Connecticut Lottery to re-draw raffle Tuesday

Jan 13, 2018, 4:43 pm (17 comments)

Connecticut Lottery

The Connecticut Lottery Corp. has set Tuesday at 11 a.m. as the time for a do-over drawing to partly make up for a Jan. 1 fiasco in which nearly half the eligible tickets in the Super Draw game — 100,000 out of 214,601 sold at $10 each — were excluded by mistake.

But some lottery players are still unhappy.

The new drawing will be held as two investigations are already underway into how the $1.375 million error occurred on New Year's Day — and it's unlikely to satisfy many of the holders of the 100,000 tickets left out on Jan. 1.

Tuesday's drawing will include all 214,601 tickets in the second drawing — not just the 100,000 excluded ones — which means that the 114,601 tickets that were entered in the Jan. 1 drawing will be getting a second chance to win Tuesday, while the other 100,000 get only this one shot.

The lottery's interim CEO/president, Chelsea Turner, says there's no way to fix the problem perfectly, and that lottery regulations require that all tickets sold be included in a drawing. To not include all 214,601 in the second drawing would violate those regulations all over again and compound the initial error, she says.

Dozens of lottery players have contacted local media outlets to express displeasure with the plan to hold a second drawing that includes all 214,601 tickets — not just the 100,000 tickets excluded Jan. 1.

"I am unfortunately one of those 100,000 excluded tickets... and needless to say, I am not happy about it," one player said in a Friday email. "I read that in order to make the new drawing legal it needs to include all tickets. If this is in fact true, then that same law should make the first game illegal as well."

The winning numbers in Tuesday's do-over raffle drawing will be published soon after the drawing at Lottery Post's Connecticut Lottery Results page. (The Connecticut Lottery is calling it "the 2nd drawing".) The results from the first botched drawing were published on New Year's Day.

Flip Of A Coin

Under the lottery's official procedures for drawings, a "drawing team" of five people is assembled at the lottery's headquarters at 777 Brook St., Rocky Hill, where there's a Smartplay Origin random number generator machine that draws winning numbers.

Another such machine is located at a second lottery office two miles to the east at 31 Hammer Mill Road, Rocky Hill — and, at the start of the drawing procedure, a coin is flipped to determine which of the two will be used. If Hammer Mill Road wins the flip, they drive over there to conduct the drawing (which is what happened on Jan. 1).

The coin-flip adds an old-fashioned touch to a high-tech, electronic drawing process. Officials say it's intended to increase the randomness of the process and, theoretically, reduce the chance that bad guys could tamper with the drawing. Flipping the coin means "somebody can't predict ahead of time or which machine we're going to use," said Lora Rae Anderson, communications director for the state Department of Consumer Protection (DCP).

DCP, which regulates the quasi-public lottery corp., is as much a part of the drawing process as the lottery agency — and thus, it shares responsibility for the New Year's Day mistake. The team that conducted the flawed Jan. 1 proceeding included two employees of DCP, two from the lottery, and one representative of the lottery's independent auditing firm, Marcum LLP.

Lottery officials will not say if they'll pursue Marcum, a major national accounting firm with four Connecticut offices, for any financial responsibility in the Jan. 1 blunder.

The composition of Tuesday's drawing team will be different — as the lottery has placed its two Jan. 1 team members on paid administrative leaves while it conducts an investigation, and DCP will not be assigning its two New Year's Day team members (who are still on the job) to any further drawings until its own, separate investigation is complete. Marcum's representative will be different on Tuesday, Turner said.

She said that as of Friday, there had been 10 practice run-throughs for the second drawing, with another planned for Monday.

The investigations by the lottery agency and DCP are intended to determine how the 100,000 tickets did not get entered Jan. 1 into the number generating machine that randomly selected 1,311 winners, starting with a $1 million top prize — along with 10 winners of $20,000, 50 winners of $1,000, and 1,250 winning tickets worth $100 each, for a total of $1,375,000. Winners of the flawed drawing will be paid those prizes, and the second drawing will cost the same in prize money.

Illustrated Instructions

The incorrect numbers were entered by a lottery employee on the team despite a step-by-step, illustrated instruction manual emphasizing that ticket numbers went upward from a low of 100001 — so the second ticket would be 100002, the third 100003, and so on. With, 214,601 tickets sold, the range of eligible tickets should have been 100001 at the low end, and 314,601 at the top. But the lottery employee instead entered 214601 as the top number, omitting the 100,000 tickets numbered from 214602 through 314601.

The mistake in the number entries was missed by a DCP employee and Marcum's representative, who were supposed to observe whether things were done properly, Anderson has said.

