The Daily News is offering a special drawing in an attempt to make amends to the thousands of readers who thought they had hit the jackpot in its Scratch n’ Match game because of a misprint in the winning numbers.
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| Newpaper tries to appease readers in Scratch n’ Win mix up |
The paper said more than 12,800 individual cash prizes will be awarded in the new game, more than five times the usual number, totaling $1 million. It offered an address for people to submit their claim and be entered to win.
In the meantime, The Daily News has engaged an independent investigations company to determine how the misprint happened. The paper holds sweepstakes company D.L Blair—who handles the game—directly responsible for the misprint. The paper said it is not making any decisions about taking legal action against D.L. Blair until the investigation has been completed.
“Everything is under review until we receive the results of the investigation,” said Daily News spokesperson Eileen Murphy.
Readers who played Saturday’s game were angered to find out that a misprint dashed their dreams and many protested outside the paper’s New York City headquarters demanding their money. The No. 13 was printed as one of a series of 10 winning numbers instead of the correct number, No. 12. The numbers were typed up by D.L Blair and sent to the paper, which printed them.
The Daily News has been a client of D.L. Blair’s since 1972.
“Realistically there is no way you can assuage the disappointment of people like this,” Blair chairman Thomas Conlon said yesterday. “The News is making the best faith effort it can under the circumstances and it should be applauded for that. Clearly their competitors are not applauding.”
Conlon said that the “young lady” who keyed in the winning numbers, hit the wrong key and the mistake was not caught.
“With all of our checks and balances somehow this slipped out,” he said. “It was our error.”
D.L. Blair printed an apology in The Daily News that said, “it profoundly apologizes for and regrets any inconvenience.”
Some 200,000 players of Saturday’s Scratch game thought they had won part of a $100,000 pay out to be divvied up in $25 to $100,000 amounts.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said one woman interviewed on NBC who thought she had won. “I had to look at the paper 200 times.”
As The Daily News attempts to appease the disgruntled players, lawsuits are being filed.
The front page of yesterday’s paper read: “Scratch n’ Match: $1M To Say Sorry.”
“We are furious that our readers should be placed in such an intolerable position,” the paper quoted its president and CEO Les Goodstein as saying. “We think that by offering this special cash drawing for all the disappointed claimants that we have gone some way toward rectifying the situation.”
The Scratch n’ Match has been a staple incentive program at the paper since 1995.
D.L. Blair is an autonomous division of DraftWorldwide and employs more than 200 people at it Garden City, NY and Blair, NE, offices. In addition to The Daily News, Blair’s other clients include American Express, Coca-Cola USA, MCI, Miller Brewing, Minute Maid, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Verizon and Walt Disney.
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