Roughly 19,000 lottery machines shut down across the state Wednesday, with more than 2,300 in Southern California -- including the Coachella Valley, according to the California Lottery.
Norma Minas, a spokeswoman with the California Lottery, said that the problem was thought to be caused by a software flaw.
Minas said she had not heard anything about the problem being caused by recent e-mail virus attacks striking computers around the world, and that stores would not likely be facing legions of upset customers.
"If we were in lotto fever tonight, it would be a different story," said Minas. "If the machines are down only for a short time, people will probably just get their tickets later."
Asim Butt, manager of the 7-Eleven convenience store on Highway 111 in Palm Desert, said that his lottery machine had been down since Wednesday morning.
"We called the lottery (department), and they said theyve been looking for the problem," said Butt.
Not every lottery terminal in the area has been affected, however. The 7-Eleven further down along Highway 111 in Indio reported no problems with their lottery machine.
Minas said that engineers had been working through the problem and expected that the machines would be back up soon.
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