 Victor and Jim Themelis bought $63 worth of lottery tickets for the March 18 draw only to find the day after the draw all three tickets had printing errors on them. (Alex Urosevic/SUN MEDIA)
|
TORONTO -- The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. is investigating and apologizing after two Toronto brothers were sold misprinted Lotto 6/49 tickets.
Victor and Jim Themelis bought $63 worth of lottery tickets for the March 18 draw only to find the day after the draw all three tickets had printing errors on them. One ticket doesn't have an Encore number, one is missing a line of numbers and one has no barcode.
"How should I have faith in them when they're making these kinds of errors?," Jim, 39, asked in an interview.
"Were other tickets in the city printed that way?" the TTC bus driver wondered.
The brothers have been playing together for around 20 years and although they've heard about the past scandals of the OLG -- including printing errors with scratch tickets -- they've never had a problem.
"It's quite disappointing," Jim said. "You kind of lose faith in the system.
"For all we know that could have been the six numbers drawn in last week's draw."
It's that "what if" that has Victor, 43, pulling out his hair.
"I can't sleep at night ... it's caused a lot of stress in both of us," the city garbage truck driver said. "Imagine the freedom? I just can't imagine no more. Give me a reason to imagine again."
OLG spokesman Rui Brum stressed the corporation takes the issue of ticket integrity seriously.
"We apologize for any inconvenience," he said.
Investigators are willing to come to the men's homes at their convenience, Brum said, and were trying to call the brothers last night.
"On rare occasions a ticket may be misprinted or there may be a problem in the printing of the ticket," he said.
The OLG will check the printers at the store where the tickets were purchased, Brum said. Under OLG regulations, customers can take a misprint back to a lottery retailer within 30 minutes to receive a reprint or, if it's later, they can call the organization's customer excellence centre to arrange a reprint.
Anyone noticing a misprint after a lottery draw can also request a reprint by calling the customer centre, Brum said.
"People should be checking tickets as soon as they get them and signing the tickets as soon as they get them for their protection," he said.
