Was the ticket counterfeit?? NOPE
Was the ticket a misprint??? NOPE

So WHY would California refuse to pay out the $5M winning ticket???

The California Lottery claims the ticket was purchased by the claimants underage son.. The man sent his son in with a couple low level cash winners to exchange for what would be the winning ticket and a couple others.. The CA Lottery said they investigate all winners including surveillance footage to ascertain if anything untoward happened when the ticket was purchased (in otherwards we have winning tickets out there and we want to find any loophole to NOT PAY out our obligations under the Lottery program)

The claimant is now suing both the Lottery and the store where the ticket was "exchanged" for what is stated as >50K each..

I get the lottery doesn't condone underage purchases but the argument could be made the minor didn't buy anything he simply exchanged the other tickets for more tickets.. Going to be interesting to see how this plays out and if Cali settles it out of court..

http://rare.us/rare-news/a-californi...r-this-reason/