A Glitch Stole Christmas: S.C. Lottery Says Error Caused Winning Tickets (npr.org)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The South Carolina lottery game is called Holiday Cash Add-A-Play, and the rules are pretty simple: Get three Christmas tree symbols in any vertical, horizontal or diagonal line, and you win a prize. Monday was Christmas, and some folks in the Palmetto State were feeling jolly. "I don't play the lottery that much," Nicole Coggins of Liberty, S.C., told local NBC affiliate WYFF. "Every once in a while, I'll buy a Powerball ticket, but something told me to buy a lottery ticket." She paid an extra dollar to add a play. The ticket was a winner, and she was excited.

The station says that as word got out about the sudden proliferation of winning tickets, a frenzy ensued. One store manager told WYFF that "it was crazy" as people hurried to buy the tickets. But the Christmas miracle was too good to be true. The South Carolina Education Lottery says a programming error in its computer system vendor is to blame for so many winning tickets. "From 5:51 p.m. to 7:53 p.m., the same play symbol was repeated in all nine available play areas on tickets which would result in a top prize of $500," the lottery said in a statement Wednesday. "No more than five identical play symbols should appear for a single play. As soon as the issue was identified, the Add-A-Play game was suspended immediately to conduct a thorough investigation."

Comments

State should honor the tickets

[Anonymous Coward]

The state should honor the tickets and not welch. If it was caused by an error, then the state should sue the manufacturer of the tickets for damages.

Re:State should honor the tickets

[ShanghaiBill]

The state should honor the tickets and not welch.

Just to be clear: You are saying the taxpayers should pay for this, and funds should be diverted from paying for schools and road repairs.

Since these lotteries have fine print legalese that lays out what happens in the case of a printing or programming error, there is no legal obligation to honor the tickets. Since most people that bought the tickets did so after they were aware of the error, there is no moral reason to pay up either.

Re:State should honor the tickets

[networkBoy]

not in this case. This is more akin to a scratcher, except it's generated at purchase instead of pre-gen'd and bundled.
I'm pretty sure that the best outcome is a refund and possibly a token payout to all purchasers of error'd tickets.

Re:State should honor the tickets

[Lothsahn]

This was a fixed-price lottery ticket, not a jackpot style scenario. Payout was $500 per ticket.

People the article interviewed went and bought tons of tickets, seeing that most were winning. The article cited winners of $18,000 and $10,000 complaining that they were worried they would lose their winnings. I think after you win 36 times, mostly in a row, you know something is up, and you may not win the full $18k.

But they should still win at least the first $500, IMO.

Re:State should honor the tickets

[Train0987]

Disagree. If they played by the rules all those tickets should be valid. They weren't exploiting anything and the wins weren't a result of a malfunction (a programming error is not a malfunction, the game worked as implemented). If this had happened in a casino the state gaming commission would force them to pay all winners.

Re:State should honor the tickets

[Train0987]

I am not aware of any fine print on lottery tickets excluding wins based on "programming error". The programming defines the game and any error is not the fault of the player.

Your bit about taxpayers paying for this is false as well since the winning are paid from lottery revenues. The lottery exists as a way to fleece (double-dip) taxpayers in the first place. It would cost taxpayers much more if people stopped playing the lottery because the state can arbitrarily rescind winnings.

Which brings another point: most people cash out winning tickets immediately. How will they claw back the money already paid?

Re:State should honor the tickets

[Train0987]

A programming error is NOT a malfunction. The machine worked exactly as it was rogrammed to. That is by definition not a malfunction.

P.S. I work in the industry and NO casino would get away with this. If a video poker machine or Keno game was programmed incorrectly the gaming commission would force a payout. Sure the casino can take the machine offline and prevent future plays but existing winners would eventually be paid.

Re:State should honor the tickets

[Immerman]

Lets try this in a different context, shall we?

When an airbag fails to deploy because of a poorly manufactured part, that is not a malfunction - the part is working exactly as it was manufactured to do - the laws of physics allow no other outcome. Or perhaps the design itself was flawed - still not a malfunction, it is working exactly as designed.

Or maybe, just maybe, the fact that you were thrown through the windshield is evidence that the safety system malfunctioned, since it functioned as designed and implemented, but not as intended?

Re:State should honor the tickets

[Train0987]

Not necessarily. Most machine malfunctions that I deal with are from parts wearing out. Reels hanging/catching, etc. That is not a design imperfection, it's a materials failure, and an expected one. That's why machine errors void the play.

When discussing machine software we're really just talking about random number generators. An error in the programming of an RNG (which is what this lotto mistake most likely is) should not void the play. At least it wouldn't at a Nevada casino, mainly because the source code would have been submitted and approved by the Commission in the first place. If the source code matches what the Commission has on file then they will force a payout. If the code is different, well then that casino would have much bigger problems.

Re:State should honor the tickets

[Desler]

https://www.wired.com/2014/10/...

Another software bug, aka not a malfunction according to you, was found in video poker machines. Player exploited it and was forced to pay back the casinos the jackpots and even legally got in trouble. If software bugs were not malfunctions why would he have been forced to repay the casinos and was even banned from gaming in Pennsylvania?

Re:State should honor the tickets

[david_thornley]

Machines clearly state in their rules that malfunctions invalidate all plays

What I've wondered is how I'm supposed to know if the machine malfunctioned in the casino's favor. It only seems fair.

The tickets are winners...

[Lothsahn]

IMO, the tickets should be paid, at least the first ticket per person. I think that's the only ethical course of action.

For people who found it was a glitch and repeatedly bought tickets, I can see some argument for only paying the first.

But what will likely happen is some lawyer will cite some obscure contract language and nobody will get anything. I hope I'm wrong.

Re:The tickets are winners...

[whoever57]

IMO, the tickets should be paid, at least the first ticket per person. I think that's the only ethical course of action.

Let's just face it: US society is stacked against everyone who isn't in the top 1%

Some years ago, a company lost hundreds of millions of dollars when they screwed up their algorithmic trading software. The exchange reversed some of those trades, but why? If I am on the other side of the trade and I made a profit, why should I lose this just because they claimed that there was an error? As an ordinary small trader, I can't get trades reversed because I made a mistake.

Re:Can't believe..

[Jason1729]

It is a bit misleading to call it an "Education Lottery". It would be more honest to call it a "Public School Lottery". At public schools they aren't going to give kids the math tools to understand why lotteries are a bad idea.

Re:Congratulations to the programmer who got this

[Joe_Dragon]

I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something.