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Massachusetts Lottery players expecting the usual 9 p.m. Mass Cash drawing last night were met with an unexpected twist — one that had balls bouncing where they shouldn't and left officials scrambling for a redo. So what exactly went wrong, and how did it all get sorted out before midnight?
Balls were trying to escape
Mass Cash is a daily draw game for the Massachusetts State Lottery. The drawing takes place every night at 9 p.m. EST, but there was an error when trying to conduct last night's drawing.
According to lottery officials, the Mass Cash drawing for June 5, 2025, was not able to be completed in accordance with the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission rules. So, what happened to cause this issue?
Officials said the door on the Mass Cash drawing machine's mixing chamber was accidentally left open. Because of this, numerous balls escaped from the mixing chamber prior to the first number being drawn, thus rendering the draw invalid.
A new draw was conducted
Lottery officials adhered to standard Mass Cash drawing protocols, and a new drawing was conducted starting at 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, June 5. The winning numbers for that Mass Cash drawing were 6, 15, 22, 28, and 30. Mark William Bracken, Executive Director of the Mass Lottery, stated:
The Lottery is committed to ensuring the integrity of our games. Drawings are conducted twice a day, 365 days a year, and while we strive for perfection, we're all human, and mistakes can happen. We apologize to our players for the inconvenience and appreciate their patience as we worked diligently to resolve the situation.
A mechanical glitch in New Jersey
These kinds of errors do happen for lottery draws throughout the country. The New Jersey Lottery experienced an issue in 2024 when their Pick-4 machine glitched, causing lottery officials to have to do a re-draw of the winning numbers.
The winning numbers were announced for the Pick-4 drawing on March 14, 2024. The winning number was 8-8-2-6 and the Fireball number was 2.
However, lottery officials noticed not all of the balls were released into the chamber before a winning number was selected. This resulted in an incomplete draw, and lottery officials were quickly able to replace the machine with a secondary Pick-4 machine and conduct a new drawing.
The winning numbers for that second draw were 8-7-8-2, with the Fireball number of 2.
Happens worldwide also
These issues aren't just happening in the United States either, as a recent drawing in Bulgaria went viral and had lottery players questioning the game.
During the normal live broadcast of the 5/35 draw game for the Bulgarian lottery, there happened to be a winning number drawn that didn't even exist.
For the 5/35 draw game, players select five numbers between 1 and 35. The winning numbers are then selected during the live broadcast.
However, during that live broadcast, one of the winning numbers drawn was 41. The numbers are only supposed to go up to 35, so it left all of the players baffled.
The correct set of balls were loaded into the machine and a second drawing was conducted. However, the error did cause the whole management team to be laid off.
Enjoy playing the Massachusetts Lottery, and please remember to play responsibly.
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