I’m no lotto liar!
Father facing police probe for ‘faking’ £200,000 jackpot insists he didn’t doctor his scratchcard
A FATHER of four yesterday denied tampering with a National Lottery scratchcard to win a £200,000 jackpot.
Eric Walker, 56, claimed the cash after apparently scratching off three matching symbols on a £3 Pharoah’s Fortune card.
But lottery organiser Camelot has refused to pay up, saying he changed an ‘F’ to an ‘E’ so he would appear to have a winning scratchcard. It said it would report the incident to police.
Mr Walker, who buys six scratchcards a day, insists he won fair and square. ‘In my eyes I’ve won £200,000 and I’m being cheated out of the money,’ he said. ‘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.’
Mr Walker, who is unemployed, says he bought the scratchcard from a Premier corner shop near his home in Sheffield three weeks ago and scratched it straight away.
Pharaoh’s Fortune, which has five top prizes of £200,000, requires players to uncover 16 map coordinates and then scratch off corresponding squares on a game board.
Mr Walker’s card shows that he uncovered three pharaoh symbols on squares D1, E5 and A5 to win the jackpot. However, the E5 code appears to have been changed from an F5.
The F5 square on the card has also been scratched off, and shows a different symbol which would not win a prize. A Camelot spokesman said: ‘Based on the photo we were sent we were able to reconstruct the scratchcard in our system. We can confirm an F has been altered to appear as an E and [it] is therefore not a winning scratchcard.’
The spokesman added that Pharaoh’s Fortune scratchcards were still in circulation. ‘I can confirm that the scratchcard has not been recalled and we will be reporting this matter to the police,’ he added.
Mr Walker said the money would be life changing for him and his partner Amanda Emmadi, 37.
His children are aged between 14 months and nine years old.
In September a National Lottery winner was charged with fraud following concerns about the validity of a £2.5million winning ticket.
Camelot was fined £3million by the Gambling Commission for paying out on the claim. An investigation found the winning ticket did not have a working bar code.