NSW Lotteries takes a bath in $100,000 fight
Jennie Curtin
August 19, 2010
A winner after all ... Bale Kuzmanovski's ticket.
BALE KUZMANOVSKI'S pulse began to race when he scratched the lottery ticket his wife had bought him as a birthday present. He saw a picture of a swimmer next to the word ''bathe'' - a winning match.
The size of the cash prize was even more extraordinary. Believing he had won $100,000 Mr Kuzmanovski felt an ''explosion of elation''.
But NSW Lotteries begged to differ. The swimmer did not match the word ''bathe'', it argued. The correct image was a bathtub. The symbol Mr Kuzmanovski had uncovered was only a winner if it was accompanied by the word ''swim''.
The matter went to the Federal Court and, this week, Justice Steven Rares agreed with Mr Kuzmanovski. He ordered NSW Lotteries to pay the $100,000.
The saga began in July 2007 when Elizabeth Kuzmanovski bought her husband two $5 Pictionary scratch lottery tickets from a Parramatta newsagency, a common birthday present during their marriage. After his apparent success, he and his wife turned their thoughts to how they would spend the money: reducing the mortgage, perhaps a family trip to visit his sick grandmother in Macedonia.
But the next day the newsagent ran the card through the machine, coming up with the ''not a winning ticket'' message. Mr Kuzmanovski said he had been deeply angry, felt cheated and spent a sleepless night.
The couple argued in court that ''bathe'' meaning ''swim'' was the definition given in at least four dictionaries sold in Australia. Lotteries NSW countered with the Macquarie Dictionary meaning: "Chiefly British: to swim for pleasure''. Justice Rares concluded that ''an ordinary and natural meaning in Australian English usage of 'bathe' is 'swim'''.
NSW Lotteries will have to pay three years' interest on the prize and the Kuzmanovskis' legal costs.
Jennie Curtin
August 19, 2010
A winner after all ... Bale Kuzmanovski's ticket.
BALE KUZMANOVSKI'S pulse began to race when he scratched the lottery ticket his wife had bought him as a birthday present. He saw a picture of a swimmer next to the word ''bathe'' - a winning match.
The size of the cash prize was even more extraordinary. Believing he had won $100,000 Mr Kuzmanovski felt an ''explosion of elation''.
But NSW Lotteries begged to differ. The swimmer did not match the word ''bathe'', it argued. The correct image was a bathtub. The symbol Mr Kuzmanovski had uncovered was only a winner if it was accompanied by the word ''swim''.
The matter went to the Federal Court and, this week, Justice Steven Rares agreed with Mr Kuzmanovski. He ordered NSW Lotteries to pay the $100,000.
The saga began in July 2007 when Elizabeth Kuzmanovski bought her husband two $5 Pictionary scratch lottery tickets from a Parramatta newsagency, a common birthday present during their marriage. After his apparent success, he and his wife turned their thoughts to how they would spend the money: reducing the mortgage, perhaps a family trip to visit his sick grandmother in Macedonia.
But the next day the newsagent ran the card through the machine, coming up with the ''not a winning ticket'' message. Mr Kuzmanovski said he had been deeply angry, felt cheated and spent a sleepless night.
The couple argued in court that ''bathe'' meaning ''swim'' was the definition given in at least four dictionaries sold in Australia. Lotteries NSW countered with the Macquarie Dictionary meaning: "Chiefly British: to swim for pleasure''. Justice Rares concluded that ''an ordinary and natural meaning in Australian English usage of 'bathe' is 'swim'''.
NSW Lotteries will have to pay three years' interest on the prize and the Kuzmanovskis' legal costs.
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