9 Years Before He finally claim his lotto rewards

[Findingnemo]

These kinds of incidents are extremely unlikely to happen but it shows that even when luck is on your side destiny goes wrong. I would say its evident that the platform that conducted the lotto tried to avoid paying with such silly excuses but it's not going to be favorable for them when there is clear evidence that you won but something like this happened. I even saw many lottery winners who didn't even know they won a few million dollars but the companies reached out to them and handed over the rewards.

[Beparanf]

It's never good to have a rift with your kids, but i have really hard for me to believe that rift hapened only because of this.
And i am confused. Wouldn't the loser of the case need to cover all the expenses for the trials?

It’s understandable that he will have problem with his family since he is using too much resources on his case while there’s no guarantee that he can claim the prize. Probably, the daughter is sustaining his father just to keep up with the lawsuit that’s why she was angry. This is very common family problem in the Philippines since not all people is a believer when it comes to gambling claim especially if the chance of winning is very slim due to the void ticket.

Mendoza was clearly wronged and eligible for the prize money. Imagine him not fighting for it. That could leave some self-esteem issues for life.

I believe he will surely fight for it since he is an OFW which means he has money in savings. More importantly, he can stop working abroad if he will claim the prize which probably motivate him to pursue the lawsuit.

[swogerino]

Big big congrats to him that he never lost hope after so many years of suffering and this is a big role model for people who believe in that saying "the patient,the winner" as we say here where I live now,this man is an exact living example of such saying,personally I admire him,I would never have such big patience like this of this man.

As for the rifting it can be solved,everything can be solved and once you get the money you get the feeling of joy that very few individuals in this earth have felt,getting that huge amount of money for the country where this story is being lived.

[crwth]

A very lucky man despite the troubles that he experienced. At least he managed to get what he deserved. It's best that you don't let tickets hang around or let anyone near it that could destroy it unless it's already invalid. Great win plus the benefits of the additional percentage. Woo.

[electronicash]

These kinds of incidents are extremely unlikely to happen but it shows that even when luck is on your side destiny goes wrong. I would say its evident that the platform that conducted the lotto tried to avoid paying with such silly excuses but it's not going to be favorable for them when there is clear evidence that you won but something like this happened. I even saw many lottery winners who didn't even know they won a few million dollars but the companies reached out to them and handed over the rewards.

it's interesting to see they gave the winnings. considering the sweepstakes in our country does have rules that even crumpled tickets will not be accepted to claim the prize. it's gonna be deemed invalid.
  
it took so long for the court to decide, i wonder what arrangement they made and how much the lawyer gets for this arrangement. congrats to Mr Mendoza though. having 12M at this crisis time, the lawyer is a saviour.

[Slow death]

I believe that this problem dragged on for 9 years because the lottery company had not written down the names and lottery ticket numbers of each person who bought the lottery ticket, this would have prevented this problem from dragging on for 9 years, the lottery system Back then it was a failure, when people bought a lottery ticket, the lottery company didn't write down the person's name, didn't ask for the person's ID and didn't write down the person's lottery ticket number, so if the person lost their lottery ticket or damaged a number on the ticket but wrote down the numbers somewhere else, then that person lost the prize

but today with the development of technology we can see that when a lottery ticket is purchased, the person's details are noted in the system and when the winners are announced, the lottery company already knows the name, address, ID of the lottery winner and contacts him/her. for that person to collect the prize. It's been like that in my country. It's a very effective system in my opinion, because it prevents us from seeing cases like this from the OP. Now talking about this man's case, honestly he was very lucky

because as far as I know, in the past, particularly in the years since 2016, many lottery companies had a rule in their TOS which was the following: they did not accept that a damaged ticket would serve as proof to claim the lottery prize, and people agreed to this TOS when they purchased the lottery ticket, so it was people's responsibility to take good care of their tickets and if they were damaged, accept the consequences.

