Florida Lottery agents bust store owner for lying about $1,000 winning ticket

• A store has been removed from the Florida Lottery’s list of retailers after an undercover operation on-site
• An undercover agent from the Florida Lottery handed the owner a $1,000 winning ticket
• The owner told the agent he had only won $5, when in reality the ticket was $1,000

A Tampa store owner thought he had hit the jackpot, but he ended up trying to fool a Florida Lottery undercover agent. The owner attempted to cheat the agent by claiming that his, i.e., the agent’s, $1,000 winning ticketwas only worth $5, intending to keep the difference to himself.

Identified as Amar Yasser Hamden, the store owner who worked at Zoya Shell at 3602 W. Gandy Blv. attempted his alleged scheme on August 19, 2026. Hamden scanned the winning ticket and established that its value was over $599.

In the moment, however, Hamden told the player, that is the agent, that his ticket was only worth $5, and kept the ticket himself, intending to claim the prize later on. This prompted a follow-up from the Florida Lottery, with agents now identifying themselves and querying Hamden to see if the ticket he claimed had only won $5.

Hamden told the agents that he had thrown it, but during a search of his car, the ticket was retrieved, and its actual winning value was established. The Florida Lottery has suspended all activity at the venue, and Hamden has been handed a Notice to Appear for violating Florida’s lottery statutes.

Not all lottery stories end with an arrest, however, as a Michigan woman recently used her birthday numbers to secure a $130,000 payout. The prize was secured on the Cash 5 lottery game, and the woman has overcome some pretty long odds of 1 in 1,000,000 to secure the payout.

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