In an email, the Lottery tells us, “Engineers are continuing to perform a battery of tests and analyses to 1) Determine the root cause of the event with the terminal or system; 2) Determine if there have been past events of a similar nature in Arizona; 3) Certify that no current or future risks are posed to the Arizona Lottery players."
Executive Director Jeff Hatch-Miller says, in part, “Our security team took immediate and appropriate actions to respond to this isolated incident. While statistically possible, it is not probable that two tickets with the same numbers would be issued. Because of the information that we received, the Lottery proceeded with precautionary measures to insure the integrity of our games.”
"The Arizona Lottery takes this matter very seriously. At this time we have no information which would lead the Lottery to suspect this incident was anything beyond an unfortunate technical anomaly. We believe that the Arizona Lottery terminal network and central gaming system remains secure and operating with full integrity."
Still, Bleichroth said the strange ordeal has caused her to question the lottery's legitimacy.
“This is such a huge thing,” she said. “I can't imagine that there's a teeny little glitch that only two identical tickets were ever produced like this number.”
The Arizona Lottery emphasizes how rare it believes this occurrence is.
The final results of the analysis is expected to take a few more days. 3 On Your Side will let you know how that turns out.
In the meantime, the lottery says it is always a good idea to double check your tickets.
