After being the subject of the ‘Zero Chance Games‘ debacle over the summer, Virginia has again thrust itself into the national lottery spotlight by erroneously printing winning tickets to one of its new terminal games. This time, the lottery’s ‘Fast-Play Super Sevens’ was printing out winners left and right, with some players thinking they’d won up to $7,777. The problem? The barcode on the bottom of the ticket didnt match the number of 7s being displayed on the card. The result? Lots of $2 or $3 ‘winners’ when folks thought they could pay off that credit card bill.

No worries, though. The lottery did the right thing and settled with the players, offering them up to $2,000 for those $7,777 wins. Not bad for a misprint.

Take a look at this article over at CNN. A video feature is available too. A Virginia man is suing the state lottery for breach of contract because the instant game he purchased had already sold all of the top prizes. While his plight has garnered some support while reviewing the various comments about this story, we think it’s fair to really examine the claims here in depth.

Mr. Hoover says he was felt ‘duped into buying these things’. I find that highly contentious; it’s hard to blame a third-party for an adult’s decision to buy a lottery ticket. If this guy has enough dough to retain a lawyer to sue the state lottery, I can’t believe he’s up in arms about losing on a scratch and win. Let’s get to the merit of his point though. His lawyer says, “It’s one thing to say it’s a long shot to win the $75,000, but it’s another thing to say you have no shot to win it”. Again, another statement I’m not exactly comfortable with. In fact, the Virginia Lottery does display it’s available prize listings, just like the NJ Lottery, on its website. If Mr. Hoover wanted to make an informed ‘investment’ in instant games, surely it is his responsibility to review all material available for him to understand the prizes left and what his odds actually are. We’ve outlined this on our strategy post rather comprehensively.

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