Is the Lotto down everywhere?

thelad95 · 04-02-2015 9:14pm

So the Lotto isn't on tonight? I'll just throw €4 out the window instead.

endacl · 04-02-2015 9:15pm

MonkeyTennis wrote: »

They are cleaning the balls

That's important. I do it every day.

Greenmachine · 04-02-2015 9:15pm

Postponed till tomorrow. Time to get a ticket now.

whupdedo · 04-02-2015 9:18pm

Calibos wrote: »

In Ireland the figure is 2,000 clever clogs who say to themselves that they alone understand statistics and that 123456 is as likely as any other combination to come up and thus they won't have to share the winnings with anyone.

The irony is that that thinking is shared by 2,000 other people. My shop alone has 3 regulars who play 123456. Further irony is that because the jackpot prize fund is ring fenced from the prize-fund for the rest of the prizes, that if the jackpot that week is the base 2 million, their share of the jackpot would be €1,000 meaning they'd come out with less winnings than someone who only got 5 numbers

A few years ago at the height of the TV shows popularity, 5 of the 6 'LOST' lotto numbers came up in the Irish Lotto. A few hundred more players than usual thus got 5 numbers in the lotto and instead of winning the usual amount of about €1500, they only ended up getting €300 or something like that.

You know, this is probably the most interesting thing I've read on boards in yonks

Guy:Incognito · 04-02-2015 9:34pm

whiskeyman wrote: »

It may well... but you'll win feck all apparently!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/240734.stm

Imagine how sick you'd be if your once in a lifetime lotto win came in and instead of your 10m prize you were pointed towards a table with a huge pile of cheques on it and told to go stand in line and take one each for 1000.

Birneybau · 04-02-2015 9:38pm

Yay, extension on the idiot tax until tomorrow.

brian_gall85 · 04-02-2015 10:57pm

Calibos wrote: »

Not a speed issue per se, just that Vodafone must have given the PLI new lotto crowd a better deal for 3G than Eircom were giving the old lotto on Line Rental and DSL for the old system.

When I queried our installer about repositioning our Lotto DSL modem/router when he came to setup the new machine, he proudly explained it wasn't needed anymore because they were going wireless with 3G. Straight away I groaned and told him I envisaged huge problems ahead if that were the case. Turns out I was right.

That said, this particular outage unlike the previous outages which were more limited and spotty seems not to be 3G related but a problem with the main servers and/or their network nodes and interconnects to the 3G network.

You were right the first time, was a 3G problem, thankfully our mobile reception is very poor in store, so are still on eircom, meaning our terminal worked all day....well apart from the usual camera scanning issues.

Calibos · 04-02-2015 11:29pm

brian_gall85 wrote: »

You were right the first time, was a 3G problem, thankfully our mobile reception is very poor in store, so are still on eircom, meaning our terminal worked all day....well apart from the usual camera scanning issues.

3G or not 3G, that is the question!

Scratch card validation yeah? We don't have problem with Lotto slips. We did with scratch cards. It goes without saying that you need to go over the Q code with a fingernail again even if it appears the customer has already scratched over that area. Even a small spec of latex left on that part of the ticket can screw up the reading of the Q-Code. What I found solved the issue for us though was putting the stubborn scratch card along the back of the tray orientated long side against the back wall if you get me. Seems to read it first time every time that way.

brian_gall85 · 04-02-2015 11:54pm

Yeah have noticed that with the cards and the positioning of the cards on the tray, the biggest problem isn't getting the camera to read the ticket, card or slip, it's in getting the camera/sensor to activate at times when the red light has gone off. Total nightmare at times and only compounded by the self checkers being out of action.

bugfreebob · 05-02-2015 12:13am

brian_gall85 wrote: »

You were right the first time, was a 3G problem, thankfully our mobile reception is very poor in store, so are still on eircom, meaning our terminal worked all day....well apart from the usual camera scanning issues.

