BOSTON (CBS) – Paul Pasquarosa was feeling lucky; it was the day before his birthday. “I went and bought a lottery ticket and went home and scratched it.”

He took a chance on a million dollar Cashword ticket. Paul could certainly use the money. He’s out of work and a father of two. So he scratched and scratched and thought he had a winner. “I’m looking at it; I have three red words. It says three red words wins a million dollars. I called my son and told him things were gonna be OK,” Pasquarosa said.

He had three red words – which equals a million on the prize key, but luck never came his way. The ticket was defective. His lawyer, George Miller, took a look at the ticket. “At first glance I believe this gentleman won a million, but on a closer inspection I saw there was an offset in the printing. Mr. Pasquarosa was not just disappointed, but visibly ill.”

Paul believes there are a couple of lessons to be learned here. Always check your ticket before you leave the store, but he also believes the lottery should never sell a ticket if it’s defective. “Someone should be liable. They didn’t do their job.” His lawyer added, “Is this a situation where there are a lot of defects being put out by the lottery? If there is, should they be taking precautions to make sure they’re not giving hope to individuals being solicited by the lottery?”

There’s no real upside to this story. Lottery officials tried to take the defective tickets out of circulation when they found out about the printing problem. There were 2,200 defective tickets in a lot of 20 million. This one ticket dashed the dreams of a man who thought it was a ticket to get him back on his feet.

If you have one of the problem tickets you can file a claim with the Lottery’s Claims/Legal Department.