The South Carolina lottery will set aside $19.6 million to cover potential claims while it continues to investigate a Christmas Day glitch that affected Holiday Cash Add-A-Play tickets.
The S.C. Education Lottery Commission met behind closed doors Friday and decided to set aside the money for potential payouts while continuing to investigate a programming glitch that produced erroneous tickets on Christmas Day.
The S.C. Education Lottery's computer system vendor, Intralot, experienced a programming error on Christmas Day that affected Holiday Cash Add-A-Play tickets, a $1 terminal-generated instant game, officials said.
From 5:51 to 7:53 p.m. Monday, the same play symbol was repeated in all nine available play areas on tickets, which would result in a top prize of $500, lottery officials said. No more than five identical play symbols should appear for a single play.
With a top prize of $500, if the lottery commission pays out all $19.6 million, that would mean 39,200 winning tickets would have been issued.
As soon as the issue was identified, the Add-A-Play game was suspended immediately, and an investigation began.
The reported glitch upset dozens potential winners, including several who visited the lottery offices in Columbia on Monday.
"I was banking on (this money)," said Bridget Castrillon, 26, of Orangeburg. "I could pay my bills at the end of the year."
Congrats to the players holding such tickets. Looking more and more likely they'll be paid in full.
This incident well illustrates how much lotteries depend on vendors for day to day operations. It's possible SC Lottery could recover some of the $19.6 million from Intralot. Also, longer this issue lingers, more chance of SC Lottery and/or others not hiring Intralot in the future. Promptly paying out the players will likely be best for all parties involved.
Good Work South Carolina Lottery. Stay ahead of the curve.
Their glitch was a Christmas gift to all those who played.
So glad they are paying people for the tickets. Happy Winning
I saw this article when Todd first posted it, interesting! And I may add, that just this morning on radio station wham1180 in Rochester, the station did a news release on this. In my opinion the state should pay I feel. To me this is a back door fraud by the states lottery commission. (My opinion only.)
The people were loyal, they paid their price, the ticket was printed, the ticket said they won. Pay up! Corporate money, greed, is dirty pool.
I wonder what is going to happen to all the players who were told they lost and threw their tickets out. Since they played they should get paid.
If I had a ticket like that I wouldn't have thrown it away without checking out the legal options first. Hopefully there weren't many who did.
Maybe Intralot should have to fund their mistake. Go with IGT for your lottery provider, not that I'm prejudiced or anything since I own IGT stock. Also won jackpots on IGT slot machines.
Anyway this seems like a step in the right direction, had to read it twice. I think they realize their integrity was on the line and could have potentially costs many more millions if folks thought it is rigged and we won't play anymore.
I hope they do get paid! This will help more people have a better life, therefore providing them the ability to help boost the economy in their state. Florida screws up everything else, so hopefully we're next.