Cashier Said Lottery Ticket Was Not a Winner as Petrol Station Staff Sought to Claim €1.47m

^{A petrol station employee deceived a customer and deprived him of his winnings}

German authorities have uncovered an attempted fraud involving a €1.47 million lottery prize, BILD reported. At least two employees of a petrol station with a lottery sales point were implicated.

The incident occurred in April 2024 in the municipality of Grasbrunn near Munich. A player presented a ticket for checking, unaware it had won in the Spiel 77 lottery.

According to the lottery operator, the prize amounted to €1,477,777. However, the cashier told the customer the ticket was not a winner, and it was left at the outlet.

Case materials show the first employee concealed the win and passed the ticket to a colleague to avoid suspicion. Several months later, in July 2024, the colleague attempted to claim the prize at a lottery center in Munich, posing as the winner.

^{The suspect attempted to claim the prize at a lottery centre in Munich}

The scheme failed after routine checks identified links between the claimant and the outlet where the ticket was originally processed. The information was then passed to law enforcement.

In court, the accused — a petrol station employee who attempted to claim the prize — pleaded guilty and received a 15-month suspended sentence for fraud.

The status of the first employee, who verified the ticket and concealed the win, has not been disclosed in published materials, nor have any measures against him been disclosed.

The identity of the legitimate winner remains unknown. Without the original ticket, the individual cannot prove entitlement to the prize, leaving the prize unclaimed.

Earlier, Gambling Park reported on a proposal by a German statistics professor to improve lottery odds.