Circle K Worker Paid $10 for Left Behind Lottery Ticket Worth $12.8M
Robert Gawlitza says he clocked out and paid $10 for tickets a customer left behind at a Circle K in Maricopa County, Arizona. One was worth $12.8 million, and on Friday 6 November 2026 a judge ruled that ownership must be settled before anything else.
The tickets belonged to nobody in particular. According to the employees' account, a customer bought lottery tickets in 2025 at a Circle K near 56th Street and Bell Road, ran short of cash for the full set and left the rest on the counter. The day after the drawing, Gawlitza says he clocked out and paid $10 for them himself, following what he describes as a store practice for tickets customers never paid for. One of them turned out to be the $12.8 million jackpot. Ten dollars for nearly thirteen million. GLUWGU.
Then the fight started. Circle K took the ticket and fired Gawlitza, along with the co-worker who rang up the sale. The company points to an Arizona Lottery rule that gives retailers the printed tickets that go unsold. Gawlitza's lawyer says Circle K only discovered it had no such policy at the moment the ticket became worth $12.8 million. Now three sides want it: the company, the two former employees and the customer who asked for the tickets and couldn't pay.
On Friday 6 November 2026, a Maricopa County judge refused to throw out the former employees' counterclaims, but put six of the seven on hold. Nothing moves, he said, until the court decides who owns the ticket. The ruling does not say who gets the money. The Arizona Lottery is still holding it.
Every hand in this story is a gamble. The customer bet on a set of numbers. The clerk bet $10, and perhaps his job, that a store custom would hold up in court. The long nose of the Spirit has seen stranger tables, but rarely one with three chairs claimed for the same chip.
The house always wins, they say. In Maricopa County, the court has yet to say which house.
Clocked out, paid $10 for the leftovers: fair play or foul?
No right answer. Just your gut, and the Spirit watching.