[knowngunman]

The moral of the story is that if you don’t want to throw money away, keep your winning lottery ticket intact until you receive your winnings, if the ticket turns out to be such.

As can be seen from this story, it was worth the wait, as well as the fight (to prove that you were right), because the hero of this story nevertheless achieved what he wanted, for which he can only be congratulated. He would have received his winnings immediately if he had ensured the safety of the lottery ticket. This was his mistake, for which he paid with many years of waiting. If he had lost the litigation, then all the money and time spent would have gone down the drain. Actually, this is a good ending to this story.

And now for a moment of fantasy. If this Filipino received his prize money on time and invested this money in the bitcoin, then by now he would already have a very good capital.

This is the type of comment I am looking for while scrolling down the thread. It baffle me how everyone is praising the man for fighting till the end and overlooking the fact that if he had taken good care of his ticket, there would be no all these dramas. I also applaud the man for fighting hard for his right but he caused it upon himself and there's no way they can deny him his reward if the ticket was very intact. This will definitely serve as an eye opener to rest of use that careless about our keeping our ticket safe. If you want to get your winnings without involving yourself in drama like this, you should keep the ticket dearly where children will not temper with it.

But, I think there's a duration to claim the winning and if it passes, the ticket becomes invalid. Or is there anything I am missing here?

[Accardo]

The moral of the story is that if you don’t want to throw money away, keep your winning lottery ticket intact until you receive your winnings, if the ticket turns out to be such.

As can be seen from this story, it was worth the wait, as well as the fight (to prove that you were right), because the hero of this story nevertheless achieved what he wanted, for which he can only be congratulated. He would have received his winnings immediately if he had ensured the safety of the lottery ticket. This was his mistake, for which he paid with many years of waiting. If he had lost the litigation, then all the money and time spent would have gone down the drain. Actually, this is a good ending to this story.

And now for a moment of fantasy. If this Filipino received his prize money on time and invested this money in the bitcoin, then by now he would already have a very good capital.

This is the type of comment I am looking for while scrolling down the thread. It baffle me how everyone is praising the man for fighting till the end and overlooking the fact that if he had taken good care of his ticket, there would be no all these dramas. I also applaud the man for fighting hard for his right but he caused it upon himself and there's no way they can deny him his reward if the ticket was very intact. This will definitely serve as an eye opener to rest of use that careless about our keeping our ticket safe. If you want to get your winnings without involving yourself in drama like this, you should keep the ticket dearly where children will not temper with it.

But, I think there's a duration to claim the winning and if it passes, the ticket becomes invalid. Or is there anything I am missing here?

Some people would think the game won't be fruitful and tend to drop their ticket carelessly. But, in the case of the man he noticed he won the game and went immediately to redeem his winning. But, with the rumpled paper not all information written on the paper were seen. Hence they declined it, that means he was right in time, but the dispute began with the rumpled paper. Before he had to file the case to a law court. It's not like the ticket was reading till the period of 9 years. No. They were already in court, with the both parties providing evidence to make each side look guilty. Luckily the man wasn't.

[Yogee]

@Yogee do you think the money if paid 9 years back would have been left today? The man must have finished the money. The equivalent of the money then and now is far very different, but the most important aspect of it, is that he got his money back.

Whether or not he spent it all if he received the jackpot 9 years ago is irrelevant but I'll engage. What if he could have used that money to invest in some properties and profited from them for 9 years? Just think of the cheaper price of properties back then and the income he could have earned from it until today. It's just fair that he also gets paid the equivalent of 12M today and compensated from those lost opportunities.

[Hirose UK]

$217k is very large amount that can even be used to change someone life, it is natural that he fights for the right to claim this prize with all the efforts he makes.
When you win series of problems like that, I sure everyone will do whatever it takes to get what they have in betting, even if they have to spend some money and sell property to be able to solve it and win the trial, but it all worth it, even the amount you get can be use it to buy a much larger property.
If this happens to me then I also try as hard as I can to win and take home the winnings to make my family happy.
It not about how long you have to wait and how much capital you have to use to win the trial, but about the right to win that can change everything.

