ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The New Mexico Lottery has discovered that approximately 450 Powerball wagers were printed in error earlier this month.
The wagers were purchased from two self-service lottery machines provided by Intralot, Inc., the lottery's gaming system vendor.
Players who purchased those wagers will be offered a replacement ticket for the Jan. 28 drawing.
The error occurred when Intralot deployed two self-service lottery machines before upgrading internal software supporting Powerball's new format.
On Jan. 4, Powerball was changed in preparation for the Florida Lottery and its 15 million players to join the multi-state game. Players now pick five numbers from one to 59, up from 55, and one Powerball number from one to 39, down from 42.
The wagers printed in error were derived from the old format of the game.
Rick Calinsky, general manager for Intralot, Inc., said the ticket misprint was caused by Intralot technician error.
"Intralot identified the impacted wagers which led us to the two retail locations where they were sold and we provided that information to the lottery," Calinsky said.
The self-service lottery machines were located at Lowe's No. 89 at 1700 St. Michaels Dr. in Santa Fe and Smith's No. 427 at 200 Tramway SE in Albuquerque. The 450 wagers were purchased between Jan. 5 and Jan. 15. They represent a fraction of one percent of the approximate 2 million Powerball wagers sold statewide over the 11-day period.
Lottery staff will offer replacement Powerball tickets at Lowe's No. 89 Monday, Jan. 26, between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., and at Smith's No. 427 Tuesday, Jan. 27, between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Affected players will need to produce their tickets dated between Jan. 5 and Jan. 15 bearing the retailer number 695089 for Lowe's or 618427 for Smith's. If they cannot produce tickets, players can sign an affidavit confirming their purchase. Personal identification must be presented to confirm legal playing age of 18.
"Our commitment to integrity and transparency dictates that we offer a reasonable remedy to affected players as quickly as possible," said Tom Romero, New Mexico Lottery CEO. "We apologize for any inconvenience this matter may have caused our players and our retailers."
Intralot has confirmed that all 160 self-service lottery machines installed in stores around the state are operating on the latest software.
"Our commitment to integrity and transparency dictates that we offer a reasonable remedy to affected players as quickly as possible," said Tom Romero, New Mexico Lottery CEO. "We apologize for any inconvenience this matter may have caused our players and our retailers."
Kudos to the New Mexico Lottery for doing the right thing.A few other states should take notes on how to treat their lottery patrons.
That's not supposed to be possible in a modern lottery system.
The first thing the terminal should do at sign-on for the day is "handshake" with the central system to make sure it is on the latest/correct software version.
BTW - Rick Calinsky is one of my oldest friends in the industry - we've known each other since 1990.
*Waits for the first person to say something along of the lines of "Well the jackpot wasn't as high" or something similar*
Odds are the problem is worse than two machines having the same outdated software. Sure, a startup check would catch it, but why didn't the central computer catch a problem? If those machines issued 450 tickets, what are the chances that not 1 of them had a PB that isn't in the new matrix?
They don't get too specific about what exactly the error was. It sounds like people getting QP were given tickets with random selections based on the old matrix so nobody got any of the new numbers like 59, or worse, printed bonus balls that would not even be in the mix! I'm guessing this is what happened??
If the drawings are purely random as they claim, and the QP is also purely random, then it wouldn't make a whit of difference unless the tickets had invalid bonus balls, the tickets would have an equal chance to win vs. "correct" tickets.
The day the new matrix kicked in I played some betslips including Powerball. All were printed correct except the Powerball tickets had a date nearly 2 months ahead! Even though the betslips should have played the next drawing. Last night at the same Store they printed correctly and the clerk said they were having a lot of problems with the new machine.
They didn't open much of a window in time to get replacement tickets and not convenient at all for those who work 1st shift!