DC Lottery offers several pathways for remediation after programming error caused untold tickets to lose out
By Kate Northrop
After Lottery Post alerted the DC Lottery to a possible error that prevented tickets from winning in three of its local draw games for weeks, the DC Lottery has announced several different forms of compensation for players who may have been impacted by the computerized drawing glitch.
Last week, Lottery Post reached out to the DC Lottery after Lottery Post members independently observed an unlikely statistical anomaly in Washington, D.C. draw outcomes. It resulted in the DC Lottery discovering a coding error that prevented certain tickets from winning in three of its draw games for three weeks.
The DC Lottery has not publicly acknowledged Lottery Post's assistance and notification of the problem, even though the issue may have persisted for much longer if the popular lottery website had not contacted them about it.
Specifically, the coding error prevented those games from producing results that contained repeating digits, meaning that players who purchased tickets with repeating digits had no shot at winning a prize in any of the three Pick-style draw games.
The shocking part of this is how many tickets there were with no chance of winning. In Pick 3, 28% of all possible combinations contain at least one repeating digit, meaning 28% of the possible combinations for that game had no chance of winning.
But it gets much worse for the other two games.
In Pick 4, nearly 50% of all possible combinations had no chance of winning. But Pick 5 players had it the worst, since a whopping 70% of all possible combinations have at least one repeating digit — a vast majority of ticket combinations with no chance of winning for three weeks.
The Lottery announced that the glitch was attributed to human error made by an outside, third-party vendor, Smartplay International, Inc., and that the problem had affected DC 3, DC 4, and DC 5 for approximately three weeks.
As soon as the issue was discovered, Lottery officials contacted the third-party vendor, who initiated a fix, and proactively reverted its drawings to a backup system to conduct the following draws.
Today, the DC Lottery announced several pathways for reimbursement, as well as additional opportunities for affected players to win prizes in the future.
"We are confident that we have identified and corrected the issue," Lottery Executive Director Randy Burnside said in a press release. "We are committed to making it right for our players and appreciate their patience over the past few days. We have the best players in the world and will be providing them with additional opportunities to win over the course of the next several months."
Players who selected two or more of the same numbers in a play for any of the DC 3, DC 4, and DC 5 midday or evening drawings between March 31, 2026 and April 21, 2026 are eligible to receive coupons, free plays, and extra chances to win.
Those who bought their tickets online or on the Lottery's official app will receive free plays equal to the value of the affected play, and those impacted accounts will automatically be credited.
Players who purchased their affected tickets in person at a brick-and-mortar retailer and still have their tickets can receive a coupon equal to the value of the affected play, which can be used at a retailer location. Players are advised that they must surrender their ticket in exchange for a coupon.
These players, however, will not be able to exchange their ticket until May 18, 2026, when the claims process for these coupons open. More details will be available on the official DC Lottery website as the date approaches. Players will be able to file claims either in person or via mail.
Players who purchased physical tickets but no longer have them on hand still have an option. Starting today and through the end of June, players who register for an online DC iLottery account and log in will receive $10 in free play for DC 3, DC 4, and DC 5. Lottery officials have waived the minimum deposit requirement for this promotion.
Finally, the DC Lottery is planning to launch a Numbers Game 2nd Chance contest for players affected by the coding error, which is scheduled to begin on May 18, 2026. The promotion features $150,000 in prizes, including a $25,000 top prize and additional prizes of $1,000, $250, and $50.
The Lottery advises players to contact the DC Lottery Prize Center at 202-645-8000 with any questions. The Prize Center is open Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. local time.
All too familiar problem with computerized drawings
This is not the first time this kind of error has occurred, and Lottery Post has been documenting flaws with computerized drawings for decades. State lotteries continue turning a blind eye to the many problems, with many even refusing to entertain the possibility of reverting to tried-and-true mechanical ball drawings.
The same coding error took place with the New Mexico Lottery in 2019, in which combinations with repeat digits were impossible to be drawn in Pick 4. It went on for two weeks before the New Mexico Lottery identified the mistake made by their gaming vendor.
In 2021, another software glitch prevented the New Jersey Lottery's Fast Play Progressive jackpot game from selecting a jackpot winner for two months, meaning players were funding the jackpot with their ticket purchases without having any shot at winning it.
In 2018, a coding error made it so that 100,000 tickets had no chance of winning any prizes ranging from $100 to $1 million in the state's New Year's raffle drawing.