[Porfirii]

A very interesting story coin-investor. I think that is important to highlight that the protagonist of the news didn't found a 9 years old ticket in a drawer and claimed it (it would be impossible as most lottery tickets have an expiration date) but he has been fighting for the last 9 years, which is different.

Good to remember that some tickets are thermal-printed, and if you apply a source of heat (ir simply by the rubbing inside your wallet) you can ruin them. So don't iron them either

[pinggoki]

My questions are :
Do you think it's worth the wait, he's getting 6% interest per annum but he still has to pay a lot of money and suffers a lot even to the point of having a rift with his daughter
Will you do the same thing and fight for your rights to claim the prize

Without the rift with his daughter, what he did was definitely worth it because you deserve the win and it's already proven that you've won the money fair and square and it's not like the expenses will make a big dent to his lottery winnings because that kind of money in the Philippines is already a lot and saying it's not worth to fight for makes all of the effort of fighting worthless and a waste of time, hopefully he can mend his relationship with his daughter, I am sure that all will end well for this man, 9 years of legal battle for what's rightfully for him is definitely a big thing.

[Strongkored]

My questions are :
Do you think it's worth the wait, he's getting 6% interest per annum but he still has to pay a lot of money and suffers a lot even to the point of having a rift with his daughter
Will you do the same thing and fight for your rights to claim the prize

of course not everyone will have the same thoughts as him and is willing to continue to try everything to get what should be his, grateful that he was finally able to get it even though there were many sacrifices that had to be made and seeing the value as it is a very high value for life in the Philippines and because I didn't read the article maybe the value he got was higher than what he sacrificed.
In this world there are people who will seek justice not just because of money but because they feel they are on the right side so they will not sacrifice the truth just because they are afraid that more will have to be sacrificed, and I think that is worth fighting for, even in my country there is a real story about a lawyer who sued a parking company because they miscalculated the amount of parking money so he was overpaid which was not even $1 in total and he had to go through 2 years of court proceedings to get the money back Source.
Sometimes it looks ridiculous but not everything can be measured in money, including lottery winners Of course he thinks like that, but when he can get more profits it is just a bonus from his fight.

[stadus]

The good thing is that the court has honored his winnings. I thought when a ticket is already destroyed, it's automatically non-acceptable, but the ruling of the court favors him but the sad part is after nine long years. What kind of justice system is that?

I have followed this story and the high court is right in presenting the decision to award the prize based on the article provided by OP

The High Court also explained that the circumstances surrounding the fact that Mendoza won the lotto were clearly established. Despite the RTC and CA’s characterization of Mendoza’s evidence as secondary, the SC said “secondary evidence may be resorted to when the original document is unavailable.”

Hence the secondary evidence pointed him to be the winner and besides no other came forward to claim the prize only him, It is a total injustice if he is deprived of the prize when there is a piece of physical evidence presented although partly damaged, this is a landmark case and the court have uphold justice that the winner deserves his prize, the winner suffers a lot and its not good to go to another hardship all through his life by having his appeal denied.

Certainly, the Supreme Court made the right call, and I'd say justice was served. However, what irks me about this story is that it took them a delay of 9 years to reach a decision on such a simple case. Considering it's a government agency involved, you'd think they could have expedited the investigation.

I don't know, perhaps the lottery winner gradually lost hope of ever getting their prize, so they must have been extremely happy when the decision finally came out.

[lienfaye]

Do you think it's worth the wait, he's getting 6% interest per annum but he still has to pay a lot of money and suffers a lot even to the point of having a rift with his daughter
Will you do the same thing and fight for your rights to claim the prize

It's all worth is since he won the battle. He got what he deserved now so all of the sacrifices financially, physically and mentally are now paid off. Although it took 9 years to finally claimed the price, at least it has a happy ending.

