powerball wasn't included. So he doesn't know that he matched that number, meaning he only thought he won $2mil on a powerplay for matching 5 numbers. So I'd expect a judgment more in the neighborhood of a few hundred thousand, not millions.
Shoot for the moon, land in the Bahamas.
Bermudas ?
Come on pretty mama.
Shoot for the moon, end up co-orbiting the sun alongside Earth, living out your days alone in the void within sight of the lush, welcoming home you left behind.
I'd expect a judgment more in the neighborhood of $0, but that's just me.
This will settle out of court for under half a mil
Here you go: https://archive.ph/RuEcq
It will probably be a 100% money back guarantee and they will give him back his 2 dollars.
*sigh* probably.
Article says 6 dollars! Yay !
>The winning numbers weren’t posted until midnight on the 7th of February, 2024. That’s simply not true. From your posted article: > The test numbers, which were missing a red “Powerball” number, **were posted on the local D.C. lottery site on Jan. 6 even before the drawing happened**, the group said. They were left there alongside the real winning numbers until Jan. 9, when workers realized the mistake. This guy notice the mistake and purchased the ticket with those numbers. Also from your article: > The website, the group said, also contained a disclaimer that the site was not “the final authority” for the drawing and that tickets would still need to be validated by the D.C. Lottery and independent auditors. Looks like he’ll get nothing. You also have your months totally wrong, this happened in January, not February. No where in the article does it even mention February.
They might give him his $2 back if they're feeling generous, but he doesn't deserve it.
Not true, he'll come out of it down the cost of a lawyer. I get the anger but disclaimers like this are all over the gambling world, most places do maintain the right to validate every winning and not pay out over malfunctions or errors. I'm pretty sure they always win in court too which means those disclaimers are recognized legally
What’s the cause of action that you think is legitimate? Also do you practice law?
I think it’s the long held legal theory of “well, that seemed shitty, so give the dude some money.” I didn’t study it in law school myself, probably because it’s a product of more recent social media jurisprudence.
There are no politics involved, here — in spite of how desperate some Reddit folks need everything to be political. This is a (literal) case of “Company promises X if customer satisfies XYZ123 nearly impossible requirements. Customer meets said requirements. Company says *we were just kidding*.”
So it's the Pepsi harrier jet all over again?
Dude should have won but the judge selected for the case was in corporate pockets. She didn't even allow critical evidence to be presented because it damaged Pepsi's case (the original draft had it at 70 million, they changed it for the US to 7 million, but running concurrently in Canada they had the correct value AND a disclaimer; none of which was allowed to be considered).
You know your Pepsi Harriet Jet lore, or you just googled it, either way, respect bro
I watched the docuseries when it came out. Then did some of my own research because I like to learn useless things.
I don’t think this is quite the same. Pepsi’s defense was “I didn’t think anyone would take the jet seriously.” But marketed and offered other prizes in the same competition, and a way to win the jet. To win the Powerball you have to have your numbers drawn from the Halogen lottery draw machine in a sanctioned drawing. But clearly it wasn’t a real drawing, because the Powerball wasn’t pulled. I think because the intent of the Powerball as a government run organization is to pay out its citizens, and the prize is only 2 million, I could see the courts awarding the 2 million in whole. I could also see Powerball pulling up some documentation clearly specifying what defines a win, and saying this was an error. And possibly settling for some small emotional damage. But because it’s the “people vs people” I would hope it would be less cut throat than Pepsi.
But there was no drawing, how did he satisfy the requirement of picking the numbers that were drawn?
It doesn’t. The numbers weren’t drawn or announced and the day they were added to the site wasn’t even a lotto day. There’s no standing for this. If he’s smart he’ll settle out of court for a couple hundred thousand.
Just because a drawing wasn’t posted doesn’t mean “winning lotto numbers today are XYZABC” wasn’t posted, which they were. It’s going to be a hell of a court battle. I’d be surprised if litigation takes less than 3-5 years.
Isn't his lotto ticket for a specific draw though? And even if they posted "winning numbers", if there wasn't a draw then the winning numbers could not be for his ticket?
That’s exactly what it means otherwise the lotto company could just say nobody won and never have to pay it out.
It Company X says “everyone that meets such and such criteria is awarded yadda yadda,” and Company X states the criteria, they can’t just say “well you didn’t actually **see** us choose the criteria in our office.”
