A South Carolina woman who thought she was in for a huge payout after purchasing several winning lottery tickets was in for a huge letdown instead.
Nicole Coggins, of Liberty, bought three winning “Holiday Cash” insta-pay tickets valued at $500 each, the New York Post reports.
“I thought maybe there’s something wrong with the machine. This can’t be real,’’ Coggins told WYFF.
But when Coggins tried to cash the “winning” tickets, a cashier told her that her tickets were invalid.
A programming glitch caused the South Carolina lottery to give out too many winning “add a play” tickets over the span of two hours on Christmas Day. The computer glitch made every $1 ticket purchased during that two-hour period a $500 winning ticket.
State officials announced Friday that they would set aside $19.6 million to cover the amount of the mistake winning tickets sold.
However, it is unclear whether Coggins and others who bought the mistake tickets would get their money. State lottery officials say that players who bought tickets during the two-hour time frame should hold onto them, but added that a full investigation is underway.
The state’s lottery board will meet again in January to decide how to handle the mistake.
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