Fury of dad denied a £200,000 win over ‘altered’ scratchcard
A FATHER of four accused of forging a scratchcard to try and win £200,000 insisted last night: “I’m no cheat”.
Eric Walker, 56, made a claim with a “winning” ticket where the letter F appeared to have been changed to E.
Camelot has refused to pay up and is reporting the matter to police.
But last night Mr Walker denied tampering with the £3 Pharaoh’s Fortune card and said the anomaly must have been caused by a misprint.
He said: “In my eyes I’ve won £200,000 and I’m being cheated out of the money.
Pressure
“They’re trying to tell me that an F has been changed to an E but I bought the ticket and scratched it myself. I haven’t doctored it, I’m not trying to cheat.
“If it’s a misprint then that’s their fault and they should still pay out, it’s nothing to do with me.
“I’m going to keep pressure on Camelot to sort this out, I’m not willing to let it go.”
Jobless Mr Walker bought the scratchcard from a Premier corner shop near his house in Sheffield three weeks ago and claims he scratched it straight away.
He says the money would be “life changing” for him and partner Amanda Emmadi, 37. The lottery addict, who buys six scratchcards a day with his benefits handouts, has four children aged between 14 months and nine years of age.
The Pharaoh’s Fortune scratchcards contain 16 co-ordinates which players use to scratch off squares on a grid in the hope of revealing and matching three pharaoh symbols.
On Mr Walker’s card, the co-ordinate F5 appears to have been changed to E5 – the location of one of three Pharaoh symbols.
A Camelot spokesman said: “Based on the photo we were sent, we were able to re-construct the scratchcard in our system.
“We can confirm that an F has been altered to appear as an E and is therefore not a winning Scratchcard.” The company said the incident would be reported to South Yorkshire Police and said the Pharaoh’s Fortune scratchcard had not been taken off the shelves due to any potential printing error.
The spokesman added: “I can confirm that the scratchcard has not been recalled and we will be reporting this matter to the police.”