Players of the state lottery in Arizona who adopted 9 as their lucky number
have been anything but lucky. The lottery鈥檚 new 鈥淧ick 3鈥� game used a computer
program to draw three single digits at random. But due to some slipshod
programming, the lottery ran for more than 30 draws before red-faced officials
noticed that 9 was never among the three numbers. 鈥淲e realised they hadn鈥檛
programmed it in,鈥� says Serena Stapp, a lottery spokeswoman.
As a result, 27 per cent of customers had no chance of winning the jackpot.
They will be refunded鈥攊f they still have their tickets. Meanwhile, the
lottery has switched to drawing balls.