My Ticket Is Damaged … Can It Still Be Cashed?

A player contacted us last night with a question that comes up every once in a while about tickets that have been damaged. Specifically, can a ticket still be checked or cashed if the code on it is damaged? Many times, yes. But there are limits.

The player said the barcode on his scratch ticket that’s normally scanned to check the results had gotten stuck on some tape and torn off. He wondered if the results of the ticket could still be checked.

Often there is a way for that to happen.

Each lottery ticket has identifying numbers on it that can manually be entered into a lottery terminal to check the results of the ticket.

It’s not something you as a player can do using a self-service kiosk or self-checker in a store or the lottery's mobile app on your smartphone – the ticket code is required in those instances. But if the code can’t be read and the rest of the ticket is still in good condition, the clerk at a lottery terminal in a retail location or a staffer at one of our lottery offices can manually key in the identifying numbers from the ticket to check its results.

If the clerk at your local store doesn’t know how to do that, they can always call the Iowa Lottery’s retail hotline for help. Instructions for how to send us the ticket are here on our website.

But if a ticket is too badly damaged, not even we’ll be able to determine its results. Through the years, we’ve seen tickets that had disintegrated into tiny pieces after mistakenly being put through the wash. Others had been torn, and the player involved had only a small section of the ticket without any identifying numbers on it.

We’ll always do our best to help, but as is the case with any paper product, lottery tickets can be damaged. It’s important to keep your tickets in as good of shape as possible so you can claim any prize you’ve won!

Comments

[Mary Neubauer]

Hi, Hope. The code makes checking the ticket a quick and easy process, but there is a manual way for the ticket to be checked if the code is damaged. If the retailer is not familiar with how to key in the identifying numbers on the ticket, they can call our retailer hotline and someone can help them through the process step by step.

[Hope E Meyers]

What if the retailer is the one who damaged the ticket and because of that won't redeem it because he scratched the area too hard.