Computer-Run Lottery Games Run Into Snag : Gambling: A programming problem forces a delay in payments to big winners. Some wagers made Nov. 17 were not logged into the system’s database.
A series of programming problems brought on by the introduction of keno has forced the delay of payments to big winners of all California Lottery computer games and caused terminals to reject some winning tickets, lottery officials said Monday.
They said some of the problems stem from a programming error that showed up Nov. 17 and initially required a 10-hour shutdown of ticket sales for keno, a fast-action game of chance that was made popular in the Nevada casinos.
Most players were only aware of the 10-hour suspension of keno ticket sales and did not know that the programming mishap also affected the lottery’s other computer-operated games. The programming problems apparently caused some wagers made early Nov. 17 not to be logged into the main database. As a result terminals at retail outlets were unable to identify those tickets as winners.
A separate programming oversight caused a similar problem in Northern California on Nov. 23, when for part of the day no tickets for any games could be cashed and validated, officials said.
The errors made it difficult for Controller Gray Davis’ office, the state agency that pays all winning tickets above $599, to verify winners, a problem that remained unsolved Monday. The agency has suspended all payments until the problems are corrected, causing a delay of at least two weeks.
A spokesman for Davis said Monday that eventually all winners will be paid and those with winning tickets should continue to submit claims to the lottery.
The auditing division of the controller’s office, meanwhile, has written lottery officials questioning whether the keno game was adequately tested before it was offered to the public. “We would like to understand why this situation was not detected during the system testing process,” wrote Gerald Long, chief of the controller’s automated payment unit.
Lottery Director Sharon Sharp acknowledged that the lottery pressed GTECH, the Rhode Island company that operates and maintains its computers, to get the game on line by mid-November but she insisted there was still time for keno to be adequately tested.
“We felt 110% comfortable,” she said. “In fact, we could have tested it for three more months and this still could have happened.”
Calling the computer errors “insignificant glitches,” she said lotteries occasionally experience computer problems when they add a new game, especially one as complex as keno, in which a new game is played every five minutes. “In every state you’re going to find these things happen when you’re messing around with a lot of computers,” she said.
Some players affected by the problems disagree. Tom Lawrence, a systems analyst for the city of Burbank, was annoyed when a Fantasy Five ticket he purchased for a Tuesday drawing was inserted in a lottery terminal the following Thursday and registered “no results in.”
When he called the lottery offices, Lawrence said he was told that the agency was having computer problems and that, indeed, he had won a replay for the game. He said an official directed that he fill out a form and mail in his ticket for payment. But Lawrence decided that it “wasn’t worth the hassle” to spend 29 cents for a stamp just to get back a $1 ticket.
“If you can’t trust the machine it’s kind of scary,” he said. “They should tell you that you should not rely on the machine.”
Larry Love, publisher of Lotto Edge, a newsletter providing statistical information on lotteries in Florida and California, said these types of problems erode players’ confidence in the games.
“When you go to cash your ticket you expect to get your money, not to have people tell you (the terminal) isn’t working,” said Love, adding that he too has been receiving complaints from players about the latest glitches. Sharp said it was “unfortunate” that some players had been inconvenienced, but she said the lottery has an elaborate backup system that ensures that no winner will be lost. She said she has since appointed an internal task force of computer technicians and auditors to investigate the problems and to determine if damages should be assessed against GTECH.
Joanne McNabb, a spokeswoman for the agency, said the causes have not yet been pinpointed but there is a “possibility of some operator error in this chain of events.”
The problems come just three months after the California Lottery Commission approved a change in the GTECH contract that decreases by hundreds of thousands of dollars per day the maximum damages that can be assessed against the company for errors that affect computer performance. The change was approved without public discussion.
Sharp said she proposed the change because the company was being asked to get the keno game ready on a short deadline.
“What was important was to be able to get the . . . cooperation of our supplier. The cooperation meant much more than whatever financial windfall you would or you wouldn’t receive from . . . damages,” she said.
Since its introduction Nov. 16, Sharp said keno has added about $7 million a week to lottery revenues.