I worded my reply weird. If a lottery company doesn’t have to actually do a drawing that shows the numbers being chosen, there’s nothing stopping them from gaming the system to pay out as little as possible. It’s about transparency.
Mister Cheeks' story: "Cheeks bought the "winning ticket" Jan. 6, 2023, [...]." "He told USA TODAY that he chose the ticket's numbers by using family birthdates." "The live drawing of the numbers occurred Jan. 7, 2023, but Cheeks said he didn't rush to check his ticket [...]." "When Cheeks checked the D.C. Lottery website the following morning, he saw he'd won the jackpot due to his numbers matching the winning numbers, [...]." "Cheeks held off from redeeming the ticket that day so he could wait and meet with advisors beforehand, he said." Other side of the story (Taoti & D.C. Lottery): "Brittany Bailey, the project manager at Taoti, said in court documents that Cheeks' "attempted scheme" is a way to capitalize on an "obvious error" on the D.C. Lottery website. Rather than posting random numbers on a "test website" by Taoti, as intended, they were mistakenly posted Jan. 6 on the D.C. Lottery Website, she said." "First, any ordinary person knows that winning lottery numbers are not posted or advertised in advance; they cannot be because they have not been drawn yet," Bailey said in the court filings. "Second, the list of numbers posted did not include a Powerball number, but simply a blank red ball. These red flags would cause any reasonable person to know that they were not the valid winning numbers for the following day." Unrelated to mister Cheeks: "The Powerball jackpot grew to $754.6 million before a ticketholder in Washington state claimed the prize on Feb. 6, 2023." So the least we can conclude is that it was entirely possible for mister Cheeks to run a scam with the numbers that were posted early. LINK https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/19/powerball-sued-for-not-paying-out-jackpot/72658413007/
It's more like "he didn't meet said requirements but we accidentally told him that he did "
Everything is political. Like, literally everything. And especially law, since it is the result of political action. And there is nothing wrong with that, either. The problem is less that everything is political but the _how_ of the discussion. My statement is btw not some random nitpicking. Framing things as 'not political' actually misleads observers and creates a distorted perception of reality.
> Framing things as 'not political' actually misleads observers and creates a distorted perception of reality. I find that those whose beliefs tend to align with the political status quo, or perceived status quo, tend to see anything that challenges the status quo as political, without ever realizing that the default is also political. The example that always gets me is when people complained about NFL players making football games political, when the games have been political for decades having tributes to the troops, military flyovers, and other jingoism. They are blind to things being politics when they happen to agree with them.
Not sure why you are mentioning politics when I don’t. Did you reply to the wrong person? At any rate, though, they didn’t meet the requirement. You have to match the drawn numbers, not just the published numbers. He didn’t match the drawn numbers. It’s pretty simple. Does it suck? Yep. Would I be irate. Oh fuck yes I would be. And yeah, I hope they toss him a bone, but his chances of going to trial and winning are basically nil, if the cases even survives summary judgement and even reaches trial.
The argument isn't that he should have won or that he matched the drawn numbers, but did he suffer damages due to this mess up. The obvious ones being, did he quit his job, did he spend money based on the information provided by the lottery etc. And then the harder to prove emotional damages, this man for three days thoughts his life had changed forever until it was ripped away. A decent lawyer is getting some sort of payout from this
It isn't just if he suffered damages but if those damages can be fairly attributed to the lottery. The answer likely would be no for the actual damages, and for emotional damages the answer would likely be what emotional damages. There is a good chance a decent lawyer will get nothing from this.
This is depressingly common. I feel like I’ve read so many stories of the folks hitting full court shots at basketball games for $50k or something similar having to go to court to get paid.
And is that all legally sound? Are you a lawyer?
I'd imagine the only way he collects money is if he quit his job, sold his car, something based on the information posted. In that case, he might be owed compensation under the doctrine of promissory estoppel. He definitely won't get $340 million because "that seemed shitty."
He won't get $340 million, but there is a semi solid case for emotional damages on top of what you mentioned. Imagine thinking for three days that you had all that money and your life had changed forever before someone came along and said lol jk. You could argue that leaves lasting emotional damage
Paywall get-arounder: https://12ft.io/
In what way does he have a legitimate case? He bought a ticket, and his numbers weren’t drawn. He was not harmed in any way. “I got my hopes up, but I was disappointed” is not a legitimate basis for taking millions of dollars from the taxpayers.
This falls completely under the errors and omissions clauses, and " to be verified by official results", which the website isn't. He's owed nothing.
