Here’s what happened. On October 16, 2016, Ward Thomas of Long Beach, California, sent his 16-year-old son, Benjamin, into a Mobil station on Bellflower Boulevard with 12 winning “Deluxe 7’s” Scratchers worth $330. It was a simple enough errand: trade the winnings for five new $20 tickets and bring home the remaining $230.
Then came the stuff of fantasy for lottery players.
At home that night, Thomas scratched the tickets and found a “100X The Money” ticket carrying a staggering $5 million prize. He validated it at a Long Beach 7-Eleven at about 9:54 p.m., then had it validated again at the California Lottery’s Santa Ana district office the following day. According to his lawsuit, officials initially confirmed that he had a winning ticket…