It’s No Contest, Beatrice Says of Prize Claim : Man Says He’s Entitled to Super Bowl Tickets

Officials of Beatrice Cos. said Tuesday that they have no intention of awarding prizes to an Atlanta man who contends he won $20 million in a contest that Beatrice says it called off because of his claims.

Frank Maggio, a salesman for Procter & Gamble, said he mailed thousands of winning entries in the “Monday Night Winning Lineup” contest, which was based on the number of touchdowns and field goals scored in eight Monday night National Football League games this fall.

Maggio, 23, who said he found a pattern to the game cards, says the contest rules entitle him to $20 million or 20,000 tickets to the Super Bowl.

“I’d like to see the Giants and Raiders,” he said.

Beatrice officials, however, said they have called off the contest and announced the cancellation in a Nov. 29 newspaper advertisement.

Investigation Continuing

“We canceled this contest after we were contacted by a salesman for a competitor who stated that he and an associate had between 4,000 and 5,000 cards and allegedly had won $20 million,” said a statement read Tuesday by Bill Blodgett, director of corporate relations for the Beatrice grocery group in California.

“We are continuing an investigation into this matter, but we have no intention of honoring Mr. Maggio’s cards,” he said.

Blodgett said that Beatrice officials intended for the contest to be “a game of chance” but that “a quick analysis here led us to believe we had to cancel the contest because apparently it could be manipulated.”

He said the company is investigating how Maggio obtained the cards.

He would not say whether the company will give any prizes to anyone else.

Such contests come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission, said Bill Pierce, a research analyst in the FTC’s division of marketing practices.

Pierce said no specific rules govern such contests, although the events must comply with the Federal Trade Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce.

Pierce said he knows of no contest complaints reported to the agency.

The contest cards contained eight blocks, one for each of the eight Monday night NFL games. In each block were 16 numbers covered by silver dots--eight corresponding to touchdowns and eight to field goals.

Entrants were required to scratch off one dot in each category. If the numbers disclosed by scratching off the dots corresponded to the exact number of field goals or touchdowns scored by a particular team in that week’s game, the player was awarded one point. No rule prohibited a player from waiting until after the game to scratch off the dots.

Maggio says that, by determining the patterns of the numbers under the dots, he amassed 14 points for each card he entered. According to the rules printed on the back of the card, a score of 14 entitles the player to $5,500 in cash or a Super Bowl trip for six.

The rules do not state a limit on the number of entries by each contestant.

Maggio said that once he figured out the pattern, he began asking for as many cards as he could get.

“I asked for cards from other people. I told them I had a good chance to win,” he said Monday.

To ensure that his entries did not go astray, he said he flew to Los Angeles last week and mailed his cards from the post office there just before the Dec. 6 deadline. The company operating the contest is in Los Angeles.

Maggio said he has hired a law firm to represent him. Not counting the legal fees, “I’ve invested about $3,000 so far, including telephone calls and plane tickets,” he said.