A Canadian man missed out on winning a $27 million jackpot because his lottery ticket was printed seven seconds too late, according to multiple reports.
The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Joel Ifergan's appeal for the jackpot, and said on Thursday that it would not hear the Quebec man's case, CTV News reported. He has spent $100,000 in legal fees fighting his case over the past seven years.
Ifergan bought two tickets for the May 23, 2008, Lotto Super 7 draw, a now-defunct weekly Canadian lottery game, at 8:59 p.m. -- one minute before the deadline. His first ticket had the May 23 draw date, but his second ticket was printed seven seconds after 9 p.m., and had a May 30 draw date, the day of the next lottery drawing, instead.
Unfortunately, Ifergan's second ticket was the winner. It had all the correct numbers of the May 23 jackpot, but Loto-Quebec rejected the ticket because it said May 30. The $27 million was awarded to someone else.
Ifergan claims he should be awarded $13.5 million -- half of the jackpot -- because both his tickets were purchased before the 9 p.m. deadline. He says a 10-second processing lag was at fault for his lost winnings.
"The machine ... is one of the older machines," Mehernosh Iranpur, the convenience-store who sold Ifergan the tickets, told a local newspaper in 2008.
According to a court summary, Iranpur told Ifergan to hurry before the 9 p.m. deadline, and later asked him if he still wanted to buy the second ticket since it was printed after the deadline. Ifergan reportedly said yes.
Launched in 1994, the Lotto Super 7 was discontinued after its last draw took place on Sept. 18, 2009.