Because Circle K pays the Arizona Lottery a fee for each printed ticket, the idea is to incentivize employees to avoid printing them unnecessarily. “The lottery is consid- ered cash,” Gawlitza said. Circle K doesn’t want to be too short at the end of the day. If more than $20 of unsold tickets remained after a drawing, he said, employees had to pay out of their own pockets to buy them. “It’s your fault they’re there to begin with,” Gawlitza said, explaining the company’s reasoning for the policy. “You didn’t sell them, so why should the company be taking the hit? You made the mistake, so you need to learn the lesson and buy those tickets.” Six current and former Circle K employees submitted affidavits to the court attesting to the policy’s existence and to the fact that employees who won money after purchasing unsold tickets were allowed to keep the winnings. Gawlitza said he was just following policy when he bought the winning ticket, though that explanation raises a few issues. For one, he never mentioned the unwritten policy in the portions of his text exchange with his supervisor included in the court record. Nor does it seem practical for employees to have to change clothes and clock out every time they buy unsold tickets to avoid the company’s ire. Gawlitza’s attorney, Joshua Kolsrud, would not allow questions about those ambiguities, saying they will have to be resolved in court. Sanctioned or not, Gawlitza’s owner- ship of the ticket was short-lived. That day, Circle K sent someone to fetch it from him. He relinquished it, though he still felt like it was his. “I paid for it and had a receipt for it. I was also given permission to buy it,” he said. “I’m following the policy.” He wasn’t sure if he’d ever see the $12.8 million, but he felt confident of one aspect of his ownership stake. “I just didn’t know if I was allowed to claim anything out of it,” he said. “I still felt the paper belonged to me.” Nonetheless, Circle K spirited it away, and Gawlitza eventually returned to his usual routine. The company would give him periodic updates — We’re working on it, don’t worry — but otherwise, life returned to normal. Then, on the last day of January, the company fired him. Three weeks later, it filed its lawsuit, publicizing his name and asking a court to sort out ownership. Even more than on the day he found the ticket, he wasn’t sure what to do. ‘You have a case here’ Gawlitza first learned of Circle K’s lawsuit when a New Times reporter contacted him in February to ask about it. He responded to ask to see the complaint, and then went dark. Multiple subsequent attempts to contact him went unanswered. Sitting in his attorney’s office and speaking to that same reporter five months later, Gawlitza explained his silence — he’d been scared. “I could tell you my side of the story, but we don’t hang out,” he said. “I just met you. How do I know you’re really going to tell my side of the story?” That feeling of unease persisted for months after the lawsuit was filed. Gawlitza felt alone. He leaned on his family and his church, but he felt he had few others looking out for his best inter- ests. Meanwhile, people in Arizona and beyond latched onto the lottery ticket saga, guessing at Gawlitza’s motivations. For a while, Gawlitza just hoped it would go away. There was a 180-day window for someone to claim the winning ticket, a period set to expire in May. If he kept his head down that long, he thought, the whole controversy would blow over. “I thought, ‘Well, if it’s expired, this is going away and they can leave me alone. This proves I’m not trying to go after the money,’” he said. But then the Arizona Lottery agreed to suspend the claim deadline, a decision that was reinforced by a judge’s ruling. A family friend suggested Gawlitza lawyer up. Finding a lawyer proved to be tricky and a bit fraught, however. Given the jackpot at stake, one might assume attorneys would be banging on his door with dollar signs in their eyes, but Gawlitza said he received no such inquiries. He had to hunt for an attorney, only to find himself repeatedly misunderstood. None had the expertise for the peculiar circumstances of the case — indeed, even the Arizona Lottery has said the case is unprecedented. One attorney left him more worried than when he went in. Gawlitza said he met with Suzuki Law Offices, a firm led by attorney Richard Suzuki that advertises itself as a criminal defense and personal injury shop. Though he did not meet with Suzuki himself, Gawlitza said another staff member listened briefly to his version of events, only to cut him off and suggest it sounded like Gawlitza had committed a felony. Gawlitza said the staffer said the firm could attempt a pretrial settlement — there is currently no evidence to suggest Gawlitza is under any type of criminal investigation — and that it would cost him $10,000. Suzuki Law Offices did not respond to questions about Gawlitza’s claims. The meeting left Gawlitza baffled. After all, he’d hardly been sneaky about buying the ticket. If he’d been intent on illegally snatching it, “I would have been gone with the ticket right then and there,” he said. “I wouldn’t have still been communicating with Circle K and then handing it over to them.” The consultation also rattled him, leaving him all the more convinced that he needed representation. A family friend suggested he look into Kolsrud. Kolsrud had been familiar with the case, but he admits that he initially thought the ticket probably belonged to Circle K. To him, it depended on whether Gawlitza knew it was the winner, which he did. “I thought that was the issue,” Kolsrud said. “Did he know it was the winning ticket? If he did, then it’s not his.” But then he met with Gawlitza and heard his version of events, including about the unwritten policy that employees must purchase unsold lottery tickets. His opinion changed. “After I listened to him, I was like, ‘You have a case here,’” said Kolsrud, who normally practices criminal law. “I’m not an expert in this area, but it seems pretty obvious there’s something there.” ‘Money helps’ Whether that something pans out remains to be seen. A judge has yet to rule on the issue, and no future court dates have been scheduled. But with an attorney finally in his corner, Gawlitza is intent on pressing his claim. He has myriad motivations. He felt “thrown under the bus” by Circle K and he wants justice for what he views as his unwarranted firing. He doesn’t like how he’s been portrayed in court filings and in news reports, and he’s hoping to set the record straight. There are precious few in the country with the Gawlitza name — only him and his parents, he said — and the lottery ticket saga has tarnished it. “How they portrayed me in the media was like I had done something wrong,” he said. “That’s what I was trying to get cleared up, and get fixed.” Though many may find it hard to believe, he claims he’s not angling for the $12.8 million. “I really had no intention of going after this money,” he said. “I just really wanted to clear my name and not have to deal with any legal problems.” That doesn’t explain why he maneuvered to buy it in the first place, clocking out and back into work in a manner that may have complied with the letter of Circle K’s rules but that the company clearly feels abused their spirit. But however the court case ends, Gawlitza said, moving beyond it will be a relief. “There are more important things in life than money,” he said. “Family’s more important. My faith is more important than money.” Then he added a caveat, seemingly acknowledging that by hanging with the case, his chance at the jackpot remains alive. “Money helps. It helps anybody in this world. It helps the world go round,” he said. “But there’s priceless things that are more important to me.” In the Jackpot from p 12 The Arizona Lottery headquarters. (Gregory Clifford/Getty Images) Former Circle K manager Robert Gawlitza holds up the Arizona Lottery ticket that won the $12.8 million jackpot on Nov. 24, 2025. (Provided by Joshua Kolsrud)
