UPDATED: 3:25 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania Lottery officials say the upgrades to its computer system that temporarily closed ticket sales have been completed — just in time for players to buy tickets for Tuesday night’s $875 million Mega Millions drawing.
The site went down at midnight on Tuesday. Lottery officials announced normal operations had resumed just after 2 p.m. Sales of scratch-off tickets remained available during the outage, but players had to pay for those in cash.
Officials say the system that processes winning claims is also back online, allowing players to cash winning tickets. Processing times were initially expected to return to normal in April.
This was the first time the Pennsylvania Lottery upgraded its computer system in 16 years.
“We have a thorough plan in place to make sure this transition to the new computer system has as little impact as possible for our players,” Pennsylvania Secretary of Revenue Pat Browne said in a statement. “This phase of our project is mainly taking place behind the scenes, but it’s a big move for us to improve our business, expand sales, and continue our mission of responsibly generating funding for programs that benefit older Pennsylvanians.”
Even during the outage period, drawings were still expected to happen as scheduled for Mega Millions and Powerball, as well as other games like Treasure Hunt, Cash 5 with Quick Cash, Match 6 Lotto, Cash4Life, and the PICK family of games.