Terminals Kept Spitting Out ‘Winners’ : Lottery on Hold--Computer Let Players Pick After Draw

Connecticut’s $8-million-a-week lottery program has been shut down because of glitches in a new computer system that allowed players to pick winning numbers after they were drawn.

The problem was only one among dozens that surfaced Tuesday as hundreds of vendors across the state complained of foul-ups in their new terminals installed last weekend.

However, lottery officials decided to allow the drawings to be held Tuesday night, only to learn the system was still printing tickets for the winning numbers after the numbers were drawn.

The bogus tickets came to light when two frustrated vendors in Hartford found the terminals were still printing tickets dated May 10 after the 7:45 p.m. shut-off.

They turned in $16,500 worth of Daily Numbers and Play 4 tickets to amazed officials at lottery headquarters in Newington.

“We really don’t know how many (bogus tickets) there are,” said the concerned chief of the state’s lottery program, J. Blaine Lewis Jr.

He said all prize payments and future games were put on hold until the problems are corrected.

Asked if it will be possible for the system to identify a bogus ticket coughed out by the errant terminals, Lewis said, “I think we certainly have to, and I’m sure it will be.”