Circle K worker bought customer's abandoned lottery ticket after clocking out; it won $12.8 million, now a judge has allowed a legal fight

A customer walked into a convenience store in Arizona to buy lottery tickets, ran short of cash and left some of them behind. By the next morning, one of those unpaid tickets had become a multimillion-dollar mystery. A store manager who discovered that it matched all six winning numbers decided to buy it himself after clocking out, removing his uniform and paying $10. The ticket was worth nearly $12.8 million. But instead of collecting a fortune, the employee found himself in a legal battle with his former employer, Circle K, over who actually owned the winning slip. Now, nearly a year after the drawing, a judge has allowed the dispute to move forward, according to a report by NBC Palm Springs, although the question of who gets the money remains unanswered.The case centres on Robert Gawlitza, a former manager at a Circle K convenience store near 56th Street and Bell Road in Scottsdale, Arizona. The winning ticket belonged to The Pick, an Arizona Lottery game in which players must match six numbers drawn to win the jackpot.According to court filings, the incident began on November 24, 2025, when a customer asked a store employee to print $85 worth of lottery tickets. She paid $60 but did not have enough money to cover the remaining $25 worth.