Iowa Lottery posts incorrect Powerball numbers — and those who claimed prize before mistake was noticed can keep the cash

Some lucky players in Iowa received an early Christmas present this year after the state lottery posted the wrong Powerball numbers earlier this week but still allowed some of those with winning tickets for the wrong numbers to keep their prize money.

The confusion began with the Powerball drawing on Monday night. Even though the Iowa Lottery requires two people in two separate locations to record the winning numbers before those numbers can become official — a process that an Iowa Lottery blog post called "redundant reporting procedures" — the numbers somehow became garbled, and the lottery website accidentally posted the wrong Powerball numbers at around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.

By 7:15 a.m. that same morning, some lottery staffers noticed the error and immediately suspended the Powerball results on lottery terminals, the blog post said. After about 7:30 a.m., anyone who attempted to scan a ticket received the following message: "Draw has not occurred, more draws remain."

During that nearly seven-hour gap, however, early birds who had a ticket with the incorrect Powerball results could have sauntered into a nearby convenience store or other self-serve kiosk to collect their money. The Iowa Lottery has since passively indicated that it will honor those erroneous winnings, perhaps because it has no choice.

"Prizes were paid for any of those tickets presented during the time period that the incorrect results were posted," the blog post admitted.

Meanwhile, the lottery scrambled to record the correct numbers across the state. By 3:30 p.m., the correct numbers — 2-21-38-61-66 and Powerball 12 and a Power Play® number of 2 — were posted, and players with tickets corresponding to those numbers were able to collect their winnings.

The Powerball may sound like a major prize, but payouts actually range from $4 to $200. Though individual winnings are relatively insignificant, the lottery reported that by Wednesday afternoon, nearly 4,000 ticket-holders with the correct Powerball numbers had already collected winnings, bringing the statewide total to almost $25,000.

In the blog post, the lottery apologized for the mix-up, claimed that it affected just a "small" number of people, and promised "to review drawing procedures with an eye toward improvements in the future."

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