The couple tries to win Mega-Sena with a damaged ticket and loses the case

A Rio Grande do Sul couple appealed to receive money from the 2014 Mega-Sena draws. The prize was 29 million Brazilian reals, but TRF-4 (Federal District Fourth District Court) decided that their ticket was too damaged to be valid.

The man and the woman were betting together at the lottery, but in oversight, the contest card 1621 would have ended up in the washing machine with their clothes on. Despite this, they appealed that the winning numbers and the identification of the competition were still legible.

Since Caixa Econômica Federal assessed that the ticket was invalid and rewarded someone else, the couple went to court to try to get the money. But they lost the case, because the lawsuit concluded that the lottery slip had no features for identifying the issue date and contest number.

Subsequently, the First Federal Court in Porto Alegre demanded that the spouses pay a fine equivalent to 2% of the premium amount for litigation in bad faith. In TRF-4, federal judge Carla Evelise Justino Hendges preserved the trial nullifying the ticket, but nullifying the penalty.

According to the judge, there is no evidence that the spouses filed the lawsuit with an illegal purpose. Therefore, it was decided that the lottery could not be won with drafts, fragments of tickets or witness testimonies.