Circle K worker sued for buying $12.8M lotto ticket from his store 1 day after drawing — now judge will decide who gets rich. So who deserves it?

Here's how it went down.

A customer walked away from a winning ticket

On Nov. 24, 2025, a customer walked into the Circle K at 5601 E. Bell Road in Scottsdale and asked a clerk to replay previously used lottery numbers for that evening's drawing of The Pick, an Arizona Lottery game. The clerk printed $85 worth of $1 tickets. The customer paid for only $60 worth and left, leaving 25 tickets behind on the counter.

That night, one of those leftover tickets matched all six numbers, hitting a jackpot worth $12.8 million. It's the fourth-largest prize in The Pick's history and the biggest jackpot won in Arizona since 2019, according to the Arizona Lottery.

Then the store manager made his move

The next morning, store manager Robert Gawlitza arrived for his shift and learned a winning ticket had been printed at his location. He found the remaining tickets and confirmed one was the jackpot winner, according to court documents.

Then he clocked out, took off his Circle K uniform and had another employee ring him up for the remaining tickets — including the winner — for $10. He signed the back of the ticket.

Circle K management found out and ordered the ticket held at its corporate offices, where it remains today.

So who actually owns the ticket?

That's what the lawsuit is trying to sort out — and the answer isn't as straightforward as you might think.

Under the Arizona Administrative Code, when a retailer prints a lottery ticket that a customer refuses or abandons and the ticket isn't resold, it becomes the retailer's property. Retailers pay the Arizona Lottery for every ticket they print, whether or not those tickets are sold.

"It is in the administrative rules that basically says if they overprint, the retailer owns the tickets," Arizona state Rep. Jeff Weninger, a Republican from Chandler and chairman of the House Commerce Committee, told AZFamily (2).

But Arizona Lottery rules also prohibit store employees from playing any lottery game "while working," according to the Phoenix New Times (3). Gawlitza may have known about that rule — which would explain why he clocked out and changed out of his uniform before buying the ticket.

Having 25 unsold tickets sitting around is unusual, former Arizona Lottery spokesman John Edgar told the Phoenix New Times. While some retailers pre-print tickets during big jackpot runs, it's in the retailer's interest to sell every ticket it prints since it pays for them regardless.

Circle K cited the retailer-ownership rule in its complaint but stopped short of claiming outright ownership. Instead, the company is asking the court to decide whether the ticket was validly sold, who lawfully owns it and who gets the $12.8 million.

The Arizona Lottery, named as a defendant in the suit, said it's never dealt with anything like this. "This is a unique situation, and we are not aware of any prior litigation of this sort involving the Arizona Lottery," a spokesperson told AZFamily (2).

There's also a ticking clock. The ticket must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing — that deadline is May 23, 2026. If nobody makes a valid claim by then, a portion of the jackpot goes to the Lottery's beneficiaries, and the rest goes back into the prize pool, according to Hoodline (4). It's happened before in Arizona — a $14.6 million The Pick jackpot went unclaimed in 2019, and the money was redirected.

Store employees have tried this before — it rarely works out

The Arizona Lottery may not have seen this exact situation, but store employees and lottery insiders have a long track record of trying to claim prizes. It rarely ends well.

Casey's General Store, Iowa (2022)

The closest parallel is Aaron McVicker, a Casey's General Store manager in Dubuque, Iowa. In November 2022, a Powerball ticket printed at his store was treated as a mistake ticket and set aside unsold. When an employee scanned it the next day and found it was worth $100,000, McVicker reportedly came to the store and bought it, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch (5).

Casey's fired him. The company said he violated store policy and lied multiple times during the investigation. An administrative law judge denied his request for unemployment benefits, ruling that he'd bought the ticket "only after confirming it was a winning ticket" and that, as a store manager, he was "held to a higher standard than other employees."

Iowa Lottery spokesperson Mary Neubauer noted that when a ticket is printed in error and not sold in time for the drawing, it stays the property of the business that generated it. "There have been instances through the years where a retail location has claimed a prize from a ticket it owned after printing it in error," she told Iowa Capital Dispatch.

As of the last available reporting, the $100,000 prize had not been presented to the Iowa Lottery for payment. Iowa Powerball prizes must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing.

Massachusetts, $3 million ticket (2023)

In Lakeville, Massachusetts, a convenience store clerk named Carly Nunes pocketed a $3 million winning Mega Millions ticket that a customer had left behind after buying chips and lottery tickets, according to CBS News (6). She tried to claim the prize at lottery headquarters with a ticket that was torn and appeared to be burned. When lottery officials got suspicious, Nunes told them she'd bought the ticket herself and the damage was from accidentally placing it on a pipe.

Surveillance footage told a different story. After a month-long investigation, Massachusetts State Police tracked down the rightful winner, Paul Little, who got his jackpot, NBC Boston reported (7). Nunes pleaded guilty to presentation of a false claim and was sentenced to two years of probation. Little told NBC Boston that Nunes was young enough to learn from the mistake: "I wish her the best and pray good things come her way."

The Hot Lotto scandal (2010)

Then there's Eddie Tipton — the security director for the Multi-State Lottery Association, the very organization responsible for running Hot Lotto. According to ABC News (8), Tipton used his access to install malicious code on the random number generator and rigged drawings in multiple states.

His scheme started falling apart when he tried to claim a $14.3 million Iowa jackpot through an anonymous offshore trust in Belize. Iowa rules don't allow anonymous prize claims, so the payout was rejected. When authorities released surveillance footage from the convenience store where the ticket was purchased, a former co-worker identified Tipton.