Hello and welcome in. I thought at first I’d have another astounding story about “found money” (as we did in Vegas when I came upon this ticket in the parking lot of a casino). You know me – always looking down expecting to find something: a dime, an American penny, a feather or even, in this case, a ticket.
 

 

 
Rob was heading out to the store yesterday and found this on the ground.
 

 
He brought it back into the house, where I was researching another Walmart article, and told me he had a little “project” for me. I immediately started thinking about the winnings. You know me: if I found a pile of manure I’d be digging through it looking for the proverbial pony that must be somewhere in there!
 
Then I started wondering, well, would we have to find the person who lost this ticket? What if it was one of the hardworking gardeners or construction folks toiling away in the sun who had lost their ticket to a better life? Would I go and look for its rightful owner or just cash in and keep the windfall? 
 
I needn’t have worried; someone threw away the ticket for a reason. Ah, well.
 
Then I remembered a story one of our guests pointed out to me on the weekend: in Paradise, Newfoundland, a woman had allegedly used a stolen credit card to buy lottery tickets. One Super Crossword scratch hit for the princely sum of $50,000.
 
Before we heard the outcome of the story, we started to wonder: would she, as the possessor of the winning ticket, have a rightful claim to its winnings, even though she’d allegedly come by them through nefarious means? Or would the $50,000 go to the person whose credit card she’d used? Perhaps she’d be fined $50,000 and the money would go to the man whose card had been stolen to begin with! 
 
Nope – none of those scenarios came to pass. When she showed up to cash in her winning ticket, she was charged with two counts of possessing a stolen credit card and five counts of fraud (as well as driving with a suspended license and without insurance). Suffice it to say her experience will not be one that shows up in a TV ad!
 
And it turns out the Atlantic Lottery rules state that no payment will be made in the case of winnings that are achieved through criminal means. So, no pay, no win, no bonus for the man who’d had his card stolen, no $50,000 punishment for the woman who allegedly stole the card and used it to buy tickets. Darn! I could see this becoming a great Judge Judy episode at its best, or at the very least, a case of karma coming back to bite one person and reward another. It’s too bad, really. 
 
The whole story made me wish I had a radio show so we could debate it. But grateful to have this journal, where I could share the story and the different angles with you! Here’s the story.
 
Tomorrow I’m going to share with you the difference between hotels that claim to be “pet friendly,” but hold you and your pet hostage, and ones that actually are. And let you bring them for free! 
 
Take good care, come on back tomorrow and we’ll wrap up this work week together.