Dozens of Kentucky residents recently thought that they had won the lottery, but it turns out that the tickets had a typo.
Sarah Whitlow, a Bullitt County resident, thought she had hit the jackpot of $64,000.
She told WDRB, "When I looked at it, 'I won! I won!' -- and I was so happy. I looked at it more closely. I won two -- both games. They are individually gamed and I just started crying because, earlier this year, I fell off a ladder and it broke all of my ribs."
Turns out that it was all just a mistake. The Kentucky Lottery said that the game vendor, International Game Technology, did a software update back in October. That backup caused an estimated 500 Tic Tac Cash game tickets to be printed with wrong symbols.
The game works like a scratch off, where symbols are matched to see if the individual has won a prize. The tickets with typos were printed with invalid symbols.
"They said it's a mistake and they don't have to honor any of their tickets," Whitlow said.
In a written statement, the company said, "IGT and Kentucky have resolved the temporary issue that impacted some of the Tic tac cash games purchased at Kentucky Lottery vending machines on October 18, 2020 and the morning of October 19, 2020."
In Kentucky, a law states, "No prize shall be paid arising from claimed tickets... that are produced or issued in error."
1,200 people in Texas are suing IGT over the Fun Five Tic Tac Toe game for leading them to believe they had a winning ticket.
Whitlow says that IGT is offering to give her a much smaller prize. "They are offering me $1,000. Like I say, it was for a $2 ticket. I got two Visa gift cards. I'm really grateful. I'm going to get my children something for Christmas this year, and I was really worried I wasn't going to."
Photo: Getty Images
Source: WDRB