The Hoosier Lottery will be paying out gamblers that purchased faulty Golden Jackpot scratch-off tickets last week. A vendor error caused over 600 lotto players to mistakenly think they won $5,000 prizes.
Faulty lottery tickets
The Hoosier Lottery debuted its new “$20 Golden Jackpot Fast Play” game on March 20. New games are usually a fun addition for lottery players, but that didn’t end up being the case for Golden Jackpot.
The faulty tickets were completely unique, but they all showed the same prize. Gamblers needed to match three numbers together in order to win the $5,000 prize.
However, those gamblers were not able to redeem their prizes once they realized they had a winning ticket. Retail ticket sellers and the Hoosier Lottery app were both failing to validate the prizes through the lottery’s online system.
That was an incredibly disappointing outcome for gamblers, who thought they had just stumbled into a solid win.
Unfortunately, it took a few hours for lottery officials to realize what was going on.
The Hoosier Lottery pulled the tickets from shelves at about noon, but 632 “winning” tickets had already been sold.
At the very least, the lottery will be honoring the prizes from those tickets. The mixup will end up costing over $3 million, but that’s ultimately a drop in the bucket for the Hoosier Lottery’s record sales year.
How to claim Golden Jackpot tickets
If you purchased one of the faulty Golden Jackpot tickets, then you’ll have to jump through a few hoops in order to claim your money.
The process is similar to what large prize winners have to go through in Indiana. In other words, it isn’t as simple as just showing up to the retailer that you bought your ticket from.
You can either start the process by mail, or by visiting a lottery prize payment location in Indianapolis, Mishawaka or Evansville.
You’ll need to fill out a winner claim form and an IRS claim form. You can find everything you need on the Hoosier Lottery’s website.
If you purchased a Golden Jackpot ticket but already threw it away, then your process is a little more complicated.
Lost ticket owners can still claim their prize, but you’ll have to fill out a more detailed claim form.
The deadline for claims is Sept. 16, so you have plenty of time to get the ball rolling on the process.
