13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Winning lottery ticket tossed away, buyer claims

Winning lottery ticket tossed away, buyer claims

Chris Proffitt/Eyewitness News

Brown County, June 23 - Something big is bugging Termite "300,000." Termite is the name that car salesman Richard Allender goes by, and $300,000 is the amount of money he think he won in a March muti-state Powerball jackpot.

The problem is that he doesn't have the ticket. "Everybody spends a dollar hoping that their dreams come true. My dream's kinda in the air."

Termite faithfully plays the lottery at a Trafalgar convenience store which sold a $100,000 winning ticket on March 12th, the night that Termite says he bought several lottery tickets, including two Powerball quick picks. Store surveillance tape shows him buying tickets that night, one that was a loser and one that he threw away and now believes was the winner.

"They're saying from the lottery commission that's not near the time that the person that bought the ticket." Termite hired a private investigator and attorney to prove the claim that he may be the winner. They're using the store surveillance tape to prove he bought tickets. Now he's suing the lottery to reveal the exact moment the winner bought the ticket.

Jack Ross is the Hoosier Lottery Director. "The evidence he gave us apparently does not jive with the evidence we have when the ticket was sold."

In rare circumstances, the lottery may pay a winner that can't produce a ticket, but must wait six months for a prize to be claimed.

In any case, Termite must wait another three months before the lottery will reveal what time the winning ticket was bought, for now putting a sizeable downpayment on a lottery dream on hold.