K Fields of Minneapolis has been playing the Daily Three for years. She had a good feeling lately about a triple-zero, so she plunked down her dollar and bought a ticket for Saturday's drawing. When she called the hotline for the Daily Three results, she was thrilled to hear 000. But her elation turned to anger when she later found out the Minnesota State Lottery had changed the numbers, to 473.

"How do you make a mistake like that?" Fields asked Whistleblower.

Whistleblower put the question to the Minnesota State Lottery's director of operations, Jenny Canfield. The answer: a combination of a computer glitch and human error, she said. The computer's random drawing, certified by an external auditor, pulled up the digits 4, 7 and 3, she said.

But something went wrong when the computer tried to upload the results to the automated phone line and the web site. The lottery has a backup plan in which those results are entered manually, but the worker who did it was unfamiliar with the little-used system and hit "process" before the numbers were entered. That meant those systems defaulted to triple zero. The Daily Three allows players to use that combo, so an unknown number experienced a false thrill of victory until the lottery workers could correct the error. Canfield estimated the wrong numbers were reported for about three hours on the hotline and an hour on the web site.

Canfield said that the most recent error of this type happened five or six years ago, when a wrong combination was briefly displayed on the lottery web site.

Canfield didn't know how many players had chosen triple-zero, but said there were 196 winning tickets for 473. About three quarters of them have been paid out. She's heard from holders of both combinations. They'll do their best to verify winners who might have mistakenly lost their 473 tickets, but for the triple-zeroes, they have only apologies.

"We really pride ourselves on ensuring the accuracy," Canfield said. "It's unfortunate and we regret that. We don't want to cause any issues with our players."

Albert Welton III of Bloomington wants more than words. Thinking he had won $750 with his two 000 tickets after calling the hotline, he went to a store to cash them in. Welton said the clerk told him they were losers, not winners.

"I don't want no damned apology," Welton said. "If it's a computer error, you pay for that computer error."

Canfield said the lottery can only pay out for winning tickets. The lottery faxed me the audit reports that show the drawing of 4-7-3.

That's unlikely to make Fields or the other triple-zero players feel better.

"Yesterday it was the talk of the bingo hall," she said. "Many people had that number."