Ohio Lottery Commission reprints scratch-offs with illegible font after confusion

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WKRC) - The Ohio Lottery Commission said it has reprinted certain scratch-offs due to gamblers having issues reading the numbers printed on the tickets.According to WEWS, gambler frustration with the "I'm Lucky and I Gnome It" scratch-off ticket game has resulted in the Ohio Lottery Commission moving to reprint tickets with a font that's reportedly difficult to read.In November, lottery player James Lester reached out to the station due to an issue he had with his ticket after he wrongly believed he had won the $5,000 prize. WEWS contacted the commission about the problem and the organization confirmed in an email that it had received a complaint back in October about the tickets being hard to read. The organization wrote that it made the decision to reprint the tickets with a cleaner font, per the station.On Monday, WEWS reported that it had received an email from another lottery player who said they experienced a similar problem.“I purchased more than one ticket. I got home, and I was scratching off the tickets when I was speaking to my mother. I’m like ‘Oh wow.’ I said mom, I just won $5,000,” the viewer told WEWS.The woman explained to the station that most of her family also believed she had won after seeing the ticket for themselves, but was later informed by her father that "there's a story out there, and it's saying that the tickets may be faulty or a misprint." The lottery player told WEWS that she went to the commission's office, where she was told she had not won the prize because one of her numbers was wrong.“I really feel like they need to do some type of compensation to some people because even though we didn’t win, it clearly says that we did,” the woman told WEWS. “Even if it’s not the whole $5,000, just something to kind of make them feel like ‘Okay, we can trust in our lottery system again."The Ohio Lottery Commission issued the following statement to WEWS.“A lottery prize is only paid if the ticket is a winner," the organization told WEWS. "All tickets have a barcode that the gaming system reads to validate a winning ticket. The gaming system is the system of record, and its results serve as the official results. As stated previously, as soon as the issue was discovered the tickets were reprinted with a cleaner font. If the previously printed version was still sold, it was still a valid ticket and would be paid if it were a winning ticket. If a player has a question about whether their ticket is a winner, they can scan the barcode or send the ticket in to be reviewed by our claims office.”The woman later informed the station that she noticed the old tickets had been replaced at her local shop.