EDMONTON – If you checked your lottery numbers at a retailer Saturday morning, you may want to check them again.
A technical problem within the lottery system delayed validation of tickets; that may have confused some retailers, and in turn, potentially affected some consumers – like Gilles Caron.
Caron tries to buy a lottery ticket every week, but this past weekend was one of his bi-annual “splurges,” where he purchased $50 worth of Lotto 649. When he checked the tickets at a self-serve machine of a Mac’s store Saturday morning, he received an unusual message: “it said not drawn yet,” he recalls.
He gave the ticket to the store clerk to double check, who scanned it on his machine.
“And it came out with a tab saying, ‘Does not appear to be a winner.'”
Caron admits that normally he would have just thrown the ticket away; but because there were 20 picks, he thought it was strange that he hadn’t won anything. So he decided to check it again later that day, and found that he had actually won $14.
Western Canada Lottery Corporation says winning numbers were posted online, but a recent system change added a process that delayed validating of tickets at retailers. The issue was corrected by 10:35 am on Saturday.
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“It’s a very rare occurrence, and yes, something like this happening is extremely unusual,” says the WCLC’s Andrea Marantz in Winnipeg.
According to lotto officials, the self-service machines gave the accurate message.
As for clerks, WCLC says all retailers received a message warning of the problem when they signed on that morning. If they missed it, the wrong information could have been given to customers.
If you threw your ticket away, WCLC may still be able to track it down.
“They can certainly give us a call at the 1-800 number and describe in some details so we can pinpoint their transaction, the purchase location of their ticket and when they bought it,” says Marantz, “and hopefully we’ll be able to identify their ticket.”
Marantz adds that it’s always a good idea to manually check your tickets before visiting a retailer; she says the self-serve machines are also reliable if used properly.
With files from Julie Matthews, Global News
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