The Connecticut Lottery Corp. said Wednesday that it has placed two employees on paid administrative leave while it investigates a "human error" that shut 100,000 eligible tickets out of Monday's drawing in the "New Year's $1,000,000 Super Draw" game, forcing a second drawing yet to be scheduled.

(See Connecticut Lottery forced to redraw special New Year's raffle after 'human error', Lottery Post, Jan. 2, 2018.)

"Investigations are being conducted by both the CT Lottery and the [state] Department of Consumer Protection," known as DCP, the lottery said in an announcement on its website, adding: "Two CT Lottery employees have been placed on paid administrative leave, pending the investigation." The employees were not identified.

As reported Wednesday, the lottery corporation and DCP each had sent two employees to be among five people who oversaw Monday's drawing at 11 a.m. in a lottery office at 301 Hammer Mill Rd. in Rocky Hill. The fifth person was from the lottery's independent auditing firm, Marcum LLP.

The drawing went bad after one of the two lottery employees entered an incorrect range of ticket numbers into a Smartplay Origin random number generator — and that mistake was missed by two official observers whose job it was to make sure the correct information was entered. One observer was a DCP employee, and the other from the Marcum accounting firm.

DCP spokeswoman Lora Rae Anderson said that the two Consumer Protection employees at Monday's drawing will remain on the job — unlike the lottery employees, who'll be paid while not working — but the DCP workers won't be assigned to any lottery drawings until further notice.

On Monday, after the incorrect numbers were entered, the Smartplay digital device selected 1,311 winners — one million dollar winning ticket, 10 winners of $20,000, 50 winners of $1,000, and 1,250 winning tickets worth $100 each.

Here's how the mistake occurred, according to Anderson:

All told, 214,601 tickets were sold in the game at $10 each, and they all had consecutive six-digit numbers, the lowest being 100001. The lottery official should have increased the range by 214,601 above that low ticket number of 100001 — to 314601, the highest ticket number sold. But instead, the employee mistakenly entered 214601, the number of tickets sold, as the top eligible ticket number for the drawing — leaving out 100,000 tickets. And neither observer noticed the error.

Troubles Keep Coming

DCP regulates the operations of the quasi-public lottery corporation, which now has been thrown back into troubles reminiscent of the turmoil that plagued it for the past year.

That turmoil started after former CEO Anne Noble quit in September 2016 during a state DCP investigation of the lottery's handling of a 2015 fraud scheme that required shutdown of the 5 Card Cash game. Some employees at retail lottery outlets figured out a way to improperly print out winning 5 Card Cash tickets for themselves, and the DCP's probe resulted in 15 arrests.

No new CEO has yet been hired, although a national search was pared down to four finalists as of November. Three are from out of state and one is believed to be Chelsea Turner, who has been running the lottery as its interim CEO/president but has declined comment about seeking the top job.

Some lottery players have expressed objections to the agency's plan now to hold a second drawing that will include all 214,601 tickets sold, not just the 100,000 shut out of Monday's drawing. The lottery says it will announce the date of the new drawing soon.

"Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution," the lottery's Wednesday statement said. "Some players have asked why not do a second drawing for only the 100,000 tickets that were omitted from the first drawing? Although at first glance, that may sound fair, it only compounds the initial error. The CT Lottery and the Department of Consumer Protection conduct drawings according to agreed upon game rules and procedures [which] require that all eligible tickets be entered into the drawing."

"The January 1, 2018 drawing failed for this exact reason," the statement went on. "We cannot in good faith perform another drawing that violates these procedures and distorts the odds further. This means that some players will receive the benefit of the error made by the drawing team, since the CT Lottery will honor winning tickets from the January 1, 2018 drawing."

One problem is that some players may have thrown away still-eligible tickets that were being read as losers by electronic scanners at retail lottery outlets Monday night, hours after the problem was announced by means including the lottery website in mid-afternoon.

Super Draw Statement from the CT Lottery

The following is the full statement issued by the Connecticut Lottery Monday.

We apologize that the January 1, 2018 CT Super Draw drawing did not go as planned. Although there were many layers of protection and security in place, human error occurred, despite multiple practice drawings. The incorrect ticket range was entered into the Random Number Generator, the machine that draws the winning numbers. The ticket number range sold was 100,001 – 314,601. The ticket number range was incorrectly entered as 100,001 – 214,601. As a result, any ticket numbers above 214,601 were not included in the January 1, 2018 drawing.

Investigations are being conducted by both the CT Lottery and the Department of Consumer Protection. Two CT Lottery employees have been placed on paid administrative leave, pending the investigation.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect solution. Some players have asked why not do a second drawing for only the 100,000 tickets that were omitted from the first drawing? Although at first glance, that may sound fair, it only compounds the initial error. The CT Lottery and the Department of Consumer Protection conduct drawings according to agreed upon game rules and procedures. The agreed upon game rules and procedures for CT Super Draw, and for all drawings, require that all eligible tickets be entered into the drawing. The January 1, 2018 drawing failed for this exact reason. We cannot in good faith perform another drawing that violates these procedures and distorts the odds further.

This means that some players will receive the benefit of the error made by the drawing team, since the CT Lottery will honor winning tickets from the January 1, 2018 drawing. Honoring those tickets is the right thing to do because that drawing was made official. Similarly, conducting the CT Super Draw drawing as originally intended, including all eligible tickets, is also the right thing to do. We intend to give players what they purchased: a chance for all ticket holders to win a prize, including the $1,000,000 top prize.

If a player threw out his or her ticket(s), there are instructions on the CT Lottery website, ctlottery.org, about how to make a claim. The CT Lottery Security Department will be assisting with this process.

We are continuing to investigate and evaluate this situation to make our safeguards stronger and ensure the integrity of all CT Lottery games.