A lottery player believed he’d hit it big, only to be denied his prize after officials pointed to a “technical issue.”
Mike Fields couldn’t believe it when he thought he’d won the $100,000 grand prize on a Space Invaders Cash Invasion scratch-off ticket in Indiana.
After playing four different cards in total, Fields finally scanned his winning ticket, but he says he was told it was actually worth just $20, according to WXIN and The Sun.
Officials at the Hoosier Lottery headquarters in Indianapolis said the game experienced a “technical issue.”
The Space Invaders Cash Invasion game includes a rocket ship symbol that, once scratched, reveals the prize listed beneath it. In Fields’ case, he said his ticket displayed $100,000.
“They never told us, ‘No.’ They just said that we wouldn’t be paid today, and no other information really, except that we would be informed by mail within 30 days,” Fields told WXIN.
Fields, who lives and works in Indiana as a forklift driver, wasn’t the only winner to run into a discrepancy with his ticket, the outlet reported.
Glendon Jones, another Space Invaders Cash Invasion player, said he won $2,500 and drove to the lottery headquarters to claim his prize, only to be told there was an error.
“I get here, and they say it’s a mess-up, a misprint, and that I’m pretty much out of luck on it,” he told WXIN. Jones was told he had actually won no money at all, per the outlet.
The Hoosier Lottery has since pulled its $5 Space Invaders Cash Invasion scratch-off game from sales after only recently launching it.
“The $5 Space Invaders Cash Invasion Scratch-off launched with a technical issue. We halted the sales of the ticket to ensure the game experience upholds the integrity we strive to provide,” the Hoosier Lottery said in a statement.
Jared Bond, the Director of External Affairs at the Hoosier Lottery, added in his own statement, obtained by PEOPLE, “We became aware of a technical issue with our recently launched $5 Space Invaders Cash Invasion Scratch-off. The issue involved a printing error where some tickets appeared to show a prize different from what was recorded on the lottery commission’s official validation record. The lottery is reviewing all applicable rules and procedures to determine the proper remedy.”
Lottery officials have given affected players a form to fill out to remedy the error.
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