Arizona has a $12.8 million lottery controversy on its hands

Last November, somebody won the Arizona Lottery. But no one’s quite sure who, and now Circle K is asking a Maricopa County court to sort it out.

On Nov. 24, according to a lawsuit Circle K filed earlier this week, an unknown person walked into the Circle K on Bell Road and 56th Street in Scottsdale. The customer asked for several tickets for The Pick, a game in which players try to match six numbers that are drawn three times a week. The clerk printed 85 tickets, which cost a dollar each, but the customer paid for only 60. The remaining 25 tickets, the suit states, “were set aside but were not sold to another customer.”

That evening, one of those unsold tickets matched all six numbers, hitting the jackpot. The Arizona Lottery says the odds of a ticket hitting all six are roughly one in 7 million. News reports said the jackpot was worth $12.8 million.

The next morning, per the lawsuit, store manager Robert Gawlitza showed up for work and realized his store had sold the winning ticket. He found the winner among the unsold tickets from the day before and then clocked out, removed his uniform, and had another employee “sell” him the ticket for $10. He was given a receipt and then signed the back of the ticket.

A crafty move, but Gawlitza may never see a dime of that money. That same day, Circle K corporate took possession of the ticket and has had it ever since. Now the company wants a judge to decide once and for all who owns the ticket. Lawyers for Circle K did not respond to requests or comment. New Times was able to contact Gawlitza, who is a defendant in the suit, but he has not offered any comment on the situation. The Arizona Lottery is also a defendant and declined to comment other than to offer a brief statement.

“The Arizona Lottery is aware of the legal matter concerning the winning jackpot of $12.8 million from the November 24, 2025, drawing of The Pick,” Arizona Lottery spokesperson Cydeni Carter said in an email. “This is a unique situation and we are not aware of any prior litigation of this sort involving the Arizona Lottery.”

Sorting out who owns what may be difficult. Gregg Edgar, who was the executive director of the Arizona Lottery from 2016 to 2023, says the situation is fairly unprecedented.

“I have not ever encountered something like this,” Edgar said after being told of the lawsuit.

Why lottery tickets go unsold

Arizona has plenty of rules governing who can win what in its lottery games, but this particular chain of events may have fallen between the cracks.

As Circle K’s lawsuit notes, the Arizona Administrative Code dictates that tickets that are printed but not sold become the property of the retailer that printed them. Retailers pay the Arizona Lottery for each ticket they print, whether or not those tickets are sold.

To have leftover tickets is not unheard of, Edgar said. When a big jackpot is driving sales, some retailers pre-print tickets to be quickly sold to customers who want them. Still, to have 25 unsold tickets sitting around is unusual, Edgar said. It’s in a retailer’s best interest to sell all printed tickets, since the retailer pays the Arizona Lottery for them regardless. Most retailers have their own rules about what to do with unsold tickets at the end of the day, he said. Circle K’s policies on the matter are unclear.

“I’m not saying that can’t happen. I’m just saying it’s unusual,” Edgar said. “That would somewhat reflect back to the retailer in terms of their own operation and how they handle that. Do they have rules for their folks? At the end of your shift, if you have lottery tickets sitting there, what do you do with them?”

That the ticket itself is legitimate is not in question — once it’s printed, it’s a legal wager, Edgar said. But what isn’t clear is whether Gawlitza could “buy” it the day after the drawing was held.

The Arizona Lottery has rules prohibiting clerks who sell lottery tickets from purchasing them while they’re “on duty.” Its retailer rules explicitly say that retailers can lose their license to sell lottery tickets if an employee “plays any Lottery game while working.” Gawlitza may have been aware of that prohibition, which would explain why he allegedly clocked out and changed out of his uniform before “purchasing” the winning ticket from a coworker.

‘A bit of an anomaly’

Edgar said it’s “generally not a space for the lottery to get in the middle of negotiating who the owner is in those situations” — though, as it’s named in the suit, the Arizona Lottery may have little choice.

After reading the lawsuit, Edgar offered his (nonbinding) opinion that the ticket probably belongs to Circle K. “It’s interesting to see where they’ll go,” he said. “At draw time, I would say that wager is sitting in the hands of the retailer.” Notably, Circle K is not specifically asking the court to stamp its own ownership claim. Instead, the convenience store giant is asking a judge to declare “whether the Ticket was validly sold and to whom” and “who is entitled to claim any prize proceeds.”

“It’s actually a pretty good approach from Circle K, in my opinion, in how they’re going about this,” Edgar said.

The clock is ticking. Winning tickets must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing, meaning Circle K or Gawlitza — or whoever else a court says is the rightful winner — has until May 23 to cash in. If nobody does, a portion of the $12.8 million jackpot will be directed to the Arizona Lottery’s beneficiaries, who receive funds from lottery purchases. The rest will go back into the prize pot for the next drawings. That happened in 2019, when a $14.6 million winning ticket went unclaimed.

That happens sometimes, such as when a ticket is lost. This one is accounted for, though. Circle K has it. But does Circle K own it?

“This,” Edgar said, “is a bit of an anomaly.”