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Lotto buyers out of luck do to glitch

An equipment failure knocked out terminals around the state, sending Tampa Bay lotto players scrambling to meet the 10:30 p.m. deadline for Saturday's $50-million drawing. But they were out of luck.

By JOSE CARDENAS
Published January 22, 2006

Last minute Lotto ticket buyers found themselves without a chance for the $50-million prize Saturday night when a technical glitch knocked out terminals around the state.

An equipment failure struck at 9:51 p.m. They were back in working order at 10:46 p.m., but the deadline to buy a ticket for the Saturday drawing was 10:30 p.m. The state's gaming system is operated by Rhode Island-based GTECH, said Lotto spokeswoman Leslie Steele.

Unaware of how widspread the outage was, players in Tampa Bay scrambled from store to store looking for a functional terminal.

"They seemed kind of disappointed," said Matt Monteith, and accountant at a Kash N' Karry store on 34th Street N in St. Petersburg. "They seemed like they really wanted to play. They were going from place to play."

The same scene played out across the bay.

"People kept saying that they were coming from another store, and the same thing, that the Lotto machine was down," said Venessa Martinez, assistant manager at a 7-Eleven on S 78th Street in Tampa.

Steel said the machines worked fine all day and the failure was not due to the volume of sales for Saturday's drawings. She had no estimate of how many ticket buyers might have been left out Saturday.

One ticket holder from Tallahasse won the jackpot. The winning Lotto numbers were 5-24-25-33-38-43.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified January 22, 2006, 17:06:02]