Printing error

The odds of winning a lottery jackpot are as great as the game of chance itself making a mistake. But the rare instance of a lottery giving out the wrong winning numbers happens.

When the US Powerball lottery published the drawn numbers for the $320-million jackpot on 7 January 2023, the combination 7, 15, 23, 32, 40 and Powerball number 2 matched those on the ticket of Washington, DC resident John Cheeks.

The website of the DC Office of Lottery and Gaming (DCOLG), however, then posted on 9 January the real winning numbers that were called out during a televised drawing, which were different from those on Cheeks’ Powerball ticket, Fox News reports.

Cheeks went to claim his prize on 10 January but “the DCOLG said they would not honor the ticket because it was an error that was posted on their public website” and the prize money could not be redeemed, according to Fox News.

Cheeks sued the DCOLG, the Multi-State Lottery Association, and Taoti Enterprises, operator of the lottery’s website, for nearly $962 million to demand the jackpot payout. The case is pending in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia Civil Division.

In another case, Lori Sailors of Lincoln, Nebraska, bought a Pick 5 lottery ticket at a local store for the 22 June draw hoping to win the cash prize of $220,000.

The Pick 5 outlet, however, printed the wrong numbers on Sailor’s ticket. Nevertheless, she kept it.

The winning Nebraska Lottery draw numbers then matched the numbers on Sailors’ erroneously printed ticket, UPI reports.

It was Sailors’ second time to win a Pick 5 prize. In June 2019, she won $54,000 and the drawn numbers also were not her choices as they were mistakenly printed on the lottery ticket, according to UPI.