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California Lottery Plans $1-Million 'Second Chance'

"In a bid to restore public confidence in the 15-year-old lottery, Chief Executive Joan Wilson said the agency has adopted the procedures of other states and will electronically notify retailers selling Scratchers to stop selling the instant tickets after the last big prize in a particular contest is won.

"…The special drawing will be the first in the lottery's history in which all nonwinning Scratchers tickets can be sent in.

"…The lottery conceded in written statements to The Times and in a Sacramento lawsuit that in 11 of 137 Scratchers games over the last five years, as many as 5% of the tickets were available for sale after the top prizes had been claimed. Data from before 1996 were not available.

"It said that a total of $6.6 million worth could have been sold after that point, and that it distributed more than $800,000 in tickets for those games to stores after the fact.

"…The San Diego attorney who filed suit against the lottery's late sale practices, Kevin Roddy, said that he wanted to know more about the new procedures and that the late ticket sales exceeded the amount in the makeup drawing…"

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