Circle K, two former employees, and a customer all claim the same $12.8 million winning lottery ticket

The fight over a $12.8 million Arizona Lottery ticket is headed for trial. On Friday, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge put six of seven counterclaims against Circle K on hold and ruled that the court has to settle who owns the ticket before anything else. Three different sides want the prize. Circle K, two former employees, and the customer who asked for the tickets but couldn't pay for all of them. The Arizona Lottery is holding the prize.

The ticket dates to November 24, 2025. According to Circle K's complaint, a customer at the store at 56th Street and Bell Road asked for $85 worth of The Pick tickets at $1 each, but paid for only $60. The other 25 tickets were set aside and never sold. The next day, the complaint says, store manager Robert Gawlitza realized one of them had hit the jackpot, clocked out, took off his uniform, and had a coworker, Marline Ybarra, ring up all the leftover tickets for him. Our July story has his account of that morning.

Circle K's case rests on an Arizona Lottery rule. Under Arizona Administrative Code R19-3-213, if a retailer prints a draw game ticket a player refuses, and the retailer doesn't resell it, “the Lottery shall deem the draw Game ticket to be owned by the retailer.” Gawlitza's side says the leftover tickets were sold to him, as company practice called for. His attorney, Josh Kolsrud, has said Circle K had an unwritten policy that made employees pay for accidentally printed tickets worth more than $20, as a penalty for the mistake, and that Gawlitza followed it while clocked out and got a receipt. Gawlitza and Ybarra had planned to split the prize evenly.

Kolsrud, who represents both of them, filed seven counterclaims against Circle K, including unjust enrichment, conversion, and breach of contract. Circle K asked the judge to throw them all out. The judge refused, but paused six of the seven, saying none can go forward unless Gawlitza and Ybarra are found to own the ticket. “And from my view there’s no reason to dive into trying to resolve counterclaims or litigate counterclaims when the central issue here is who owns the ticket,” the judge said. Kolsrud called it “a very wise decision,” and lawyers for Circle K and the customer told the judge they agreed with the plan.

Joshua Carden, an employment attorney who isn't involved in the case, said Gawlitza texted his supervisor asking whether he could buy the tickets and was told yes. Carden said Arizona's at-will employment law sets a high bar for a wrongful-firing claim. “But firing you because I'm jealous that you won the lottery and I didn't, technically not illegal,” he said. Whether Gawlitza's firing claims go anywhere now depends on the ownership ruling.

The next fight is over who decides. The judge ordered both sides to file briefs by December 4 on whether a jury or the judge should hear the case. Circle K and the customer's lawyer say there is no right to a jury, and Kolsrud says there may be. The judge will take up that question at a hearing on December 15. Circle K did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

Other store cases have involved stolen or skimmed tickets, like a Circle K clerk in South Carolina accused of cashing tickets he never paid for. This one is different. Nobody disputes that the ticket was printed by mistake. The fight is over whether a manager could buy it afterward, and how tickets move through a store matters to that answer.

Sources

AZFamily: Court to hear Circle K, ex-Scottsdale manager's $12.8M lottery ticket fight

12News: $13 million lottery ticket fight heads for trial

Arizona Administrative Code R19-3-213: Ticket sales to players