Powerball gets off to wobbly start

Thursday, June 01, 2006 posted 01:59 AM EDT

Powerball got off to a slow, somewhat wobbly roll across Southeastern North Carolina on Tuesday, with technical glitches delaying tickets for some players.

Tickets for the big bucks, multi-state lottery were to have gone on sale at 5 a.m., but dispensing computers at about 1,100 locations were unresponsive, according to the N.C. Education Lottery. Tickets were selling by midday, and sales were expected to increase today in advance of the 10:59 p.m. drawing, the first one in which North Carolina will participate.

At Roy's Bait & Tackle on U.S. 421 North early Tuesday, clerks had no problems helping customers get their morning coffee, fuel and minnows. They just couldn't sell a lottery ticket.

"One lady filled her slip out but is going to bring it back," said clerk Linda McCormick. "It's too bad."

About 11 a.m. at Rose Ice & Coal Co. on Market Street, the machine wasn't working and Dorothy Joe was reading a how-to pamphlet.

"I feel like I've already won," she said, posing for a newspaper photo.

She was going to take home some playslips, when store owner Archie Harris pushed a small blue reset button under the lottery machine's receipt printer. The machine came to life.

"I guess we're in business," Harris said.

One problem, according to the N.C. Education Lottery, is that some retailers might have turned off their machines Monday night, meaning that Powerball software didn't load overnight. Others were likely not aware that they had to push that blue button.

There was no computer communication with 800 stores on Tuesday morning, said lottery spokeswoman Pam Walker. Some 500 locations had the printer problem, she said. Some stores might have had both problems, she said, and its unclear whether all of them were open Tuesday morning. Some locations, housed in taverns and night clubs, open later in the day.

That would mean that tickets couldn't be sold at about 20 percent of lottery locations in the state. Most were expected to be online by Tuesday evening.

Stores without technological hassles had a banner day Tuesday.

At Farm Fresh Market, a combination grocery, electronics store and neighborhood gathering spot on Carolina Beach Road, the men behind the counter were smiling.

"We've done a good business today," said co-owner Sam Rayan. "We'll do even better if we get a winner here. If we got a big winner here, they'd know the name Farm Fresh Market across the country."

Joining the multi-state lottery was the second major roll-out of the government-sponsored game. The North Carolina lottery began selling instant-win tickets in March. A North Carolina-only lotto game is planned for the fall.

The lottery is expected to sell more than $1 billion in tickets in its first year and turn over more than $400 million in profits to be spent on public school construction, university scholarships and early childhood education.

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