Officials with the South Carolina Education Lottery said late Tuesday that a programming error caused an issue with Holiday Cash Add-A-Play game. 
 
 The SCEL’s computer system vendor, Intralot, experienced a programming error on Christmas Day that impacted Holiday Cash Add-A-Play tickets, a $1 terminal-generated instant game, officials said in a statement. 
 
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 From 5:51 p.m. to 7:53 p.m., the same play symbol was repeated in all nine available play areas on tickets which would result in a top prize of $500. 
 
 No more than five identical play symbols should appear for a single play. As soon as the issue was identified, the Add-A-Play game was suspended immediately to conduct a thorough investigation. 
 
 Instant (scratch) tickets and all other lottery games were not affected by this error, officials said. 
 
 They went on to say that Holiday Cash Add-A-Play game sales and validations will remain suspended until further notice. All players who purchased a Holiday Cash Add-A-Play ticket on Christmas Day during the time period affected are advised to hold on to their ticket(s) until the review is completed. 
 
 A further announcement will be made at the end of this week, officials said. 
 
 The impact of the programming error 
 
 Imagine getting a lottery ticket for Christmas, and winning. 
 
 
 
 That's what happened to two Upstate women Monday. 
 
 "I was having a good day and I wanted to try it," Nicole Coggins of Liberty told WYFF News 4. 
 
 She said she had a gut feeling. "I don't play the lottery that much. Every once in a while, I'll buy a Powerball ticket, but something told me to buy a lottery ticket," she said. 
 
 Coggins knew she was on to something when she bought a Holiday Cash ticket, and paid an extra dollar to add a play. 
 
 
 
 Players have to get three Christmas trees in any vertical, horizontal or diagonal line in order to win a prize. 
 
 Coggins won. 
 
 "I was happy," she said. "I was excited. I was calling everyone I knew, 'I won $500.'" 
 
 To test her luck, Coggins bought another ticket. 
 
 "And it was another winner and another winner. So I thought, 'Well, maybe there is something wrong with their machine. This can't be real.'" 
 
 She drove to two other gas stations with the same result, so she called her mother-in-law, Shawanna Ladd and suggested she try playing the game. 
 
 Shawanna Ladd and Nicole Coggins explain what happened when their winning SC lottery tickets were deemed invalid. 
 
 "I played $10 first, and I won on every ticket," Ladd said. 
 
 Together they racked up almost $18,000 at different Liberty stores including Marathon, Spinx and Ball Mart. 
 
 But their Christmas miracle turned out to be a sham, when Coggins went to cash in the tickets. The cashier put the tickets into the machine, but only disappointment came out. 
 
 "It told him 'transaction not allowed,' that the game was not valid," Coggins said. 
 
 No one at the stores would talk to WYFF News 4 on camera, but a manager at one store said "it was crazy" on Christmas day, as the word got out about the winning tickets and dozens of people rushed in to buy them. 
 
 He said the frenzy lasted for about an hour, before the machines stopped issuing tickets. 
 
 The "winning" tickets inserted into the lottery machine to confirm the win said that the tickets were invalid, so no money was issued, he said. 
 
 At least one other person called the WYFF News 4 newsroom to report the same situation, and there were published reports of similar invalid sales in the Charleston area. 
 
 The news was heartbreaking for Coggins, who got emotional as she explained that she had already told her kids they were going to take a trip to Disney World. 
 
 "I had been promising them for years and I thought I would finally get to, and now I can't," she said. 
 
 After spending $100 on lottery tickets, Coggins got nothing in return. 
 
 She said Tuesday afternoon that she was still waiting for a response from the South Carolina Education Lottery. 
 
 "We didn't do anything wrong. The stores didn't do anything wrong. It's (the SCEL's) fault. I think they should either honor the tickets or give us our money back," Coggins said. 
 
 Until then, she's not going to let the so-called glitch ruin her Christmas. 
 
 "I'll always have my family and I'm thankful for my family and that's the more important thing in the world," she said. 
 
 The SCEL headquarters in Columbia is closed for the holidays and will reopen Wednesday. 

 Story highlights The error affected the Holiday Cash-Add-A-Play game 
 
 Lottery: Hold on to your tickets till review is done 
 
 (CNN) For some unlucky South Carolina residents, what seemed to be a winning Christmas lottery ticket turned out to be a lump of coal. 
 
 A programming error in a lottery game that lasted for more than two hours generated an overabundance of winning tickets, prompting the game's suspension and an investigation, officials said Wednesday. 
 
 The snafu affected the Holiday Cash Add-A-Play tickets, a $1 terminal-generated instant game offered on Christmas Day. South Carolina Education Lottery officials have not said how many tickets were affected, or whether false payouts were made before the error was caught. 
 
 "From 5:51 p.m. to 7:53 p.m., the same play symbol was repeated in all nine available play areas on tickets which would result in a top prize of $500. No more than five identical play symbols should appear for a single play," the lottery said. "As soon as the issue was identified, the Add-A-Play game was suspended immediately to conduct a thorough investigation." 
 
 CNN affiliate WYFF cited a store manager describing a "frenzy," saying dozens of people "rushed in" to purchase winning tickets after word spread. But people soon learned they couldn't cash in. 
 
 Holiday Cash Add-A-Play game sales and validations have been suspended until further notice. Players with tickets affected are advised to hold on to their tickets(s) until a review is completed. Updates will be provided. — SC Education Lottery (@sclottery) December 27, 2017 
 
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 COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A Christmas Day lottery glitch in South Carolina has left officials trying to determine how to deal with hundreds of unexpected winners. 
 
 The Holiday Cash Add-A-Play game generates trees on a tic-tac-toe grid paying up to $500 when someone gets three in a line. 
 
 Lottery officials say that, for two hours Monday, trees were being printed in all nine grids, giving all players who paid $1 the maximum $500 prize. Some players kept playing. 
 
 But when players went to cash their tickets, the computer wouldn't pay. Dozens of people came to the lottery's office in Columbia on Wednesday and were told to keep their tickets for a later announcement. 
 
 The lottery hasn't said how many winning tickets were bought. 
 
 The South Carolina Education Lottery commission is holding an emergency meeting Friday.
– Nicole Coggins won $500 after buying a $1 Holiday Cash Add-A-Play lottery ticket on a whim on Christmas Day in South Carolina. "I was calling everyone I knew," she tells WYFF. She bought another ticket, and won $500 on that one too. Then she called her mother-in-law. Together, the pair won nearly $18,000 off the Holiday Cash Add-A-Play game. But due to what CNN calls a "programming error," they aren't getting any of that money. The AP explains that the game features a classic tic-tac-toe grid and is won by getting three Christmas trees in a row. But for nearly two hours on Christmas Day, every ticket printed had trees in all nine grid spaces. The South Carolina Education Lottery says there should never be more than five Christmas trees on any ticket. A manager at one store in South Carolina says "it was crazy" when word started getting out that for once playing the lottery was a can't-lose proposition. The Holiday Cash Add-A-Play game was eventually shut down, winning tickets were put on hold, and an investigation was launched. The SCEL commission is holding an emergency meeting Friday to figure out what to do. Coggins, who says she spent $100 on tickets and already told her kids they were going to Disney World, has an idea: Pay up. "We didn't do anything wrong," she tells WYFF. "I think they should either honor the tickets or give us our money back." So far officials aren't saying how many winning tickets were sold during the glitch.