Iowa Lottery Mistakenly Posts Wrong Powerball Numbers For 7 Hours

In what can only be described as a nightmare scenario, Powerball losers in the state of Iowa mistakenly thought they were winners for about seven hours this week.

The anomaly took place after a “human reporting error” caused the wrong numbers to be posted for last Monday’s drawing. The Iowa Lottery’s website posted the wrong numbers at about 12:30am Tuesday.

No one corrected the error until about 7:15am the next morning, a report from CBS News said.

“We at the Iowa Lottery sincerely apologize for the interruption,” a lottery official commented, according to the New York Times.

The Times wrote that following the lottery draw, two individuals at different sites input the winning numbers into the state’s lottery system. This system is linked to all lottery terminals and self-service kiosks across the state. However, officials noted that some of the numbers were mistakenly entered.

The lottery said that the mistaken numbers would triggered payouts between $4 and $200, but didn’t specify how many winners there were. They also said that anyone who cashed their ticket within the 7 hour window will get to keep their money. 

The total Powerball Jackpot for that Monday was estimated at $355 million.

The Iowa Lottery worked until 3:30pm on Tuesday to fix the error by correcting its system, the report said. After the numbers were corrected, 3998 people had won prices ranging from $4 to $200.