ELMIRA, N.Y. -- A man playing the New York Lottery's newest scratch-off game couldn't believe his eyes when he realized not only was his ticket a loser -- it was actually insulting too.
"Unfortunately it says, 'you Elmira trash' on it. I'm a little offended by it for being a local here in Elmira, New York," Nick Lynogh told WETM.
"When I looked at it, I thought it was a fake ticket. Usually, most of my friends used to play some of those old fake ticket tricks on me and that's what I first thought it was. Unfortunately, it was a loser and I was like, 'Holy cow, I can't believe it literally said that,'" Lynogh said.
Authorities investigated and determined the ticket was real.
A New York Lottery spokesperson told WETM:
“The unfortunate arrangement of words on this individual ticket was completely random, coincidental and -- most importantly -- unintentional. As soon as the ticket was brought to our attention, we immediately contacted the ticket printing vendor to remove the word “trash” from being a possible result for any future game. We apologize to anyone who was offended by this unfortunate result."
"They could have had it as for any other city such as Onienta; they could have had it for Binghampton; they could have had it for Ithaca. But why Elmira?" Lynogh said.
According to the Gaming Commission, the odds of those words being selected in that order are 1 in 900 million.