Meanwhile, DCP's investigation has already run into conflicting stories about what happened Jan. 1. "The Department has begun conducting interviews with parties involved in the Super Draw drawing that occurred on Monday, January 1st, 2018. At this time, there are conflicting accounts of that day's events," Anderson said in an email Wednesday.

She made that statement in explaining DCP's decision not to immediately provide a video recording of the Jan. 1 drawing that should settle questions about who did what. "[The] video of the drawing is integral to our ongoing investigation," she wrote. "Public release of the video may compromise the information we receive by influencing the statements of those involved."

Meanwhile, state Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, says that he may seek another round of investigative hearings into lottery operations, as he did last May in his role as co-chairman of the General Assembly's public safety committee. "Unfortunately," he said, "the Connecticut Lottery continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons."

Another effect of the current snafu is to again delay — for now, and perhaps for weeks — hiring of a permanent CEO to replace Anne Noble, who stepped down in September 2016 during the DCP's investigation of the 5 Card Cash fraud scheme. Noble stayed on until mid-2017 under a lucrative severance/consulting package, and Turner, her longtime subordinate, has been acting CEO since then. Turner is believed to be one of four current finalists being considered by the lottery's board of directors. The other three are from out of state.

Hartford Courant, Lottery Post Staff

Comments

music*'s avatarmusic*

At least they caught the mistake. I believe it is very difficult to cheat. No one was trying to cheat here. 

noise-gate

Quote: Originally posted by music* on Jan 13, 2018

At least they caught the mistake. I believe it is very difficult to cheat. No one was trying to cheat here. 

It was" humor error " remember?

Funny how that works huh? Some folks who have their homes destroyed by mudslides, earthquakes are sometimes told by their insurance companies that they not covered because it's " an act of God ".. how do you get that across to atheist home -owners?

ckrakowski

"Tuesday's drawing will include all 214,601 tickets in the second drawing"

 

So some people will get to play twice while some will get to play once while some others will not get to play at all.

I am of course referring to the people who were excluded from the first drawing and threw their tickets out.

 

How is it not theft on the lotterys part if a player was excluded from the first drawing and did not get to play and will not be able to play in this second drawing? The player paid money and expected to play in something but the lottery did not hold up their end.

 

"To not include all 214,601 in the second drawing would violate those regulations"

 

Well that did not stop you guys the first time.

 

"I read that in order to make the new drawing legal it needs to include all tickets. If this is in fact true, then that same law should make the first game illegal as well."

 

Of course it does but didn't you know that the lottery picks and chooses what laws to follow and when to follow them.

 

" that lottery regulations require that all tickets sold be included in a drawing."

"Winners of the flawed drawing will be paid those prizes"

 

So why are  you paying out "winners" in a illegal drawing. Since not all tickets sold were included in the drawing then it was not a legal drawing.

 

"Meanwhile, DCP's investigation has already run into conflicting stories"

 

They are not conflicting stories. I can guarantee you that some employee is lying to cover their butt.

 

Well this is going to cost the lottery more then a second drawing. They are going to lose millions in the resulting lawsuit.

KY Floyd's avatarKY Floyd

"how do you get that across to atheist home -owners?"

Because those of us who are smart enough to be atheists also understand that "act of god" is a colloquialism that's common among the heathen masses. The term "Fact of nature" is also used sometimes. "Force majeure " is often more suitable, because to also includes human actions that are beyond the control of the parties to the contract covered by the clause.

GiveFive's avatarGiveFive

As a Super Draw raffle ticket holder whose tickets were included in the first drawing, I'm glad that I'm getting a second shot at the one million dollar top prize. (None of my three tickets were winners in the first drawing)

That said, I agree with The CT Lottery, there is no good/perfect solution to fix this mess. Had I won the top prize of one million dollars in the first drawing, and they voided that drawing due to their mistake, I'd definitely sue.  I'm sure too that a class action lawsuit would be brought by ticket holders that won lower tier prizes. So it makes sense to me as to why CT will hold a second drawing and will honor all of the winning tickets drawn in the first drawing.

Because they have decided to hold a second drawing, then I want in on it, and I want it conducted according to the official rules as published on The CT Lottery's website.  If my ticket numbers are excluded from the second drawing, then the holders of tickets that were excluded in the first drawing have a 100,000 to 1 chance to win one million dollars, and that's not fair to me as my odds to win the top prize in the first drawing weren't as low/good.

As for the players that threw their excluded tickets in the trash prior to learning of the screw-up, CT has established a process to refund their money, although I don't think it's going to work out well for those unfortunate players that threw their tickets away.  Do those players know the six digit number(s) printed on those tickets?  Do they know the date and time they bought them? I doubt it, and without that info, I don't know how The CT Lottery can refund players their money. 