The Lotto are blaming Telefonica/O2 network in Spain. Perhaps a problem due to the takeover by Three. Three have managed to disassociate themselves from the announcement, however. It probably suits them to blame the previous owners of the network. Why do Irish Lottery transactions need to go through Spain? Does that mean that O2's data network goes through Spain? The announcement said that the outage affected other business customers of Telefonica/O2.

AndonHandon · 05-02-2015 12:14am

I would say it does have something to do with the takeover; right in the thick of negotiations. They could have been demonstrating the network.

PizzamanIRL · 05-02-2015 12:23am

Imagine the feeling of extra luck from the person who does the lotto tomorrow and wins now that we have an extra day to do it.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 05-02-2015 12:35am

Banjo String wrote: »

Whatever they did with the new takeover, they made a (pardon the pun) balls of it.

Can't even remember the last time I was able to check my ticket on the self scanners yokes.

It's down everywhere I tried between Newlands cross, Naas and Newbridge btw.

The self scanners only read the older yellow tickets from before it was taken over bynthe new shower.

A friend of mine works in a very busy newsagents and has said there has been a dramatic drop in the number of peoe winning money on scratch cards and on the lotto but no drop in actual sales. I do the lotto twice a week every week religiously and I tegularly won small amounts with the odd bigger amount but since the new people took over I haven't won a single penny.

C.K Dexter Haven · 05-02-2015 1:00am

Yeah, down down, deeper and down, even...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKe2OfXLxuc

WallyGUFC · 05-02-2015 1:17am

Yeah the most annoying thing is waiting for the light to come on on the new machines. Can take 10/15 seconds sometimes, fairly annoying. I've also noticed a lot less winning scratch cards. Thought the first few rolls might have a few more winners than usual but clearly not.

brian_gall85 · 05-02-2015 9:13am

The whole o2/Telefonica thing I don't get, I haven't seen a single report of any major European networks being down apart from this instance with the Lotto.

It must be a very specific part of the data connection, one that regular data users don't use. That being said, up until about a week or two ago when the latest update was applied, the connection to HQ was a joke, regardless of connection type.

Can't wait to read this week's Csna newsletter lol

vienne86 · 05-02-2015 10:15am

It's a huge contract, the lotto. Inexcusable if it doesn't run smoothly.

Fresh Pots · 05-02-2015 10:19am

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Yeah the most annoying thing is waiting for the light to come on on the new machines. Can take 10/15 seconds sometimes, fairly annoying. I've also noticed a lot less winning scratch cards. Thought the first few rolls might have a few more winners than usual but clearly not.

Maybe your already doing this but you need to tap the screen to wake it up before scanning a ticket. So if the scrolling text is on the screen you need to tap the screen once before scanning the ticket.

Calibos · 05-02-2015 10:24am

The UK lotto was down too I heard

somesoldiers · 05-02-2015 10:25am

Some bloke tripped over the plug in Lotto HQ, same fella that brought down Ulster Bank a couple of years back

brian_gall85 · 05-02-2015 10:35am

vienne86 wrote: »

It's a huge contract, the lotto. Inexcusable if it doesn't run smoothly.

So is supplying water to the nation, but here we are. Sums up perfectly the way the current Government are running the place.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 05-02-2015 10:45am

vienne86 wrote: »

It's a huge contract, the lotto. Inexcusable if it doesn't run smoothly.

Especially when you consider that in the 20 odd years the lotto has been running I can't remember a single instance where they had to cancel the draw because of some technical glitch or anything else for that matter.

SEPT 23 1989 · 05-02-2015 11:37am

There are only so many times you can gunter the machine for roll overs before it finally snaps

seamus · 05-02-2015 12:03pm

bugfreebob wrote: »

The Lotto are blaming Telefonica/O2 network in Spain. Perhaps a problem due to the takeover by Three. Three have managed to disassociate themselves from the announcement, however. It probably suits them to blame the previous owners of the network. Why do Irish Lottery transactions need to go through Spain? Does that mean that O2's data network goes through Spain? The announcement said that the outage affected other business customers of Telefonica/O2.

