QUIRKY WORLD ... $500k lottery ‘win’ card just wasn’t up to scratch

USA: A New Mexico man who thought he hit the jackpot with a lottery scratch card will not be getting the $500,000 (€422,000) he believed he had won, after officials determined that matches were due to a printing malfunction.

New Mexico Lottery spokeswoman Linda Hamlin said the ticket John Wines bought for $20 at a filling station in Roswell, New Mexico, in December was defective. Wines thought he won $500,000, but a scan of the image’s barcode said the card, for the Ruby 7s game, was not a winner.

In that game, a player scratches two winning numbers at the top of an 8in long card, Hamlin said. The player then has 25 boxes to find a match to one of the winning numbers and learn how much it is worth.