Computer glitch takes down Penn. Lottery terminals

Jul 9, 2010, 1:01 pm (9 comments)

Pennsylvania Lottery

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Lottery officials said they've fixed a computer glitch that took down game terminals across the state for more than seven hours Thursday.

Lottery officials in Harrisburg told local media that the machines always shut down overnight, and come back online at about 5:30 a.m., but that didn't happen Thursday morning.

Officials said that a computer network problem affecting terminal-based games and ticket validation functions lasted until about noon.

Lottery officials said the glitch affected all of its approximately 8,500 retailers.

Players who purchased advance tickets for the day's drawings can validate winning tickets now that the system is back up.

During the downtime, a message on the lottery's website said the network was down and they apologized for the inconvenience.

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

dpoly1's avatardpoly1

I live in PA and the entire State is a glitch !

Especially if you include West Jersey (Philadelphia) !

My goal is to win the Powerball in PA and move out of PA !

US Flag

ressuccess's avatarressuccess

I didn't know why there's a glitch.

Delta Draw

I have a friend who moved there. He calls it Pennsyl-tucky.

DD

TheGameGrl's avatarTheGameGrl

I live near the lottery  main terminal base and can tell you we had rolling blackouts, when that happens the system can only sustain a few hours on backup power. OUr areas were down from 5 pm until 2 am THursday . If no one is there to reset the system then at 7 AM when the LOttery convenes they then need to upload ( which is usually done between 11:15 Pm and 5 AM.) THats my story and I'm sticking to it :)

JADELottery's avatarJADELottery

Classy. Thumbs Up

diamondpalace's avatardiamondpalace

I'm surprised by their system security not being state of the art. With all the money they pull in annually one would find that they are on top of things in terms of network stabilization.

TheGameGrl's avatarTheGameGrl

Quote: Originally posted by diamondpalace on Jul 10, 2010

I'm surprised by their system security not being state of the art. With all the money they pull in annually one would find that they are on top of things in terms of network stabilization.

May I formally introduce you Diamondpalace to the Low cost never pay more then bare minimum Pennsylvania!  Yes I am proud to say they will not invest in anything remotely beneficial to the customers they serve. I agree that while there are products that sustain longer , at some point even the Govt is at the mercy of common electrical outagous. Maybe they can learn from the medical industry and have a generator set up, they are only about two miles from the infamous Three Mile Island Power plant. :)

HaveABall's avatarHaveABall

Ya, the Pennsylvania Lottery not being able to sell tickets through any of their state's vendors machines for 19 hours is a HUGE loss in income to the various slices of their revenue distribution pie!  How will they recover? ... time to purchase a quality power generator so that their damage will only be a quarter as much next time the electricity goes out for 19 hours, and their server goes down soon thereafter!

Hiding Behind Computer

TheGameGrl's avatarTheGameGrl

Quote: Originally posted by HaveABall on Jul 10, 2010

Ya, the Pennsylvania Lottery not being able to sell tickets through any of their state's vendors machines for 19 hours is a HUGE loss in income to the various slices of their revenue distribution pie!  How will they recover? ... time to purchase a quality power generator so that their damage will only be a quarter as much next time the electricity goes out for 19 hours, and their server goes down soon thereafter!

Hiding Behind Computer

I would agree in theory of the revenue loss, the problem is, they are set at minimal amount to be utilized for software and electrical power protectors in budgets. That incident was 1/365 of a net loss,not enough to jar the beast.

End of comments
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