A Rijswijk man has lost his legal battle to claw back €3.2 million from his 80-year-old father-in-law whom he claims stole a winning lottery ticket.

Three days after the draw, the father-in-law reported to the Staatsloterij offices to claim his prize, saying he had been given the ticket by his daughter’s husband. But he turned up a day later, claiming his relative, aged 80, had stolen the ticket and the prize was rightfully his.

The lottery company began an investigation. The older man, backed by his daughter and another son-in-law, said he had been given the winning ticket and that family members often clubbed together and gave him one. 

Under Staatsloterij rules, the prize is paid out to the person who can show the winning ticket, and that was, in this case, the father-in-law. The Rijswijk man claimed his father-in-law “wanted to hold” the winning ticket and then managed to swap it for his own. 

The Statsloterij investigators told the court that the man had “diminished motor skills” and that such sleight of hand would not have gone unnoticed. 

The court ruled that the fast-track hearing was not the right place to give a definitive answer on who owned the ticket. But it sided with the Staatsloterij, saying it could be safely assumed that “the owner of a winning ticket would be extremely careful with it.”