Customers began to notice the phenomenon at ticket vendors like the Ball Mart convenience store and gas station in the city of Liberty, about 20 miles west of Greenville, S.C.
Wade Crenshaw, 61, was working behind the cash register there when he saw that more people were coming in search of a particular game, the Holiday Cash Add-a-Play.
The rush lasted only about 30 minutes before the game was shut down, Mr. Crenshaw said in an interview on Saturday. But during that time, seven or eight people won hundreds and hundreds of dollars each. It was too much for Mr. Crenshaw to cash out.
“They’d been to several other stores, just going around buying 10 tickets” at each vendor, Mr. Crenshaw said. “It was weird, everybody winning so much. I didn’t know if they were doing some kind of Christmas special.”
It wasn’t a Christmas special — it was a computer error.
The vendor for the South Carolina Education Lottery computer system, Intralot, experienced a programming error, the state agency said in a statement on Wednesday.
The lottery said on Friday in another statement that it would set aside $19.6 million in potential winnings while directing its staff “to continue its legal research and investigation, including seeking further cooperation from Intralot and the potential validation of claims.”
It remains unclear whether the winning tickets will be honored, and the board of the lottery agency plans to meet to discuss the issue before the end of January. Game instructionsonline lay out the responsibilities of ticket buyers but say nothing about what happens in cases of software problems.