California IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : Lottery Pays Off After Computer Bug

The California Lottery began paying cash prizes Friday to hundreds of thousands of Lotto and Decco players after fixing a computer problem that halted payoffs for 24 hours. No one picked all six Lotto numbers correctly to take home the $4.6-million jackpot in Wednesday night’s Lotto drawing, but more than 228,900 others won smaller prizes in Lotto and Decco drawings, lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Walker said. Because nobody won the top Lotto jackpot, the money will be rolled over into tonight’s jackpot, which could hit $11 million, Walker said. The computer glitch--the second in the four-year history of Lotto--prevented retailers from running the winning tickets through their computerized lottery terminals to make sure they were authentic.