Mistakenly thinking they'd lost, they tossed ticket into the trash 
 
 Buy Photo The 7-Eleven on Franklin Avenue in Mahwah, N.J., where Salvatore Cambria and Erick Onyango of Suffern say they bought a $1 million winning Powerball ticket they threw out, mistakenly thinking is was a losing ticket. Now, they're suing the New Jersey Lottery, blaming it for failing to post the winning number promptly and demanding that it pay the $1 million. (Photo: Thane Grauel/The Journal News)Buy Photo 
 
 The night of March 23, 2013, Salvatore Cambria thought it was a worthless scrap of paper. But it might well have been a million dollars he tossed into his bedroom waste basket. 
 
 The Lonergan Avenue man had bought three Powerball tickets with a friend, Erick Onyango, at a 7-Eleven a short walk away in Mahwah, New Jersey. They talked on the phone soon after the $338 million drawing was held. They now allege in a federal lawsuit that the New Jersey Lottery Commission failed to update its website in a timely manner. Otherwise, they say, they'd never have thrown away their golden ticket. 
 
 Onyango checked the numbers on a mobile device. 
 
 "It was on an iPhone," Cambria said. "The dates are so small." 
 
 The winning numbers listed were for a previous drawing, so they thought they held losing tickets. 
 
 Now, the two Suffern men are suing the New Jersey Lottery Commission for the $1 million Powerball payout for matching five of the six numbers – they missed the Powerball number. Their suit filed Tuesday in Trenton, New Jersey, states the winning ticket was the middle ticket of the three bought with successive serial numbers. The other two tickets were kept by Onyango and prove they bought the winner, the suit states. 
 
 "The operators of the website had not timely updated the current winning numbers and based on the numbers ... as a result of the negligence in updating the numbers Cambria discarded his winning ticket as is his habit," the suit states. 
 
 Cambria said Thursday that officials at the lottery commission told him that if he had the tickets sold before and after the winner, he should be able to get the prize. He said that the commission had not ruled against his claim, but that it was taking a while so he hired a lawyer to play it safe. 
 
 "Everyone knows that I won," he said of the commission, and even the 7-Eleven's owner. "As far as proof, I'm not even worried about that." 
 
 The lawyer for the two, Edward Logan of Princeton, said it's an unusual case. 
 
 "They have the bread of the sandwich," he said of the tickets sold immediately before and after the winner, "they just don't have the meat. But they can more or less prove they bought that ticket." 
 
 In addition to the $1 million prize, they seek attorney's fees and costs. 
 
 Bob Patel, owner of the 7-Eleven on Franklin Turnpike in Mahwah, about a quarter-mile from Cambria's home, said the $1 million ticket was big news at his store. 
 
 "It was the first big winner since we opened in 2010," he said. "If he gets it, we are happy." 
 
 Not just because Cambria's a regular customer, he noted, but the shop would get a percentage from the lottery commission. Judith Drucker, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Lottery Commission, said that would be $500. 
 
 She could not, however, comment on pending litigation. 
 
 The big winner of the March 23, 2013, drawing was from New Jersey. Pedro Quezada, then 44, bought the $338 million winning ticket at a liquor store in Passaic. The numbers were 17, 29, 31, 52, 53 and Powerball 31. 
 
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 TRENTON — Two friends who claim they bought a Powerball ticket worth $1 million at a Mahwah convenience store last year sued the New Jersey Lottery Commission yesterday, claiming they tossed out the ticket because the state was too slow to update its website with the winning numbers. 
 
 Salvatore Cambria and Erik Onyango claim in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Trenton that they picked five of six numbers drawn on March 23, 2013, the same day a Passaic deli owner scored the $338 million Powerball jackpot prize. 
 
 The Suffern, N.Y. friends say that even though they didn’t pick the winning Powerball number the combination they chose entitled them to a $1 million consolation payout, the lawsuit says. 
 
 During a telephone conversation the night numbers were drawn, Onyango relayed the winning numbers to Cambria off the commission’s website, the lawsuit claims. 
 
 
 
 Should the plaintiffs get the $1 million lottery prize? 
 
 "The operators of the website had not timely updated the current winning numbers," it adds. 
 
 Believing he’d lost, Cambria discarded the $1 million ticket, the lawsuit claims. 
 
 When the two men went to the commission earlier this year with their claim they were told they were out of luck, their attorney says. 
 
 “They were told that without the ticket they were not going to pay,” said attorney Edward Logan. 
 
 Logan says the two men regularly bought lottery tickets for one another at the Mahwah 7-11. 
 
 On March 23, 2013, Onyango bought three tickets, keeping two for himself and turning over a third to Cambria. 
 
 The friends say they can prove the ticket that went to Cambria is the winning one because it was the middle ticket of three they purchased that day. Onyango kept the other two tickets, which include their serial numbers. 
 
 “The plaintiffs here may not have produced the winning ticket but have tendered two of the three tickets purchased in immediate succession and can prove that they in fact purchased and possessed the original ticket,” Logan writes in the lawsuit. 
 
 Judith Drucker, a spokeswoman for the commission, declined to comment. 
 
 Also named as a defendant is the Multi-State Lottery Association and Gov. Chris Christie. 
 
 Pedro Quezada, a Dominican immigrant and the owner of the Apple Deli Grocery in Passaic won the March 2013 jackpot, the fourth largest in Powerball history. 
 
 Quezada took his lottery winnings in a lump sum of $221 million or $152 million after taxes. 
 
 “Imagine… so much money,” Quezada said at a press conference held a few days after he’d won. “But it will not change my heart.” 
 
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– Imagine realizing that you'd bought a lottery ticket worth $1 million—and that you'd thrown it away. Two New York men don't have to imagine, because they say it happened to them—and that it was New Jersey's fault. Salvatore Cambria and Erik Onyango are suing the New Jersey Lottery Commission, alleging that it failed to update its website with the winning numbers in a timely fashion on March 23, 2013, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reports. When the pair checked their tickets against the website, they thought they'd lost, and threw out their winning ticket, reports the Journal News. They eventually realized their mistake, but lottery officials told them that without a ticket, they were out of luck, according to their attorney. The men say they can "prove" they bought the ticket, because they bought three tickets with consecutive numbers. Cambria took the middle ticket, which would turn out to be the winner, and discarded it, but Onyango still has the other two.