If the employee bought the ticket, why/how did the store get ahold of the actual ticket?

Can you imagine if you were the one that purchased that ticket, and had to give it back for whatever reason. Life sucks sometimes.

It belongs to the initial purchaser. If she left it it shouldve been canceled, but The worker knew it won which is why he "brought" it. Think we need more details.

Now the court has agreed to a expiration extension, they have set a precedent for future arguments over a lottery ticket. This ruling only applies to the Arizona State lottery games and MUSCL lottery games not apply for future possible disputes over a Mega Million or Powerball ticket but it will be challenged.

Purchasing a ticket under false pretenses will make it invalid .  The employee knew it was a winner before purchasing it.  On the clock or off it was still purchased under false pretenses.

*The report said the owner of the ticket declined it, more like ( forgot ) it at the store. It's why Bank of America is now involved.

* According to the article, the ticket was purchased using a debit card. Seems the purchase was legitimate and Circle K wants the money going to the original purchaser, just not Gawlitza.

Extending deadline is wrong .Now they need to extend deadline for anyone who requests it to be extended. They should have cash the ticket and place in escrow

Suppose you cannot find your jackpot winning ticket and you have one week to claim it. Will a judge extend the deadline so you might be able to find it?? This ruling just proves that expiration deadlines are horse poop

that part is the mystery. it looks like gawlitza has given up his claim and no longer cares.

Arizona rules state that any tickets printed for a player that are refused by said player are the property of the retailer that printed it so long  as the retailer does not manage to sell it. Gawitzer bought the ticket so it should belong to him. Why he doesn't have possession of the ticket or why he's hiding is the big mystery

It belongs to the store. According to the article, the customer declined the "printed ticket" and Arizona lottery rules states, that when that happens the retailer gets to keep the ticket, provided he does not resell it.

The Manager, fraudulently purchased the ticket because he knew it was a winner. Who in their right mind would purchase a day old lottery ticket?

The ticket was technically resold, the knucklehead Gawlitza bought it. Why he didn't give it to a family member to cash it in we will never know.

"Kreamer said that he would sign an order that would compel the bank to come forward with those details so that the key party can be named in the lawsuit. "

Named in the lawsuit or subpoenaed as a witness? It might be useful to have the original prospective buyer testify that the reports that they requested all of the tickets but chose not to buy some of them are correct, but AFAIK they've never come forward (or why the need to use the debit card to identify them?) to assert a claim of ownership. I'm not seeing a reason to name them as a defendant.

" According to the article, the ticket was purchased using a debit card. Seems the purchase was legitimate and Circle K wants the money going to the original purchaser, just not Gawlitza. "

Even if Circle K was a charity why would they want any money to go to the person who used a debit card to buy other tickets but was never a purchaser of the winning ticket? I suppose there's a possibility that they'd like to give them a modest amount since Circle K would never have become the lawful owner of a jackpot winning ticket if it weren't for that person, but I can't imagine any reason they'd ever suggest the ticket belongs to that person instead of  Circle K. 

"Now they need to extend deadline for anyone who requests it to be extended. "
"Will a judge extend the deadline so you might be able to find it?? This ruling just proves that expiration deadlines are horse poop "

Is there any chance  you've noticed that this is about a dispute over who owns the ticket and can make a lawful claim and not a case of somebody whose difficulties are their own fault?

"Who in their right mind would purchase a day old lottery ticket? "

The correct question is who in their right mind would sell a jackpot winning ticket at face value? The answer is, of course, nobody.

"Gawitzer bought the ticket "

No, Gawlitz took a ticket that Circle K never offered to sell  him. In some unusual circumstances leaving some money behind when you take something that wasn't offered for sale might prevent  that taking from being theft, but when something isn't offered for sale there's nothing you can do that turns taking it into a purchase.

KY-- many stores offer rejected tickets for sale. Granted nobody would purchase one after the draw date, unless they saw that the ticket was a winner. Gawlitza left the store, changed his clothes, returned and purchased a ticket he knew was a winner. Evidently it must have been against company policy for employees to purchase rejected tickets

Unprecedented move by the AZ lottery, delaying the expiration date of the ticket in question. This opens up a whole lot of questions as to the expiration date of future tickets when there is a dispute in collecting winnings. Did not need to go down this path. Let the ticket expire. End of dispute and controversy.

"Even if Circle K was a charity why would they want any money to go to the person who used a debit card to buy other tickets but was never a purchaser of the winning ticket? I suppose there's a possibility that they'd like to give them a modest amount since Circle K would never have become the lawful owner of a jackpot winning ticket if it weren't for that person, but I can't imagine any reason they'd ever suggest the ticket belongs to that person instead of  Circle K. "

this is a p.r. windfall for circle k. this kind of publicity is worth way the hell more than the lottery prize.

Naming a person in a suit does not necessarily imply it would be in their favor.

If Arizona's law prevails then technically Circle K is the winner. The customer declined to purchase the ticket and no one else purchased it (before draw time) so that means at drawing time, Circle K became the rightful owner. The manager knew it was a winner and tried to buy it, however stores cannot sell a lottery ticket after the draw date

The manager forgot two things.

1. At 11 pm or whatever time they draw the numbers, Circle K then became the winner of the ticket because no one had purchased it before draw time. 

2. Stores cannot sell a draw ticket after the draw time/date.

Circle K may have a higher legal claim to the ticket.

The player that caused the printing of the ticket has a higher moral and justifiable reasons to the ticket and prize.

