The South Carolina Lottery is in serious trouble after 42 000 winning lottery tickets were printed out on Christmas day 2017. The winning tickets were printed out for Holiday Cash Add-A-Play game over the course of two hours. The game is a tic-tac-toe style game, with players trying to find three Christmas trees in a row.
South Carolina Lottery’s Difficult Path Forward
However, there was a massive glitch that meant that every ticket sold had Christmas trees in all nine squares on the ticket. The maximum number was supposed to be five. This made Christmas day extra special for many gamblers, but the South Carolina lottery wasn’t feeling the Christmas cheer. It now looks as though it may have to pay out over $33 million in winnings to players due to the glitch. The sad part is that this money had been set aside for the state to use for school buses and scholarships.
However, there’s a massive Catch 22 for the South Carolina Lottery. If it doesn’t pay out the winnings, it is very likely to face thousands of lawsuits from players who won. However, if they do pay out the winnings, they’ll likely be sued by advocate groups who have pointed out that they’re not supposed to payout misprinted tickets. No matter what they do, the path forward isn’t easy, and South Carolina schools will have to do without this extra money while the situation is resolved.
Troublemaking Cyber Santa?
The South Carolina Lottery Director, Hogan Brown, recently revealed in a hearing that the lottery had employed the services to Gaming Laboratories International. The New Jersey-based company would investigate the situation and establish whether the lottery’s Greek technology partner, Intralot, was liable in any way.
However, due to the timing of the glitch, there are those who are wondering if this was the work of outside forces, a Lottery Santa if you will. Some people don’t think that it is a coincidence that this happened on Christmas day. Time will tell what the investigation reveals and how the South Carolina lottery proceeds.
2024 Latest News: Lottery Winner Scores Nearly $600,000 Due to Printing Error
The fortuitous win occurred when Sopejstal, during a visit to a gas station in New Buffalo, Michigan, asked for a Lucky For Life lottery ticket for 10 or 20 draws. The store attendant misunderstood and printed a ticket with 10 lines for a single draw, but Sopejstal decided to keep it.
Upon checking the ticket after the draw, he found he had matched several numbers, securing a prize of $25,000 each year for life. While he missed the jackpot of $1,000 daily for life by one number, the winnings still amounted to a substantial sum.
Sopejstal, after contemplating his options, chose to receive a lump sum of $390,000 after tax deductions. The unexpected windfall left him excited about potential uses for his newfound wealth.
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