Phantom wins: Lottery compensates players misled by false prizes

By Kate Northrop

The Hoosier Lottery has announced that it is offering cash payments for scratch-off tickets that had appeared to win big prizes but were in fact misprints.

After a "technical error" in the Hoosier Lottery's "Space Invaders Cash Invasion" scratch-off game had players believing they won prizes that didn't actually exist, the Lottery announced a payout resolution for the tickets that were impacted.

In June, the Lottery released a Space Invaders-themed scratch-off game, but it was quickly pulled from retailers after players started revealing big wins only to be denied the prizes.

One player's Reddit post garnered thousands of upvotes and swaths of commenters urging the player to seek legal advice after his ticket showed a $100,000 win supposedly in line with the game rules printed on the ticket.

The debacle came down to a "printing error where some tickets appeared to show a prize different from what was recorded on the lottery commission's official validation record," a Lottery representative had explained to Nexstar.

Players were and are still able to complete a Protest Form on the Lottery's website and mail in affected tickets, as long as the "Space Invaders Cash Invasion" ticket pertains to the #2624 version of the game and not the newer #2666 edition.

After running its investigation on the game, the Hoosier Lottery found that 252 tickets were affected by the printing error, Fox59 said, and the Lottery is offering consolation payouts to those affected.

It may not be the take-home players had hoped for, but at least it's something. The consolation payout amount on impacted tickets depends on the misprinted amount players found on their ticket.

Misprinted amounts of $10-$499 receive $25, $500-$2,499 receive $100, $2,500-$5,999 receive $500, and finally, amounts of $100,000 and more receive $10,000.

According to the Lottery, those payout amounts are larger than what is required to be administered to players by state law, and that the money is not coming from taxpayer dollars.

"The Hoosier Lottery remains committed to paying all valid tickets and to operating in accordance with Indiana law and our administrative rules," the Lottery says on its website.

The Lottery has since relaunched the $5 "Space Invaders Cash Invasion" scratch-off game. As of now, there are two out of three top prizes of $100,000, 18 out of 28 second-tier prizes of $2,500, and 412 out of 683 third-tier prizes of $500 remaining. The overall odds of winning any prize in the game are 1 in 3.70.