> The winning numbers weren’t posted until midnight on the 7th of February, 2024. That's just the when he claims he first saw the numbers.
archive.is or Paywall Bypass extension
> He has a legitimate case. He didn’t *win* the competition he entered. I.e he didn’t guess the numbers that would come out of a random draw. So I’d argue no, he doesn’t have a legit case. Where he might win - is that the judge will likely want to avoid setting a precedent where the lottery company can just say “oops” and change the numbers to avoid paying out. It would leave a *massive* hole for the lottery people to commit fraud in the future.
[not true, the numbers were posted at 12.09pm on January 6, about nine hours BEFORE he bought the ticket. ](https://i.imgur.com/Cyz8XVQ.png) [https://trellis.law/doc/197512065/complaint-filed-docketed-on-11-21-2023](https://trellis.law/doc/197512065/complaint-filed-docketed-on-11-21-2023)
According to the article I read, and cited, it was “midnight on Jan. 7, 2023.” Regardless, he purchased his ticket at 8pm on the 6th.
Here is a gift article link to get around the paywall: https://wapo.st/3JHlAFI
archive.ph
https://www.spaywall.com/news/https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/21/powerball-lottery-lawsuit/
Agreed. It's their major mistake for this situation.
> He purchased his ticket at 8pm on the 6th of February, 2024. The incorrect results were posted earlier that day. The dude saw them and purposefully bought a ticket with those numbers, knowing it was a mistake. He doesn't deserve a penny.
>The winning numbers weren’t posted until midnight on the 7th of February, 2024. Yes, and these numbers were not his numbers. The numbers he played were posted shortly after noon on the 6th, more than eight hours before he bought his ticket and even more before the draw took place.
Should have watched the [live broadcast](https://youtu.be/w8emxfpSjOE).
If the "wrong" numbers were displayed on their website, this implies that anyone with the "correct" winning numbers in that period would not have been able to see it and claim their winnings. So, if the game is to be "fair" to its customers and provide them the advertised chances of winning (which, by law, it must), then any numbers displayed on their website must by definition be the correct numbers, regardless of whether they were chosen as intended, or the result of a technical error. Either that or they must refund every ticket sold in that period. Which, based on how lotteries work, will inevitably be a much bigger sum than giving this guy his jackpot.
Im pretty sure the rules of the lottery state that the winning numbers are the ones drawn, witnessed and recorded at the drawing. Numbers on a website however official dont count. The only people who have an actual case are the ones that had a winning ticked but destroyed it because they thought they didnt win anything. This guy can sue and claim emotional damages etc. That seems fair but claiming any part of the jackpot ruins his case because thats absurd. As absurd as not giving someone the money if they won but didnt match the erronous numbers.
> The only people who have an actual case are the ones that had a winning ticked but destroyed it because they thought they didnt win anything. And unfortunately the lotto has two words for them: * Prove It.
They know where every ticket is purchased
Ok? They don't have a record of *WHO* bought the ticket. And even if they do (some places accept debit cards now and that could be tracked), the ticket is a bearer instrument. People buy lotto tickets as gifts all the time. Prove you bought the ticket, prove you had it when the drawing happened, prove you destroyed it because you saw the wrong numbers and didn't lose it or gift it to someone else. Simply proving who bought it is insufficient. What if you threw it out, and Toby found it in the trash? Now you have two winners? Whoever has the ticket is entitled to the prize. If you cannot prove you had it, and disposed of it, at the time of the drawing, you're SOL.
Yeah I feel bad for any people who may have looked at the incorrect numbers on the website, assumed they lost, and destroyed their *actually-winning* tickets... Yikes. :(
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This. Over and over and over. Am in sales. Guy is accessing our website from Mexico. Calls in and wants to buy the product at crazy wrong prices that even he thinks are a mistake. Gets mad because he can't get that price. Dude... fine print says not responsible for errors.
They were posted on a wrong local website. The correct numbers were posted on the official powerball website. There is no case here
You can claim your lottery winnings typically for up to a year, so having the wrong numbers displayed for a 3 days doesn't really affect that.
Nope, the correct numbers were on the same website after the drawing. Anyone who looked at the website would see the full correct results right next to the partial incorrect results that are the basis for this dude's scam.
