December 22, 2015

Keno is a “bingo style lottery game” in which players may select up to 10 numbers between 1 and 80 for each random number draw.  In Delaware, Keno games are available for play every four minutes at designated lottery retail locations.  On the morning of December 17, 2015, a computer malfunction occurred in the Lottery’s Keno game.   The primary Random Number Generator (RNG) for Keno stopped processing randomly generated new numbers, and instead began re-transmitting the same numbers from a prior drawing.  The malfunction was promptly addressed and resulted in five re-transmissions over a period of approximately twenty minutes before the malfunction was corrected.  The Lottery then instructed its systems vendor, Scientific Games, to take the primary Keno RNG off-line and put into service the back-up Keno RNG, which was successfully accomplished.  The Lottery is now conducting a thorough review, including engaging Gaming Laboratories International to do a technical examination of the Keno hardware and software.  An initial review has revealed that a few players, at an isolated number of locations, recognized the re-transmission of the duplicate numbers, and attempted to take advantage of the malfunction by playing those duplicated numbers.  Redemption transactions relating to the five re-transmissions have been suspended until the Lottery’s review has been concluded.

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