Why Does My Lottery Ticket Say Results Not In?

Your lottery ticket says ‘results not in’ because it’s too early to check that ticket.

I’ll explain why it happens in a moment.

It can be a confusing because the phrasing is a bit odd. It’s sort of a shortened version of “the results haven’t come in yet”. Which means the results haven’t ‘arrived’.

This can happen for a few of reasons.

1. The Draw Hasn’t Happened Yet

If you try to scan a lottery ticket before the draw has taken place, most machines will say ‘results not in’.

This could be because you’ve forgotten what day it is… hey, it happens. 😉

Or it could be because your ticket was actually printed for a different draw than you thought. Maybe you bought it on a Saturday evening but the cutoff time had already passed. So the assistant offered you the next draw?

Or it could be a genuine mistake. You asked for this Saturday, they accidentally gave you next Saturday.

Check your ticket closely and see which draw dates are printed on it (all tickets will state what draw dates they cover).

If your ticket was issued for the wrong date, there isn’t much you can do about it. Unless you can prove it somehow. Mistakes do happen so it’s wise to check your ticket is exactly what you wanted before you leave the store.

2. The Result Has Not Been Confirmed Yet

If the draw has literally just taken place, it will be too early to scan a ticket – you will just get the ‘results not in’ message.

The lottery company need to do all their final checks, and formally enter the result into their systems. This takes some time because they have to get this right! Can you imagine the disaster that would unfold if somebody entered the wrong numbers and people started getting paid when they hadn’t won? Or getting told they’d won the jackpot when they actually hadn’t?

So only once everything has been triple checked and signed-off will the ‘confirmed’ result be available to the lottery scanners and terminals. Then you can scan your ticket and get a valid message back.

There are various messages you can get back – if you get the ‘cannot process’ message see why does my lottery ticket say cannot process contact lottery.

3. It’s a Multi-Draw Ticket

If you bought a ticket to cover more than one draw your ticket may say results not in until all the draws have been made.

Or there may be a period of time ‘between draws’ where it is trying to give you the result for the next draw which hasn’t happened yet.

It varies as different lottery companies have different systems.

Any questions though just hit me up in the comments below.