The California Lottery would like to alert its players that it has identified another series of misprinted Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers®.
The Lottery late today determined that approximately 130 Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers tickets with the pencil background (Game #492) were misprinted and available for sale to the public. Of these 130 tickets, approximately 60 have been identified as sold. The 130 misprinted tickets were available for sale in Colusa, Orange, Sacramento, Shasta, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba Counties.
The California Lottery sincerely regrets any inconvenience suffered by its players as a result of this error and will reimburse players for the cost of any misprinted ticket. The Lottery is holding the ticket printer responsible for the misprints fully accountable for their error and any financial damages that result.
The Lottery has identified the retailers in possession of the 130 misprinted Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers with the pencil background. Those retailers were contacted Thursday night, December 28, and instructed to pull the remaining misprinted tickets from their shelves.
This misprint is identical to that identified on December 7, 2006 for the Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers with a green background (Game #468). In that instance, out of 3700 tickets available for sale, 1758 were sold before the problem was identified and the tickets were removed from stores. Since March of this year 76 million Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers have been printed and distributed.
In each case, these misprints occurred when the ticket manufacturer incorrectly printed the wrong layer of “scratcher” latex on the crossword so that it did not match the crossword printed directly on the card below. Under normal conditions the two layers of crossword match exactly. The scratcher layer is a feature designed to make it easier for players to keep track of the letters they mark as they try to spell words within the crossword puzzle to win a prize. It is the crossword printed directly on the ticket, underneath the scratcher layer, that indicates if the ticket is a winner.
Unfortunately, if a player does not scratch off the latex “scratcher” layer of the crossword on a misprinted ticket, and instead relies on the words spelled on the scratcher layer, they could mistakenly believe that they had a winning ticket. To avoid any confusion, players should remove the entire “scratcher” layer to uncover the crossword printed on the card in order to determine whether they have a winning ticket. The Lottery will continue to pay the prize of any winning ticket.
Players can determine whether they possess a misprinted ticket by checking the numbers on the back of their Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers. Specifically, players should check the numbers on the back of the ticket on the bottom, and just above the bar code, in the lower right hand corner.
A player might see for instance: 468-707345-6-089 above the barcode.
The first three numbers are the game number: 468 for the Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers with a green background in this case.
The second six digit set of numbers is the batch number and will help players to determine whether they have a misprinted ticket, 707345 for instance.
In this particular instance, the misprinted Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers tickets with a pencil background (see below) are game number 492. The approximately 60 misprinted tickets for game number 492 that were sold were part of the ticket batches numbered from 397951-397955 and 397971-398100.
Only 130 tickets from these batches were ever available for sale and only 60 were sold, but if you purchased a Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers tickets with a pencil background that lists a number between 397951-397955 or 397971-398100, please contact the Lottery at 1-800-LOTTERY for instructions on how to be reimbursed.
The Lottery is holding its Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers printer accountable for any financial damages that result from their printing error. Under the supervision of Lottery Security and Law Enforcement Agents, the Lottery has instructed the manufacturer to undergo a systematic examination of every ticket they’ve printed to identify any other potential misprinted tickets. The Lottery has not used this printer since the first Bonus Word Crossword misprints were identified and does not plan any further business until this matter is resolved to the satisfaction of the Lottery.
Click here for how to identify misprinted Bonus Word Crossword Scratchers with the green background.