Review of wrong Powerball number report is complete

DES MOINES — Iowa Lottery CEO Matt Strawn says the independent review of an error that led to the wrong numbers being reported for a Powerball drawing last November is done.

He says Lottery employees and the gaming company they use were involved. “It will lead to improvements in our respective job reporting processes and is something that is currently being implemented by both of the respective parties,” he says.

The wrong numbers were manually entered for the Powerball drawing and the system for checking and cashing a Powerball tickets was shut down for several hours until the correct numbers were entered. Strawn says he cannot reveal the exact processes due to security concern. “As much as we can remove human element from these processes I think that continues to instill confidence in lottery games going forward,” Strawn says.

He says it was important to do a full outside review. “Because at the end of the day, every player needs to have a belief that these games are fair. And they are. And you know, the operation is one that has the utmost integrity attached to it,” he says. “So I’m confident that as those processes are going to be put into place that we won’t see the type of human error involved in reporting results.”

The Lottery’s spokeswoman said at the time that the incorrect results were only available on the Lottery system from about 12:30 a-m until 7:15 a-m when there would not be a lot of people checking them.