Here's a wild thought with regard to this fiasco: What if the top prize winner in the first drawing wins the top prize in the second drawing??  I doubt that will happen, but it's definitely possible. And... I'm willing to bet there will be winners of lower tier prizes in the second drawing that won a lower tier prize in the first drawing.

Here's another thing; Suppose I'm a guy who checked his excluded ticket and tossed it because the ticket checking machine told me it was not a winner.... and in the second drawing, my excluded ticket wins the top prize. We'll know if that actually happened because the million dollar winner will never come forward to claim their prize. G5 

MIKE44665

This will be my first post as this event disturbs me so much I must respond.

This "human error" falls directly into my list of people that:

"get paid a whole lot of money, to make decisions, they know absolutely nothing about".

Everyone from the top position holder (read director), down to the lowest position that had any connection to this drawing (game) should be terminated, done, period.  Excluding the terminal operators that sold the tickets.

It is very obvious that no air breathing individual looked and pondered over the results BEFORE they were released. Really?  Any game that relies on computer generated numbers or picks is unreliable and adding the "human" factor to the equation, you get this.

justguessin's avatarjustguessin

This is just a unfair game all the way around. I bought 2 tickets after Christmas and wasn't eligible for the 90 early bird slots at the beginning of the game but since I got a little money for Christmas I said to myself what the heck if you don't  play you can't win. So I watched the sales on and around new years eve and noticed there were still lots of tickets to go before the game sold out and was actually getting a little optimistic that I could maybe win 1 of the 1375 prizes left to win. I'm sure every1 playing felt the same way I did.And new years day I checked on the computer and saw the list of winners numbers and looked at my numbers and knew right away something was wrong with the range of winners. I don't think you have to work at the lottery to see there was a mistake. Then right after the website says that they made a mistake, 100000 tickets weren't included and they were gonna do a new game that day and every1 that won will also get paid. I was like ok does that mean all of us omitted tickets get to go in twice? And I looked at their response on twitter an d my answer to that question was "no that would be illegal " so I was like "we'll does that make what happened legal?" And I guess it was cuz it was "just a human error". Well wasn't  their like 5 humans there at the time getting paid to look for "human errors"? I mean be real!,,,, I I hope someone with a law degree steps up and helps us out,this is really out of hand.

Candy-Lane's avatarCandy-Lane

"because those of us are smart enough to be atheists"     LOL

 

I think that the most intelligent people are those who are able to believe what they can not see! Big Grin Angel

Less intelligent people tend to only believe in what they can see. How unfortunate for those people! 

 

I think that the Connecticut Lottery is doing the right thing.  They said they would hold a drawing on Jan 1 and they did.

What if you had been the one who won the $1M?  It wasn't your fault the lottery made dreadful mistake! So, the CT Lottery has no choice but to honor the first drawing.

The second drawing will give those who were not included in the first drawing their fair chance at winning the advertised prizes.   Yes, many will get an extra chance. A few may well win twice.... But, what are you going to do? At least everyone will have gotten what they paid for....

A lesson we can all learn from this is not to be so quick to throw away our "losing tickets."

KY Floyd's avatarKY Floyd

"there is no good/perfect solution to fix this mess."

That's true, but some solutions are worse than others and lottery officials have decided to go with the worst "solution".

With only 114,601 of the 214,601 tickets the tickets in the flawed drawing have already had almost twice as much chance (1.87, to be precise) to win as they should have had. By simply having a "correction" drawing all of those tickets get another chance with the correct odds, while the tickets that were originally excluded get a first chance with the correct odds. The end result is that the tickets that are in both drawings end up with almost 3 times as much chance to win as the tickets that are only in the second drawing.

Simply holding a drawing for just the excluded tickets isn't a great solution, because with only 100,000 tickets they'd have 1.15 times as much chance as the 114,601 tickets. That's still far better than giving some tickets 1.87 times the chance to win.

In the thread about the CT representative who's planning an investigation I suggested that they should do the correction drawing using 100,000 virtual tickets. That way the original 114,601 tickets would have a chance from each drawing, and the 100,000 tickets that were originally excluded would get two chances in one drawing. Intuitively that seemed right, but then I did the math (after posting, unfortunately). It actually works out just the same as holding the regular correction drawing.

That makes a drawing for only the excluded tickets as close to giving all tickets the same chance as possible. They could then even out that 15% advantage by holding a 3rd drawing for just the losers from the 114,601 tickets in the first drawing, offering an addition 197 prizes (15% of the original 1311 available prizes) for an additional 15% of the total prize money, which would be an extra $206,250.

 

"I think that the most intelligent people are those who are able to believe what they can not see!"

Did you believed in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny when you were 3 or 4, but don't believe in them now? If so, I'm afraid that your own reasoning leads to an inescapable conclusion about your intelligence now compared to your intelligence then.

