When Ildefonso Zavala bought a PowerBall ticket in February from Big Art's No. 2 Chevron gasoline station on Grand Avenue in Nogales, he and the clerk thought he had won $4. The machine didn't agree.

Rules for game

The rules for the game say that the customer must pick five numbers between 0 and 100. Each Saturday, five balls are drawn from a machine. The Jackpot for that Saturday, Feb. 18, was $365 million. Zavala didn't win the jackpot but he did get one number right, 15. That 15 meant that he made $4 off his $1 investment. But when he went to pick up the money from Big Art's, the lottery machine told Zavala and the clerk that the ticket was not a winner.

The clerk, Sergio Rodriguez paid Zavala his $4, but then began to wonder what was wrong with the machine and, more importantly, how often such mistakes happen.

He sent a copy of the ticket, the winning numbers and the receipt from the machine that said, "Sorry, not a winner" to the Arizona lottery.

Jeff Uptegrove, a special investigator at the lottery, sent a short reply: "Thank you for sending in the information in reference to your ... ticket. To maintain the integrity of the Arizona State Lottery, no further action can be taken until the original ticket is sent in with a claim form. I understand the reluctance to give up your ticket, however, as stated above, nothing can be done until that is received."

Scanned rapidly

In a later interview by telephone, Uptegrove said that although he could not act on the matter officially, he had looked into the transaction report from Big Art's. The transaction showed numerous tickets scanned rapidly before the winner that read "not a winner."

"We see it happen all the time," Uptegrove said. "The clerk will be busy, trying to scan tickets as quickly as possible and when the winner comes up, he or she just doesn't see it. Then the customer says, 'I won,' and the clerk thinks the machine misread the ticket."

He added that similar circumstances occur when a ticket is accidentally scanned twice. A winner will read "already paid," because the scanner has already passed over it without the clerk's or customer's knowledge.

"The terminal doesn't lie," Uptegrove said. "There was no mistake at the machine."

Rodriguez is adamant that he had not made a mistake. He said he entered the ticket manually and it still read, "not a winner." Unfortunately, that is as far as the matter can go unless the original ticket is produced.