SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Ireland’s National Lottery operator, Premier Lotteries Ireland, has been fined by the country’s regulator over a bug in its system that led to some winning tickets potentially being voided.
According to the Office of the Regulator of the National Lottery (ORNL), an error occurred with the lottery operator’s software back in 2022, allowing players to check their tickets prematurely while the system was still in the process of verifying their numbers, leading to the confusion.
“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,” ORNL commented.
“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.”
The regulator added that the total amount of prizes that might not have been properly accounted for is in the region of €2,299 – with one ticket in particular carrying a €250 win, while all others ranging between €2 and €24.
It is understood that Premier Lotteries notified the regulator of the error under its own initiative, and has taken all the necessary steps to fix the problem, including the return of the total amount of unclaimed winnings to the players.
The ORNL has penalised Premier Lotteries with €23,000, all of which has been reinvested into various social initiatives.
Premier Lotteries has served as Ireland’s National Lottery provider since 2014 under a 20-year lease. It was acquired by French gambling giant La Française des Jeux (FDJ) towards the end of last year, which took over from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