The lesson here is keep your ticket safe until you see the result. Because who knows you might be destined to become a lotto winner.

[piebeyb]

He is not wrong to keep trying to fight for it because it is his right, after all it is not a small amount of money so he deserves to chase and fight for it to be able to get the money even though it has to take a very long time, there is no problem as long as the money can be disbursed by him and he has got it, we will not never knew how much money he had spent playing the lottery let alone the losses, so he deserved his reward.

This problem will definitely provide an important lesson for him to look for an official and trusted lottery place so that something like this doesn't happen again, although I admit there were mistakes made by his grandson, but at least he is lucky to have managed to get his win now even though the struggle took 9 year. 

[Mauser]

My questions are :
Do you think it's worth the wait, he's getting 6% interest per annum but he still has to pay a lot of money and suffers a lot even to the point of having a rift with his daughter
Will you do the same thing and fight for your rights to claim the prize

200k USD seems like a lot of money to me and in the Philippines this should last a long time, but ruining your family over it doesn't seem worth it. First of all, I can understand the man that he feels cheated and wants to get what is owed to him. In his shoes I would have also got a lawyer and went to the courts, even if my chances of winning are not that high I would have still tried to get my money. The issue is that as soon as we feel in the right,  it becomes a fight for the truth and most people are willing to risk a lot of money and also time to get their way. When a dispute lasts for such a long time it becomes easy to get stuck in it, which is also the risk to ruin the relationship with your family over it. I would have done the same thing to take lawyers threaten to battle it out in courts, but I would have tried to find a compromise along the way. What surpises me the most that there was no real offer from the casino early on to the settle the case. Both the casino and the gambler could have saved  a lot of money and time with a compromise. Instead of winning 200k USD after many years of legal disputes, it would have been fine to take 50% of the money directly and saving the relationship with your family.

[Fiatless]

My questions are :
Do you think it's worth the wait, he's getting 6% interest per annum but he still has to pay a lot of money and suffers a lot even to the point of having a rift with his daughter
Will you do the same thing and fight for your rights to claim the prize

Antonio Mendoza is indeed a motivation to the gambling community for his patience and doggedness. Although he had to suffer so much mental, financial and even emotional loss in the course of these protracted legal battles the good news is that he won the case and will receive his reward. He will indeed spend some money on legal fees, tax and other incurred expenses but at least he would be left with some money. It is also good that he was given 6% to cover the effect of inflation on his win since the Philippines' highest inflation rate for the past nine years is 5.82%.

I don't think I would have been patient enough to keep fighting for nine years. Maybe he has a good legal team and family members who kept motivating him to keep fighting till the end. This process will be frustrating, energy and financially consuming. Many people just like me would have seen it as bad luck and continued our normal lives.

The Philippine's legal system should also receive an accolade for standing with an ordinary citizen. Most of these gambling firms are influential and heavily connected. They would have influenced the outcome of the legal matters if the judiciary was corrupt.

[bitbollo]

Disputes over winnings are not at all that uncommon.
The same occurred here in Italy too, where a winner of a big prize was denied because although he had a receipt, the bet had not been recorded by the electronic systems!
In the end? He lost the legal claim! and of course he has to pay all legal expense

[Yogee]

[....]
However, what irks me about this story is that it took them a delay of 9 years to reach a decision on such a simple case. Considering it's a government agency involved, you'd think they could have expedited the investigation.

The time is reasonable if we look at the process.
- The Regional Trial Court ruled in favor of the bettor but the PCSO appealed and brought it to the Court of Appeals.
- The Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the RTC but the PCSO still not convinced so they went to the highest court.
- The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the two lower courts.

The PCSO have all the resources so they exercised all their legal options and that's why it took a total of 9 years to come to a decision with finality. That means there will be no more appeals.