Arizona Court Gets Strange $12.8M Lottery Ownership Case

A $12.8 million Arizona Lottery prize remains unclaimed after a Scottsdale Circle K manager bought leftover tickets the morning after the winning draw.

Good to Know

• The winning ticket came from 25 tickets a customer left behind.
• Circle K manager Robert Gawlitza later bought the remaining tickets for $10.
• A judge may need to act before the May 23, 2026 claim deadline.

Judge Must Decide Who Owns The Ticket

Circle K has the winning ticket in a corporate safe. Robert Gawlitza signed it. The Arizona Lottery has been pulled into the case so it must follow the court ruling. And somewhere, an unnamed customer left behind the ticket that matched all six numbers in The Pick.

The dispute began on November 24, 2025, when a customer asked a clerk to replay lottery numbers at a Scottsdale Circle K. The clerk printed 85 tickets at $1 each. The customer paid for 60 and left 25 on the counter.

One of those 25 won the fourth-largest prize in the history of The Pick. The odds were about one in seven million.

Gawlitza arrived the next morning, learned a jackpot ticket had been printed at his store, found the unsold batch, and confirmed the winner. According to the case, he then clocked out, changed out of his uniform, and asked another employee to ring up all 25 tickets for $10.

Circle K rejected that as a valid path to the money. The company filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, asking a judge to decide whether the ticket belongs to the company, Gawlitza, or another party.

Arizona rules may help Circle K. Printed tickets that customers do not buy become retailer property, and retailers pay the Arizona Lottery for every ticket printed. Still, Gawlitza has a receipt and a signed ticket, which gives the court a very unusual question: can a store manager become a regular customer after learning a ticket already won?

Time makes the case harder. Arizona lottery prizes expire 180 days after the draw, putting the deadline at May 23, 2026. Circle K has asked the court to pause that deadline, with a hearing set for May 15.

One Phoenix attorney following the case said: “This will totally be a question on the State Bar. So law students, beware, this case is coming to you.”

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