SEARCH NEWS:

 

Expert: Lottery Disputes Can Be Avoided

"…One lawyer represents the man who bought the ticket at a North Jersey lottery outlet. The second represents a group of that man's coworkers, who say they were all in an office pool.

"…Experts say it's a reminder that casual agreements among employees can lead to a multimillion dollar mess.

"`The most important thing is to know the people you are playing with,' said Arch Gleason, president of the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, advocacy group for state lottery commissions. `Of all the payoffs we have made over time to groups that were pools, over 90 percent were not problems. But occasionally something like this transpires.'

"…A similar situation happened in August, when the coworkers of a Maine woman who a bought a $41.5 million Powerball ticket sued her, claiming she bought the ticket with their money.

"The suit was soon dropped after it was determined that the winning ticket was actually one of 22 the woman bought with her own money, and not part of the 190 tickets in the pool.

"…Michael Bonventure, a financial planner at Morris J. Cohen & Co. in Philadelphia [says] `What they really should do is take the tickets and photocopy them' or keep them in a sealed envelope until the drawing.

"Dale L. McDonnell, legal counsel for the Minnesota State Lottery, says that such disputes are more likely to happen when the jackpots explode and groups not used to buying tickets together form spontaneously.

"….`If you make an oral agreement to share lottery proceeds or do anything else, it's absolutely enforceable,' said Jay M. Feinman, a professor at Rutgers Law School in Camden, who has written several law review articles on contracts. `Most contracts do not have to be in writing, and they don't even have to be explicit.'…"

< Gaming News