Arizona Lottery is fully operational after system crash prompts outage

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) — Arizona Lottery sales, ticket checking and prize redemptions are back up and running after a system crash caused a statewide outage Thursday Morning.

In a statement sent out Friday afternoon, sales and prize redemptions have resumed, and the game’s operator, Scientific Games, “is working closely with Arizona Lottery Officials to complete their inquiry into the root causes of the outage and to determine next steps to take to prevent any similar future occurrence.”

On Friday morning, game sales resumed, but prized redemptions were paused to “protect the integrity of the Lottery’s games.” Scientific Games believes the crash resulted from a system update that installed two new lottery games.

“We apologize to our lottery players, our retailer partners, and the lottery’s beneficiary community,” said Arizona Lottery Executive Director Gregg Edgar. “Protecting the integrity of the Lottery’s games is paramount to our operations. We are working diligently to bring our games back online as quickly and reliably as possible while keeping our players, retailers, and beneficiaries top of mind.”

While the outage occurred, all purchased and scheduled wagers continued to be honored. In addition, the Multi-State Lottery, a national organization that assists in the operation of regional and national games, and the Mega Millions Consortium, which operates the Mega Millions game, were notified.

“All Arizona Lottery drawings and results are being posted to the Arizona Lottery’s website as scheduled. Tickets purchased prior to the sales and prize redemption interruption are valid but cannot be redeemed until prize redemptions are resumed. Any tickets reaching the 180 expiration window during this time will be honored at Arizona Lottery offices once prize redemptions commence,” the Lottery said.

More information is expected to be released in the coming days.

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