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Updated 9.20
THE HEAD OF the National Lottery’s new licensee faced a two-hour grilling yesterday about the problems which have plagued its systems since it took over operations.
Much of the questioning at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform focussed on the network failure which led to the Lotto draw being cancelled last month for the first time in its 28-year history.
But retailers also took the opportunity to air concerns new operator Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI) was paying out less money from its takings – and that it was planning other unpopular changes to maximise its profits.
The company paid €405 million for its 20-year licence to run the freshly-privatised National Lottery.
Retail Grocery Dairy & Allied Trades Association (RGDATA) director-general Tara Buckley told the committee rumours were flowing in the trade that PLI planned to make it harder to win the lottery by adding numbers to the draw.
She also said retailers feared the company would raise ticket prices to boost income.
And the winner is…
This was PLI chief executive Dermot Griffin’s response when he was asked for a yes-or-no answer on whether the company was currently looking at the changes:
We will look separately at game development when we have finished our transition programme. There are a load of game development plans that we have in terms of the license.”
And this:
We will move to game development once we have finished the transition. In terms of my board, what I have is a strong mandate to implement the transition programme and we will look separately…”
Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald, who posed the questions, didn’t appear impressed at the vague responses.
In reply to perceptions the company was paying out less in prizes since it took over, Griffin was also a bit opaque.
He told the committee PLI was required under its licence to pay out at least 50% of its takings in prizes but the actual level returned to punters “was higher than that”.
The company’s licence terms mean it has to give out two-thirds of its income after prizes to “good causes”, with the remainder going towards its operating costs and any balance making up its profits.
The odds of picking all six numbers in the National Lottery correctly in a single, €1.50 play currently stand at over 8 million to one.
Jackpots are divided between the winners across all prize tiers with the approximate amount going to anyone picking all the numbers successfully worth less than half the total.
First published 6.05am
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An Post did a fantastic job of running the National Lottery. It was easy purchase a ticket then scan it to see if you won anything. This new crowd running the lottery do not seem to be customer orientated. I kinda get the feeling that it is now a bit of a Del boy and Rodney operation, The National Trottery.
Why didn’t Del and Rodney think of that!
I work in retail and the new machines are useless. Mine won’t scan tickets and there’s no way to manually put them in not to mention we haven’t replaced the external ticket checker yet!
What gets under my skin, is the new bit on the front of the Lotto ticket that says “Void if Marked in here”, or something to that effect. It would be very easy to mark a Lotto ticket by mistake – fair is fair, if someone has the numbers matched, they should get the prize. Clauses like that are out of order IMO.
They are horrible because any mark whatsoever makes the ticket void, even if it was getting creases in the pocket it could make it invalid, yet us sales assistants get the privilege to tell customers they must go to lotto HQ for a 4 quid quick-pick! Madness
Outside of any future plans they have for prizes the technology they are using now isn’t working.
Running a syndicate means buying €140 worth of tickets twice a week.
The machines hang from time to time while printing out that many tickets and its a disaster checking tickets as scanners are non existent. So have to get shop assistants to scan which also hangs machines.
The on line buying of tickets is practical for a syndicate.
This crowd are poor.
2 out of 10 from me.
The on-line buying of lotto tickets is a disaster since this new crowd took over.i had to cancel a work syndicate account because it.
I’m done with the lotto ,done man .
Haven’t done it since taken over
Me too , I won the 10 million in a draw there recently and it was just a pain in the hole – I swear I’m not doing the lotto ever again unless a new crowd take over – I’m done..
The government sold off a guaranteed endless source of income for a mere 400M. How much could the lotto have generated over a 40 year period ? 1B ? 2B ? … They as good as gave it away to a bunch of mercenaries. Profiteers, Cowboys.
No they didn’t, they sold an operational contract for a fixed period.
Contract should be cancelled!
Do not, let them at it. We got great money for the contract so let them pull out if they need and take the hit.
If you have 2 people serving on tills in a shop and 2 customers come up wanting their tickets scanned,that’s a hold up for everybody. PLI took over in November and had plenty of time to make sure new scanners were integrated into the new machines as shops were using both the new and old machines at the beginning anyway. The scratch cards are very difficult to scan and I’ve noticed that with the actual lottery tickets, there are more ‘Not a winner’ receipts being given out than before. How can a Lottery company not offer its customers a self service scanner, 4 months after its implementation?
I asked in my newsagents and was told that it was because the old machines can’t scan the new tickets and vice versa so they can’t bring in the new machines until the old lotto tickets are out of date and out of circulation.
Irish people sold out yet again by Enda & co. Privatising national resources yet again looks like another loser for the people of Ireland. Folks should simply stop playing – let’s see how quickly the Canadian teachers fund learn a lesson then.
Online lottery player here – haven’t won a cent since 31/12/14
Before this I regularly won €1 or €3 odd time a few quid more.
Loosing faith very fast in the new providers.
Seriously man, that’s exactly what happened me. I remember I put in €32 in ot my online lotto account in 2014 and it lasted months as I was constantly winning €5, €8 and even €28 one month.
Started it again this year and have’nt won Jack Sh!t. I’m finished with this scam.
