NewsChannel 5.com - Nashville, Tennessee - Lottery Official: Working To Fix Problems

Lottery Official: Working To Fix Problems

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Tennessee Lottery officials explained what caused three major glitches in the system this summer to an audit committee Monday.

Three separate audits were launched after news of those problems surfaced.

"We need to have a lottery that people have confidence in, so people continue to play the lottery," said Sen. Jim Kyle, a Democrat from Memphis.

One problem involved the Cash 3 and Cash 4 numbers. For three weeks, some players had absolutely no chance of winning because the new computer system wouldn't pick the same number twice.

"We were well aware that they were some players who wouldn't like the change," said Tennessee Lottery CEO Rebecca Paul Hargrove.

Hargrove said they decided to make the switch to save millions of dollars.

"Approximately 95 percent of lotteries rely on a random number generator for one or more of their drawings," she said. "At least 13 states use RNG's for Cash 3, Cash 4-type games.

The lottery hired computer company Smart Play. An internal audit revealed a coding error in their software, which caused several problems.

Lottery officials said they are still working on ideas to make sure these problems never happen again.

The lottery also hired auditing firm KPMG. Their audit shows the computers that generate the Cash 3 and Cash 4 numbers are now working properly.

The state comptroller's office is also investigating what happened. Their audit hasn't been finished.