Some players received a ‘Ticket Not a Winner’ message when, in fact, the numbers they had entered were winning numbers in the draw(Image: Getty Images)

Lotto regulator withheld over €20,000 after technical glitch potentially impacted nearly 400 prizes

The breach occurred between September and October 2022 and up to 394 prizes were potentially affected

16 Oct 2024, 11:43 by Cathal Ryan · Irish Mirror

The National Lottery regulator withheld more than €20,000 from Lotto bosses after a technical glitch potentially impacted nearly 400 prizes.

The Office of the Regulator of the National Lottery (ORNL) has published its annual report for 2023, which details the regulatory oversight, changes, and innovations last year in the interests of a safe, sustainable, and properly-run National Lottery.

The regulator found that Premier Lotteries Ireland DAC (PLI), which operates the National Lottery, was in breach of the National Lottery licence due to a technical issue with the website.

The breach occurred between September and October 2022, when a third-party software release resulted in a number of players accessing the Check My Numbers Facility on the National Lottery website at a time when it should not have been available, as draw results were still being verified.

As a result, some players received a ‘Ticket Not a Winner’ message when, in fact, the numbers they had entered were winning numbers in the draw that had just taken place and was still being verified. This technical issue may have contributed to up to 394 prizes going unclaimed, although there was no noticeable increase in the rate of unclaimed prizes during this period.

The total value of the unclaimed prizes that might not have been claimed due to this incident was at most €2,299; one €250 prize and all others ranging from €24 down to €2. The incident was limited to the website, with the National Lottery app version of Check My Numbers, the app’s ticket scanner, and the in-store ticket validation machines all working as normal.

The technical issue may have contributed to up to 394 prizes going unclaimed(Image: Getty Images)

Following an enforcement action, the Regulator withheld €23,000 from payments due to the Operator for the breach and this money has been sent to the Exchequer to fund Good Causes.

The Operator self-identified the issue in 2022 and reported it to the Regulator, did not profit from its error, permanently fixed the issue, and returned the €2,299 in unclaimed prizes potentially affected to players as prizes in other National Lottery games as directed by the Regulator.

The Regulator also commissioned IT experts from Grant Thornton to conduct an independent assessment of the Operator’s full suite of prize-checking systems, both in-store and in-app. No concerns were identified following this review.

Notwithstanding this, the Operator has recently decided to phase out the Check My Numbers Facility as part of upgrades to its online facilities. This is due to its low usage by players. The mobile app ticket scanner introduced in recent years has proven very popular with players and has overtaken the older Check My Numbers technology.

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