Better late than never for Powerball winner

Saturday, May 20, 2006 posted 04:27 AM EDT

JEFFERSON CITY - Lottery officials are worried about the potential national implications of a court ruling that Missouri must pay out a $100,000 Powerball ticket claimed long after its six-month redemption window closed.

Powerball is played in 28 states, and the time frame for claiming tickets is generally six months or a year.

Paul Barnett, of Dyersburg, Tenn., bought a winning Powerball ticket in Missouri on Dec. 21, 2002, but lost it in his pickup truck for several months before trying to redeem it Nov. 1, 2003 - missing Missouri’s recently enacted six-month deadline.

In upholding a lower court order to pay Barnett anyway, a Missouri appeals court this week said information printed on the back of the lottery ticket describing the six-month window was not a valid contract because players wouldn’t know the deadline until after they purchased the ticket.

Chuck Strutt, director of the Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, which oversees the Powerball game, said he has yet to review the decision but that deadline information is generally a matter of law or rule to which the courts should defer.

"Should it stand, it would certainly change the way lottery tickets are sold in this country," he said. "You would have to sign a contract to buy a lottery ticket. Certainly all the lotteries are going to talk about it."

Missouri Lottery officials are pondering their next legal step, but for now have not paid Barnett’s ticket nor changed how they handle winning tickets, executive director Larry Jansen said yesterday. But he noted few people would fall into Barnett’s situation because most claim lottery prizes within a month.

"We don’t have any outstanding jackpots. This was kind of a unique situation," he said. "We’re advising people that we are continuing to process tickets as we always have."

Barnett isn’t the only winner to come forward too late. A man bought a winning $5.8 million Connecticut Lotto ticket in October 1995 and missed the one-year deadline to redeem it by three days. Lottery officials refused to pay, and lawmakers in that state have made several unsuccessful attempts to allow him to collect the money.

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