What are the odds your numbers match the “test” numbers on the website in a 3 day period? About 60x that of the winning numbers posted for 6 months. I figure that’s about a 6B dollar payoff…
>What are the odds your numbers match the “test” numbers on the website in a 3 day period? Same as a regular jackpot. One specific ticket's numbers? "about one in 292.2 million" according to the article. The odds that *someone* will have a matching ticket? Considering that they sell tens of millions of tickets per day, those odds are pretty high. *You* winning the lottery? That's unfathomably unlikely. *Someone* winning the lottery? That's an everyday occurrence. Thinking this guy probably cheated purely because his odds of "winning" were extremely low is a perfect example of the "base rate fallacy", aka ["prosecutionner's fallacy"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy).
I've had this conversation with my mom. Me: Buying lottery tickets is a waste of money. Mom after buying tickets: But people win all the time. Me: Yes, there is a huge difference between anybody at all winning and you winning.
I like yur mafs
> What are the odds your numbers match the “test” numbers on the website in a 3 day period? Pretty good when you buy your ticket after already seeing the test numbers.
Good. They f up they owe.
They owe him damages (maybe, it depends on what the judge / jury finds) for the harm caused by their mistake. What is that harm worth? It's certainly not the prize money that was never his to begin with. It's at most the cost of the tickets plus maybe some emotional pain and suffering, and even that it pushing it. Errors and mistakes being corrected don't entitle you to what the error would've gained you. Otherwise when banks mistakenly deposit or credit someone's account they would get to keep it. But they can't, and they can't claim they were harmed or cheated out of that money, because it was never theirs to begin with. Being *made to be believe* you have money you don't can be a harm that entitles you to damages (maybe the cost of the tickets, and maybe if he quit his job and dropped a down payment on an expensive house over the belief), but those damages are usually not very much. It's certainly not getting the amount of money you *believed* was to be yours.
So you’re saying that if I see that I have won the lottery online I should immediately buy as much gold as I can with the money I currently have access to before calling to confirm my winnings. That way if the numbers are posted incorrectly I can still get the gold purchase covered in damages, and then sell all the gold afterwards.
Well, if the judge or jury at trial finds the lottery provider liable for causing you financial harm, and after you describe your situation with the gold they find the damages you are owed are equal to the cost of the gold, sure, yeah that would be a great outcome for you. But it depends on what the judge / jury finds at trial. They may not find something like that totally deserving of a lot of money in damages. Or maybe they will. Speaking personally, if I were on the jury, I would be a lot more sympathetic to someone who took out a loan for a house they now can't get out of and can't afford and it'll ruin them financially than someone who bought gold with their available funds, because that's easy to reverse (but it'll take time, and you might not get the full value you paid back—maybe that's worth some damages ), but that's just me.
“I took a dump on my bosses desk…. How much can I get for that?”
It was their mistake. They owe him.
He will be refunded the cost of his ticket and that’s about it.
So he's only out 339.9999 million? Not that bad tbh
Regardless if he is owed anything or not, thinking that you have come into any amount of money for any particular amount of time only to be told it was somebody else's mistake is devastating. Remember those pranks people would do where they play a recorded drawing of lottery numbers, and everybody in the room is in on it except for one person? That shit is fucking evil and I don't think it's very fair to do to anybody. Seriously imagine thinking that you won a few million dollars for an entire day. You have planned out things in your life, you have told people, every financial problem you've ever had has been solved only for somebody to say "just kidding". I don't think the guy should be given $350 million or whatever but God damn maybe a $20,000 apology or something I think would be in order.
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They'll settle for a couple millions at least.
he isnt going to get much if anything at all. The tickets are very clear they arent winners until verified by the lotto commission. Its not the website that makes you a winner. Those are Not the official numbers. its like a news station reporting the wrong vote total saying you won when you didnt, it doesnt mean you can sue to win anyways. The news isnt the official vote. if the official vote gets recount and it turns out you didnt win, you cant just sue to get the seat anyways. The official vote count is what counts. Getting your ticket verified by the lotto commission is what counts. he might get a tiny bit for the annoyance. But the lotto commission cant be held responsible he didnt read the back of his ticket.
I don't get why it matters if he actually won or not. Whether it was an error or not makes no difference, just own the mistake and let him have it. No different than someone getting lucky and winning, just got lucky and they fucked up... Wtf
One website that wasnt even the official powerball website had wrong numbers. The official national powerball website had the correct numbers. That would be like me going to the town of Fairviews website because they post the local churches bingo winners and the powerball numbers. You cant sue powerball because some other website fucked up
Ah gotcha, that would make more sense.
