Everyone wins the SEPTA Papal Pass lottery

Everyone who entered this lottery won.

A lottery for purchasing theSEPTA Papal Pass which is required to travel on the Regional Rail during the Sept. 26 to 27 weekend of Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia capping off the World Meeting of Families was held for 24 hours on Monday.

All entrants at any time of day had an equal chance of winning the Papal Passes, which cost $10 each.

Of the 350,000 tickets available (175,000 per day), about 22,000 passes were unsold, said SEPTA spokeswoman Heather Redfern.

“That number could goincrease as the email goes out to people ifpeopledon’t complete their purchases,” she said.

All lottery winners will be notified Aug. 6 via email and then will be able to pay for the passes to complete their transactions.

The unsold passes will be made available for in-person sale, Redfern said — but as each pass is specific to a certain station, they won’t know which passes are available until all passes are sold. She said many passes to Center City from manystations will likely not be available.

“We do believe the majority of theoutlying stations have sold out and we will know by the end of the next week which ones haven’t,” Redfern said.

The Papal Pass originally went on sale through an e-commerce website that crashed within minutes of its activation on July 20 at 9 a.m. due to an unexpectedly high volume of traffic.

PATCO riders can use their Freedom Card or get special tickets for that weekend.

Amtrak service into 30th Street Station will continue as normal.