Texas lottery players are fighting for 'their' money

A group of people in Texas thought they won big money from scratch-off lottery tickets when they actually didn't win a thing. They're now fighting for prize money and claim the rules were misleading.

The lottery game is called Fun 5's, and it has five different scratch-off games on each ticket. It's the fifth tic-tac-toe-style game that's caused so much confusion.

The first sentence of the rules of the fifth game reads, "Reveal three '5' symbols in any one row, column or diagonal, win PRIZE in PRIZE box." The second reads, "Reveal a Money Bag symbol in the 5x BOX, win 5 times that PRIZE."

The problem is that people are seeing those two sentences as two separate opportunities to win rather than the second being a multiplier of any tic-tac-toe winnings.

Hundreds of complaints started rolling in to the Texas Lotto Report, a website that's well-known for updates on drawing results and payouts.

The owner of the website told KENS: "The Texas Lottery really messed up on this ticket."

Houston Attorney Manfred Sternberg is representing 20 people and counting. He tells KRIV why the rules are misleading.

Attorney Manfred Sternberg told KRIV: "If they really meant those sentences have to be read together, they should've either made one sentence or put the word 'and' in between those two sentences."

A spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery Commission told KXAS via email that multiple steps are often involved in their games when large prizes are at stake:

"We often have various multiplier features and prize amounts on the face of a ticket, not only to add variety to the game, but also as a security measure."

KRIV reports that the people Sternberg is representing are asking for $500,000 each.

However, this isn't the first time people have been misled by scratch-off ticket instructions. In 2007, a 'Cool Cash' ticket confused so many players in the U.K. that it was taken off the shelves.

The "Fun 5's" have only been out since early September and there are already about 16 million in circulation.

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