The ticket value after the drawing ($12.8 Million) is no longer the same as the value (1 or 2 dollars) before the drawing and to this extents, Gawitzer's purchase of the ticket at the pre-drawing price is fraudulent and the sale is void ab initio.

The Contest reduces to Circle K and the original purchaser.

The original ticket purchaser whose actions caused the printing of the ticket and without which Circle K has nothing to contest, may in fact be the only person to rightfully claim the prize under Good faith. Good will and Courtesy. She should be given the option to pay for the unpaid tickets.

If the lottery have not received from Circle K the money for the unpaid ticket or chooses to refund Circle K this amount on the grounds that the original player(though not a purchaser)  is known. Circle K's claim is inferior in overall rank.

I once read an article where a lottery club member did not contribute to his share before the drawing which turned out to be a winner and the club administrator simply asked him to pay up his contribution and share in the prize. 

Along this line of thinking and good will, the person that caused the tickets to be printed should be allowed to collect the full prize.

Circle K risks a damage to its business image if it insists on taking the prize. I personally will cease to patronize such  a store if it is in my area of Town.

Paying for a ticket after it's determined to be a winner (in this case and the lottery club you mentioned) is not gambling. It's cheating.

The ticket belongs to Circle K. By policy, they are required to buy the ticket when no one else does prior to the drawing. The money gets taken out of their lottery account the instant it is printed.

In the case of the lottery club the group made the determination to include a member who did not contribute to the drawing purchase. The Group did not see criminal conduct or in your words "cheating".

In this case It is not rocket science to know that purchasing a winning lottery ticket for a dollar or two is an improper purchase. Cheating is not the right word. Cheating does not apply because the purchase itself is null and void ab initio (from the beginning).

I did write that "Circle K may have a higher legal claim to the ticket". So, in this regard we are on the same page.

Nevertheless, it will be interesting to read the court's ultimate Verdict.

The ticket would have to be purchased by Circle K before the draw in order for it to be theirs ?

It actually became theirs at the instance of the drawing and no need to purchase what was already theirs.

Thank you for your answer.

You are Welcome!

"Evidently it must have been against company policy for employees to purchase rejected tickets "

The stories I've seen have said the policy is that employees can't buy (any) lottery tickets at the store they work at, not just while they're working. There's also  the whole deception angle of attempting to buy the ticket in the hopes that the company didn't yet know they owned a ticket worth far more than face value. I don't see any way that it was a lawful sale/purchase.

"Unprecedented move by the AZ lottery, delaying the expiration date of the ticket in question. "

Other news stories say the court issued an injunction, so  the lottery didn't make  any decision about the expiration date.

"this is a p.r. windfall for circle k. this kind of publicity is worth way the hell more than the lottery prize. "

Circle K is merely the large US subsidiary of a much larger international company. I doubt they feel a need to pay $12 million for whatever  gain they might get from the positive PR, and I doubt that any such gain would be better if they gave the money to the least deserving person involved. Like many large companies Circle K already gives a fair amount to charity. There's a fair chance a good chunk of their prize money will go to charity, and because of the story behind the money they'll probably get plenty of PR.

"stores cannot sell a lottery ticket after the draw date "

That's almost certainly not the case. I can't cite a source, but for at least one very large jackpot  I've seen a news report about a store printing QPs  as fast as they could to sell to people still in line when the sales cutoff stopped them from printing tickets on request. Until the results were announced those tickets were just as good as all of the QPs that were sold before the sales cutoff. The normal issue is that nobody  would want to buy a ticket after they can determine that it's a loser, and there's very little reason that anyone would bother with a rule against selling them after the drawing.

"The player that caused the printing of the ticket has a higher moral and justifiable reasons to the ticket and prize. "

The only "claim" that person has is based on some failure to recognize reality. They asked the retailer to buy a ticket from the AZ lottery on their behalf, thus creating an obligation for the retailer to pay for the ticket, and then they declined to pay for it. They stuck the retailer with $25 worth of tickets (less the commission) and it's only through extreme luck that the retailer should come out ahead on the deal.

"The Contest reduces to Circle K and the original purchaser. "

Except that because there was no original purchaser the reasonable conclusion is that Circle K is the lawful owner of the ticket.

"the original player(though not a purchaser) ... "

You're this close: >< to understanding it.

"In the case of the lottery club the group made the determination to include a member who did not contribute to the drawing purchase. The Group did not see criminal conduct or in your words "cheating". "

That's barely even apples to oranges.  In the absence of a rule that says otherwise sharing with a participant who was unable to pay on time is the same as paying for their lunch when they forgot their wallet. The Circle K case is comparable to somebody who works in the office and turned down a chance to join the pool in the first place.

"It actually became theirs at the instance of the drawing "

No, it became theirs at the instant their request for the lottery to issue the ticket was approved. Since it was never resold to a customer it has been theirs the entire time.

I just want to clarify on this comment. The ticket became the exclusive property of Circle K when the would be purchaser abandoned the purchase because of insufficient funds.

The prize became Circle K's at the instance of the completion of the Drawing.

I wonder who choose what tickets she would get to keep ?  The tickets in order up to the amount available on her debit card should have been which ones she got.

If some of them were QPs the ultimate irony would be if she decided based on the numbers she got, and she didn't like the numbers on the winning ticket.

There's some logic in the store asking her to keep them in the order they were issued, but I'd expect most stores to let the customer choose unless the store thought some were less likely to appeal to a later customer. IIRC a while back somebody posted about a store having a multi-draw ticket with a bunch of game panels. Again, IIRC, the ticket cost about $350ish. I can't imagine a store being at all happy about a customer leaving that behind.