What exactly are you suggesting? That they’re rigging the numbers?
Stopped doing it a couple of weeks ago too. Same thing used to win a few euro here and there or the odd scratch card.
Ah here may as well do the Euromillions instead so! More cash and prob same chance of winning!
This is the bunch of scammers who paid Churchills grandson ten million for private papers that turned out to be a load of junk stored in a loft.
Promoted as a national treasure it turned out to be old receipts and tickets he could claim expenses on.
Branson put a bid in when the lottery came up for renewal in the UK and was going to give more to charities because the profit margin would cover it but they gave it back to Camelot.
Handing this resource over should have been a huge issue at the time but as usual the docile and sometimes malignant media ignored it.
If they can’t do the job, turf em out. That’s what would happen to you or me.
Give it back to An Post. It worked then, it can work again.
They should make it easier
To win. Better for 10 people to win 1mil than 1 person to win 10 mil.
I think more people would play of their chances were Increased.
Completely agree… although you need to watch out for that group that mad a massive syndicate about 20 years ago when there were 36 numbers and they effectively bought the lotto (at risk of course)
Under the new regime a dishonest shop assistant could easily drop a winning ticket on the floor “for later” when checking the new tickets. Most are honest but keep your eyes on them!
@John Ward
Every single customer getting their tickets scanned by a checkout operator should get their ticket plus a receipt back stating whether they have won or not. If they do not receive these, then they should ask for them.
Privatisation = an opportunity to screw the public, with the blessing of the government. It applies to all things privatised.
Singed up for lotto.ie last night cant play after 10pm never heard such bull
If you’re in you can’t win!!
I don’t buy scratch cards but every so often I ‘win’ one through lotto – is it just me or have they dropped a number from it? I’m nearly sure you had 9 numbers to find three matching as opposed to now only 8 numbers??! If I’m wrong then so be it but if not, that’s definitely a disadvantage to the consumer!
It doesn’t work like that. If they put 20 numbers on the scratch card your chances don’t increase. It’s all just basically for show.
Joe, I know that you’ve either won a few quid or not before you scratch the panel and the amount of numbers on the panel doesnt decide your odds (I’m completely going against my previous comment) but it’s just another sneaky move by the new owners which was never flagged. What else has changed that we haven’t noticed yet?
I presume it was to have more room for the QR code.With old tickets a shop keeper could scan all the tickets and perhaps pick out the winners, now you’ll have to scratch the panel to scan these code.(this may not be true/total guess)
There were always 8 numbers – as long as I can remember anyway
Brian, you could well be right. As I said, I’m not a regular scratch card customer so I can only remember the few times I was ‘lucky’ enough to win the few I’ve scratched through lotto. But I seem to recall there being 3 lines of 3 numbers?
That should have read “isnt” practical for buying on line.
It is a view into the future when Enda sells the rest of OUR country
That new game show with Nicky is an Embaresment
No, that’s just Nicky!
Nicky is an embarrassment !
Nicky is only part of the overall embarrassment. The whole game screams “cut price, bargain basement”. It’s boring, cheap looking and makes feckall sense. It makes Rapid Roulette look like Mastermind in comparison.
But they have a contract for 20 years so we’re stuck with the embarrassment for a while yet.
No doubt if he leaves his current position ..he has a future in irish politics..has the art of talking and not answering off to a tee..
If corruption is allowed to continue in Ireland everything and anything will go down the same road because they’ll think they’re not performing their work properly and might even get sacked for not doing so. This is Ireland we live in.
I witnessed a checkout girl in local shop checking tickets for 1 individual took her nearly 10 minuets. I played Telly Bingo 3 days a week until 2 weeks ago not anymore. In my opinion this lottery as set up by the new operators should be BOYCOTTED.
@tony fully agree I used to play telly bingo on a regular basis would win 5,10 euro then for ages I suddenly stopped winning anything on it so I just quit and havent played since late last year….something strange going on with this new crowd.
Soooo… that would be a yes then.
The lotto is another example of private enterprises primarily showing their hand at profit driven enterprise. The cost of playing initially was increased, the game show prizes paid out ate significantly less. What was bad value for money is hugely worse value now. When an Post had winning streak going the average pay out was nearly 200k . Last week the new lotto game managed about 60k. Ask your self one Question , is this Business worth supporting? Bookmakers still offer the best value for money for your Lotto selection.
Wow Mary Lou not happy with vague responses.
Pot calling kettle black Mary Lou
Reading the comments on the lotto articles some peoples lack off basic maths is astounding. The comments on a tax on the stupid isn’t far of the mark
As for the lotto checkers Camelot don’t have them in the UK. If your going to play the game the responsibility is on you to check if you’ve won
@Matt
I’ll ask you a question. Are you ignorant? I ask because you seemingly think it’s ok to just assume people with opinions have some sort of mental deficiencies.
You say it’s people’s responsibility to check their tickets yet think that for some reason they shouldn’t have access to a scanner because they don’t have them in the UK?
Noticed that on their scratch cards too
50%+2/3= 116% by my math???
Doesn’t leave much for their costs.
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