CT Lottery must pay an extra $581,000 for drawing mistake

Mar 22, 2005, 7:36 am (4 comments)

Connecticut Lottery

Honoring all six numbers drawn in Friday's flawed "Cash 5" lottery game will cost the Connecticut Lottery Corp. an extra $581,000, lottery officials said Monday.

The lottery will honor 3,451 additional tickets, five of which are worth $100,000 each, said lottery spokeswoman Diane Patterson.

"It's amazing what one little number can do," Patterson said.

The problem occurred when an employee got the cue to begin the drawing and plucked a No. 7 pingpong ball from those swirling in the mixing chamber. When someone noticed that the drawing wasn't being televised, the employee was told to drop the number, remix the balls and start over.

Lottery officials decided to honor tickets containing the No. 7, as well as those with the five numbers drawn subsequently (8, 10, 18, 19 and 23).

Lottery officials asked all "Cash 5" ticket holders, even those who bought tickets on other days, to hold off on collecting the winnings until further notice.

Officials were working to install a "software patch" in vending machines that will direct those who have winning tickets from Friday to call lottery headquarters, Patterson said. They will be asked to mail in their tickets with a postage-paid envelope, she said.

In total, there were 8,766 winning tickets from Friday's drawing, and the lottery will pay more than $722,500 to ticket holders.

AP

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CASH Only

Extra cash.

LOTTOMIKE's avatarLOTTOMIKE

they make mistakes a lot........

GoArmy's avatarGoArmy

It was good of them to honor it.

Jake649's avatarJake649

That kind of mistake cannot happen with computerized drawings. That mistake contributes to the cost of ball machine drawings. I can see why some lotteries are trying to get rid of ball machines. Too much human intervention.

Good luck,
Jake

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