Other instances of computerized drawing mishaps have been well documented by Lottery Post over the years, with some the most notable examples below:
- California Lottery Daily Derby software error denied players a chance to win the grand prize over six months, 2005: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/112810
- Kansas Lottery Pick 3 system glitch picked identical numbers in the same order three days straight, 2005: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/325562
- Tennessee Lottery Cash 3 error prevented duplicate numbers, 2007: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/161364
- Tennessee Lottery required to pay out two sets of winning numbers, 2007: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/162943
- Arizona Lottery Pick 3 computer code prevented 8 and 9 from being drawn in certain positions, 2013: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/265143
- Delaware Lottery Keno glitch draws same winning numbers for six drawings, 2015: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/297350
- Arizona Lottery machine malfunction produced identical numbers for multiple games, 2017: https://www.lotterypost.com/news/315664
Sucks because 95% of the tickets purchased in store are thrown away after a week max so people have no proof of buying the tickets and can't get they money back. A class action should get started. A lot of older folks play all trips .50 and $1 for those draws and they had no chance to win.
$10 reported compensation is a joke compared to how much money was played on numbers that had 0 chance of winning in Pick2, Pick3, Pick4 and Pick5?! Shame on DC Lottery! I smell a lawsuit by smart players on coming....
Mighty kind of them to sprinkle $10 worth of fairy dust on a case of Athlete's Foot. What a way to sweep a huge problem under the rug. And DC won't even have to foot the bill. I have a better idea. Have them add up the value of all of the fraudulent tickets they sold, and make them self-punish by cancelling enough draws to negate the revenue they stole from the players. For all three games.
Again..Motto of their story..
"We can screw YOU...
But you cain't screw US..!"
I remember the arguments I had over these rigged rng machines. I love how the lottery is playing it off as an oopsie.... Where's these " independent agencies " that are supposed to monitor these games? Are these 'agencies" scams to? But I blame the people who play these games the most. You line up to shell away your money to these games.......
Okay, very nice.
Sure agnoledging Lottery Posts Intel about the glitch would be an admission of guilt. No one ever admits wrongdoing. They blame human error albeit a third party(see it wasn't us)
I've always defended the lottery when people post "this draw history is bad" by pointing out that randomly drawn numbers can generate patterns that may look funny in retrospect, but if they are random and unpredictable, then there's nothing wrong with it. Not any more!
I will never defend the lottery as long as they use an RNG to choose winning numbers. Probability theory applies to random number drawings that do not contain errors. I had no idea that these RNG systems had bugs in it so many times before. They're just not trustworthy!
Fortunately, the RNG used by slot machines, including video keno, are not subject to these kinds of stupid errors that the lottery people make. A slot machine RNG runs continuously, and while the number of combinations on the reels may be very large, the RNG itself only picks one number. It may be one number between 1 and 2 million, but it's one number that gets mapped onto a reel setting. For video keno, it runs 20 times once you hit "draw". Those are trustworthy. The lottery is not.
For some reason, the lotteries cannot figure out how to get an RNG to generate three (or four or five) random digits between 0 and 9. That is just sad. It's a really simple program to do this, and the fact that they get it wrong over and over tells me that they (and the auditors who sign off on it) are very stupid people and should never be trusted with our money.
When the Millionaire For Life game came out, I bought a ticket every now and then, because I find it a much better game than PB/MM. But because it's an RNG game, I have put that game on my ban list. They need to do a mechanical ball drawing and then I'll go back to playing.
Everyone needs to boycott lottery RNG games and turn their "savings" into a huge loss. That is the only way for them to change.
"I had no idea that these RNG systems had bugs in it so many times before. They're just not trustworthy!"
And they've also found a way to rig ball drawingz too ..The SAME Math xspozez 'em..
Soo, neevaah say "neevaah"..
You've unintentionally pointed out why mechanical ball drawings are superior: The problem was found before the drawing took place.
I see your point,... But now lately,whenever the Math points out a ball, LOz have placed a ball 1 number higher there, which suggests that they're planning ahead to defeat what the Math might predict.. whereas EARLIER drawing data points them out right on the money...
Which is why I've always suspected the 15 - 45 min , 1 hr cutoff time, as their M.O.M.
Not to mention the sabotaging of my wireless printers, device lottery software, that I don't see Nobodyelse complaining about happening to them on here.. why?
Because they ain't using Probability Math ..!!
Sometimes problems happen during the drawings too.
https://youtu.be/Moo5MN1Sxbk?si=SJnz8pl6mSCbyur_
https://youtu.be/Vx8zds-eaXU?si=SFhuX2BbBgsLIxzy
https://youtu.be/m7CjNQabtYo?si=9Bo8hniDz8dZFyBM
https://youtu.be/ffgAklcb9l4?si=GTBltZxAtZeIDM0C
Precisely my point with that MM...was it, or was it rigged?.. cause I had used Probability Math to get the winning numbers, before they realized it WILL tell you...
Malfunction again tonight. 🤔