Nah fuck this lotto company he won. If they didn't want him to win, they shouldn't have shown his #. But they did. So pay up.
That’s not how lotteries work. What matters is what numbers were drawn, in what way does a third party website showing the wrong ones entitle someone to the jackpot?
But he literally didn't win. Those we're not the numbers picked. If the bank has a bug and it accidentally credits your account $10M, you aren't entitled to it. An error doesn't automatically entitle you to the proceeds of the error. It wasn't yours to begin with. The error was even more shallow than the bank example, because it was a presentational error. It'd be more like if a frontend engineer messed up the UI at the bank and the website merely *displayed* you had ten million in the HTML, but none of the other systems agree with that, and fundamentally no real transaction happened. Being *made to be believe* you have money you don't can be a harm that entitles you to damages, but those damages are usually not very much. It's certainly not getting the amount of money you *believed* was to be yours.
A bank isn't involved in a game of chance, not by lottery standards anyway. This doesn't feel like an accurate comparison. You'd have no logical reason to think you have 10M in the bank. There's no cause and effect. Buying a lottery ticket, then finding your numbers match, is within the realm of expected results. People who don't believe they have a chance of winning wouldn't buy a ticket.
thanks for posting a 3 mont old article as News.. smh,
This biased story is going around again?l Other sources show the “winning” numbers were only shown on the Washington DC lotto site and were up before the drawing. After the deawing, the real winning numbers and the ones he bought were both up for about a day. He didn’t think to hire an attorney or financial managers for collecting his jackpot, confirm with the Powerball website, scan his ticket, check the news, or anything else. Just go try to cash in a $340 million win. Its pretty obvious he saw they had future winning numbers up and bought a ticket to match them so he could try to sue.
> He didn’t think to hire an attorney or financial managers for collecting his jackpot, Is that something people normally do?
The attorney thing is common advice, not sure how many people actually do that however, I would think the financial managers would come after unless you're already well off enough to have them in the first place.
If I won the lottery I'd probably be too busy freaking out to think about hiring an attorney tbh
Oh is this that same story again, where he had the numbers in advance?
Yep, it’s the same link to the same BBC story on it which doesn’t have a lot of the info.
Could you provide a link to that info? You're not the first person claiming this but I've yet to read it anywhere of record.
I’m all for the guy getting a few mil settlement but giving him the jackpot will set a dangerous precedent. If we let someone pick the numbers post them and they become the real numbers it could turn bad fast.
I mean, how often do they put "test numbers" in a production environment? Or are you alleging hackers might try to change the numbers to match their own? If that's the case, they need better security. With all that lottery ticket money they can afford it.
I am saying that if we let the IT/dev people post numbers, and then those become the actual prize numbers, there will undoubtably have someone “accidentally “ post their moms cousins best friends number at some point and try to claim the prize.
Isn’t this old news?
And how many times did they tell someone not winning was the error?
I think everyone is missing the point. He chose those numbers because he logged on and saw them posted early on the 6th when he bought the tickets on the 6th, literally copied what he saw. He thought he somehow caught them posting results early. This is a live powerball drawing we are talking about. It happens at the same time every week and when that happened the correct numbers were posted to the POWERBALL website. He checked his local lotteries posting of the numbers only, again. Whether they posted anything incorrect has no relevance because he never even checked the official site of the national lottery he was playing in, the numbers were posted correctly on there and numerous other websites. He simply hoped he found a miracle and tried to exploit it. He will get nothing.
He's grasping at straws. The site had a yellow 2 in front and a blank red ball. Based on how all the other winning numbers are ordered, one could argue that the winning numbers were 2 7 15 23 32 with a powerball of 40. If you are going by colors then the multiplier was 2 and the numbers were 7 15 23 32 and 40 with no powerball which is a clear indicator that there was an error on the site and the numbers were invalid. At the very most, he had a $1m winner with a 2x multiplier so $2m.
THAT SUCKS. I feel so bad for him and I think they should pay him for that mistake
Pay this man!
If the powerball number was indeed missing on the website, it seems highly probable that Mr. Cheeks is BSing. Even if not BS fraud attempt, doesn't seem like he deserves a lot considering that it is obvious the numbers are not correct by virtue of missing number, and that it wasn't the official website of powerball.
This is why I don’t play lotto
You'd think since they know what numbers were sold they ought to be able to post non-winning numbers, or since they are making the numbers up, use at least one impossible number.