Raffle sales halted within hours on opening day

By Kate Northrop

Sales for the famed Montana Millionaire raffle have been postponed while the Montana Lottery figures out the "technical issues" affecting their central gaming system.

The Montana Lottery announced on Sunday that the long-awaited Montana Millionaire game will be put on hold due to "technical issues affecting ticket sales and system operations."

Shortly after tickets for the raffle went on sale at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1, the game experienced technical issues that disrupted ticket sales, with many lottery terminals showing error messages of "Transaction not allowed." The Lottery made an announcement about the issues on social media at 5:59 a.m., just about a half-hour later.

According to a press release, the issues were related to the Lottery's central gaming system vendor operated by Bally's Intralot.

"We understand how disappointing this situation has been for our players and sales agents," Montana Lottery Security Director and Deputy Director Cory Bailey said in an earlier statement. "We are working closely with Bally's Intralot to resolve these issues and restore reliable service. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate everyone's patience as work continues."

An update at about 7:56 a.m. reported that the technical issues were still ongoing. At about 9:25 a.m., the Lottery made another post that said ticket sales were still on hold but that the game would not be postponed.

At around 11:00 a.m., the Lottery made the decision to postpone the game for the day.

"The decision was made to ensure all eligible ticket sales are accurately processed and that the integrity of the Montana Millionaire game is maintained for all players," the Lottery clarified in another statement.

Many customers had waited in line for hours before sales were officially postponed. Lottery director Bob Brown told MTN that, working with Intralot, they initially believed there could be some simple fixes to resolve the issues, so they tried to bring sales back online before deciding the best option was to postpone.

"In hindsight, yeah, maybe you could have stopped sooner, but realistically, we did what we felt was right," he said.

As of the second press release on Nov. 1, the Lottery said that it was working to identify the root cause in conjunction with the team from Bally's Intralot and would be implementing a solution as quickly as possible.

"Montana Millionaire is one of our most anticipated games each year, and we understand the disappointment and frustration this postponement has caused," Bailey added. "Our priority is protecting the integrity of the game and ensuring every player receives a fair and accurate experience. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate the patience of our players and sales agents as we work through these technical challenges."

In the end, 12,919 of the $20 tickets were sold Sunday morning, out of 720,000 available. Of those tickets, more than 2,000 were instant winners — 991 winning $100 and 1019 winning $500. That's a much higher percentage of instant winners than should have been expected — roughly one out of six, instead of one out of 74.

Brown said all of those instant wins will be honored, and the tickets sold Sunday will remain valid for the final drawing in December.

"Hang on to your tickets; don't throw those out," he said.

The Lottery says more instant wins will also be added back into the game, to ensure customers who buy tickets later still have the same odds of getting one. That means the state will have to pay out up to $600,000 more than expected in prizes. Brown said Intralot is going to cover that extra cost.

Tickets and instant prize wins that were already purchased are still valid. Instant prizes can be redeemed. Players are encouraged to hang onto their raffle tickets since they will still count toward the prize pool once the technical issues are fixed.

The Lottery will announce a new sales date and time once the technical issue has been resolved and all sales and game data can be properly validated.

"We want to thank our players, sales agents, and partners for their patience and understanding," Lottery Director of Marketing and Sales Anne Charpentier said. "Our team, along with Bally's Intralot, remains focused on resolving these issues and moving Montana Millionaire forward as soon as possible."