How would you feel if you had won one million US dollars and find out that the lottery ticket you had bought was in fact misprinted, leaving you with no cash prizes at all? Ecstasy turned to agony for the misprinted South Korean winner who experienced the best day of his life.

The Prime Minister's Commission on Lottery has withdrawn the sale of Speetto-2000, an instant scratch-and-win ticket, after printing errors resulted in the misfortune of more than 10 first prize tickets instead of the regular four, a spokesperson for the Office for Government Policy Coordination explained.

"We believe the errors might have occurred when the printers were transmitting tickets producing data to the printing system."

Officials of the Prime Minister's Commission on Lottery said it was not legally obliged to pay out on any of the six tickets that had been misprinted. The officials have not released any information on whether the unfortunate winners would receive compensation.

- 2006-10-01