After a nearly half-day delay in the Powerball drawing leaving millions of Americans on the edge of their seats, the Minnesota Lottery has claimed responsibility for the nationwide wait.
National lottery officials said the delay was due to an issue a participating lottery had with processing sales.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Minnesota Lottery acknowledged their sales verification system caused the lengthy delay.
The Multi-State Lottery Association said the scheduled drawing was delayed from 10:59 p.m. EST Monday to 8:57 EST a.m. Tuesday because a participating lottery wasn't able to process its sales data. After Minnesota completed its pre-draw procedures, the drawing was able to go ahead.
Marie Hinton, a Minnesota Lottery spokeswoman, said the lottery was reviewing what happened and hoped to report its findings by Wednesday.
Terry Rich, a former director of the Iowa Lottery who also served on the Powerball board, said the delay was likely due to a two-part verification system of ticket sales that makes use of an outside vendor to ensure all is in order before the game's numbers are drawn.
“Each state must verify through a dual process that all of the sales and dollars match before the Multi-State Lottery Association can do the draw," said Rich, who headed the Iowa Lottery for 10 years and was president of the North American Lottery Association. “This is a state-by-state procedure, which separates the whole process and has been very effective."
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Rich said state lotteries deal with similar problems several times a year but the delays usually don't attract much attention because the potential jackpots are far less than what was up for grabs this week.
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