South Carolina lottery says no prize for 71,000 ‘winning’ tickets

COLUMBIA, SC (WBTW) — The South Carolina Education Lottery says players who thought they won $500 from a December 2017 game, will not receive their winnings.

Lottery officials announced in a press release Wednesday that anyone who purchased a Holiday Cash Add A Play ticket on December 25, 2017 between 5:51 p.m. until the close of the game at 7:53 p.m. that depicted nine tree symbols will receive a refund for the ticket. Those ticket holders will not receive the winnings because officials say the tickets were “erroneously produced.”

“This decision is required by South Carolina Code Section 59-150-230(C)(3)(a) which provides that prizes arising from a ticket produced or issued in error must not be paid,” the release states.

Before making the decision, lottery officials hired Gaming Laboratories International, LLC (GLI) to conduct an independent, impartial analysis, which revealed coding errors by SCEL’s former computer gaming vendor, and the vendor’s inadequate quality assurance testing that would have discovered these errors before the tickets were distributed.

Click here to read more.