GiveFive's avatarGiveFive

Quote: Originally posted by justguessin on Jan 14, 2018

This is just a unfair game all the way around. I bought 2 tickets after Christmas and wasn't eligible for the 90 early bird slots at the beginning of the game but since I got a little money for Christmas I said to myself what the heck if you don't  play you can't win. So I watched the sales on and around new years eve and noticed there were still lots of tickets to go before the game sold out and was actually getting a little optimistic that I could maybe win 1 of the 1375 prizes left to win. I'm sure every1 playing felt the same way I did.And new years day I checked on the computer and saw the list of winners numbers and looked at my numbers and knew right away something was wrong with the range of winners. I don't think you have to work at the lottery to see there was a mistake. Then right after the website says that they made a mistake, 100000 tickets weren't included and they were gonna do a new game that day and every1 that won will also get paid. I was like ok does that mean all of us omitted tickets get to go in twice? And I looked at their response on twitter an d my answer to that question was "no that would be illegal " so I was like "we'll does that make what happened legal?" And I guess it was cuz it was "just a human error". Well wasn't  their like 5 humans there at the time getting paid to look for "human errors"? I mean be real!,,,, I I hope someone with a law degree steps up and helps us out,this is really out of hand.

If the person who wins the top prize of a million dollars is holding one of the 100,000 ticket numbers that was excluded in the first drawing, they're not going to be all that upset about the screw up in the original drawing. That person could be you.  If you win that million dollars, are you willing to pay a person with a law degree to help the losers out? G5

GiveFive's avatarGiveFive

Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on Jan 15, 2018

"there is no good/perfect solution to fix this mess."

That's true, but some solutions are worse than others and lottery officials have decided to go with the worst "solution".

With only 114,601 of the 214,601 tickets the tickets in the flawed drawing have already had almost twice as much chance (1.87, to be precise) to win as they should have had. By simply having a "correction" drawing all of those tickets get another chance with the correct odds, while the tickets that were originally excluded get a first chance with the correct odds. The end result is that the tickets that are in both drawings end up with almost 3 times as much chance to win as the tickets that are only in the second drawing.

Simply holding a drawing for just the excluded tickets isn't a great solution, because with only 100,000 tickets they'd have 1.15 times as much chance as the 114,601 tickets. That's still far better than giving some tickets 1.87 times the chance to win.

In the thread about the CT representative who's planning an investigation I suggested that they should do the correction drawing using 100,000 virtual tickets. That way the original 114,601 tickets would have a chance from each drawing, and the 100,000 tickets that were originally excluded would get two chances in one drawing. Intuitively that seemed right, but then I did the math (after posting, unfortunately). It actually works out just the same as holding the regular correction drawing.

That makes a drawing for only the excluded tickets as close to giving all tickets the same chance as possible. They could then even out that 15% advantage by holding a 3rd drawing for just the losers from the 114,601 tickets in the first drawing, offering an addition 197 prizes (15% of the original 1311 available prizes) for an additional 15% of the total prize money, which would be an extra $206,250.

 

"I think that the most intelligent people are those who are able to believe what they can not see!"

Did you believed in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny when you were 3 or 4, but don't believe in them now? If so, I'm afraid that your own reasoning leads to an inescapable conclusion about your intelligence now compared to your intelligence then.

I think you've proposed a better solution to the problem than The CT Lottery has implemented.

Although I don't know if they actually considered anything close to what you've offered above, my guess is they found the cheapest way (for them) out of this mess.  The State of Connecticut's fiscal situation is a total disaster. They haven't got two nickels to rub together much less an extra $206,250 in prize money.  G5

justguessin's avatarjustguessin

I think I personally would try and get together a "late bird" drawing and help sponsor it up to 50 thousand dollars. Anonymously. I think the best way to help would be to put it back to the wronged players and help put back the integrity  of the lottery. That's if I won the million. I'm not saying any who won should do that but for me I think it would be money well spent.

Candy-Lane's avatarCandy-Lane

KY Floyd : I am going to put this in the nicest possible way: I am far more intelligent (and richer), then you can ever imagine (or will ever be)!

 I am not going to waste my time trying to educate you. I don't think that you would be able to comprehend! Continue being an Atheist,and see where that gets you when you meet your Maker (God).   Life on Earth is fleeting compared to eternity.  You seem determined to spend eternity in Hell.  I am a believer. I have chosen to spend my eternity in Heaven.   

 

Everyone has a right to believe (or not), to believe in whatever or, whomever they wish. 

 

So quit insulting those who don't share your views!!! 

KY Floyd's avatarKY Floyd

If you were all that smart you'd be able to figure out that I didn't insult anyone. All I did was point out the logical conclusion of your reasoning.

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