From what I can tell, Telefonica/O2 are the only Irish network who don't peer at the INEX, so it's very much possible that all of their priority business traffic is peered and routed through somewhere else in Europe.

This may be a case that in preparation for O2 being taken over by Three, Telefonica were screwing around with their network config.

Betty Bloggs · 05-02-2015 12:24pm

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

Imagine the feeling of extra luck from the person who does the lotto tomorrow and wins now that we have an extra day to do it.

I've never done the lotto before. Going to give it a whirl today for the craic.

RainyDay · 05-02-2015 12:30pm

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

Imagine the feeling of extra luck from the person who does the lotto tomorrow and wins now that we have an extra day to do it.

Imagine being the person who did the same numbers on Tuesday, and finding you have to share €10m with some other fecker who bought their ticket after the proper deadline?

silverharp · 05-02-2015 12:33pm

RainyDay wrote: »

Imagine being the person who did the same numbers on Tuesday, and finding you have to share €10m with some other fecker who bought their ticket after the proper deadline?

That makes no sense , the numbers are random so a different set of numbers would have been picked.

Calibos · 05-02-2015 12:35pm

brian_gall85 wrote: »

Yeah have noticed that with the cards and the positioning of the cards on the tray, the biggest problem isn't getting the camera to read the ticket, card or slip, it's in getting the camera/sensor to activate at times when the red light has gone off. Total nightmare at times and only compounded by the self checkers being out of action.

I'll tell ya what the biggest problem is.

If an old lotto ticket barcode wouldn't scan we only had to enter a 12 digit (IIRC) number to validate it.

It's now a.............55 digit number !!!

And if you get a digit wrong near the beginning without noticing you have to delete the whole lot nearly and effectively start again.

Royal pain in the @rse

123balltv · 05-02-2015 3:06pm

Only two months after taking charge of the National Lottery, the new operator Premier Lotteries Ireland are causing a drop in sales and service levels.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/retail-and-services/retailers-call-for-lotto-inquiry-over-new-ticket-terminals-1.2070476

seamus · 05-02-2015 3:09pm

Retailers claim there's a drop in ticket sales.

It would be interesting to see what the figures are like for the whole of the last two years rather than making any grand statements about the effect of the new company.

I suspect that retailers are massively losing out to online sales as people realise that buying your ticket in the shop is for mugs.

PLI asked me to come in and interview for a senior technical position a few months back. Glad I didn't go for it now

Timberrrrrrrr · 05-02-2015 3:11pm

seamus wrote: »

Retailers claim there's a drop in ticket sales.

It would be interesting to see what the figures are like for the whole of the last two years rather than making any grand statements about the effect of the new company.

I suspect that retailers are massively losing out to online sales as people realise that buying your ticket in the shop is for mugs.

PLI asked me to come in and interview for a senior technical position a few months back. Glad I didn't go for it now

Why?

seamus · 05-02-2015 3:14pm

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Why?

Because online takes a couple of seconds.

Granted, plenty of people will have a routine that includes popping into the shops, but I don't see the inside of a newsagent from one week to the next, I'd have to go out of my way to buy in a shop. Even then you have to queue in the lotto queue. Yawn.

Online, couple of clicks, done.

Timberrrrrrrr · 05-02-2015 3:17pm

seamus wrote: »

Because online takes a couple of seconds.

Granted, plenty of people will have a routine that includes popping into the shops, but I don't see the inside of a newsagent from one week to the next, I'd have to go out of my way to buy in a shop. Even then you have to queue in the lotto queue. Yawn.

Online, couple of clicks, done.

Lotto queue? I just pay when i am buying something in there but each to their own i suppose.

brian_gall85 · 05-02-2015 4:23pm

The sale of their main scratch card game is through the floor because of the new game show!

As for online v in store, a hell of a lot of players are impulse buys, which only happens in store.

05-02-2015 4:26pm

Hardly ever do the lottery but bought 2 lines today because the boo boo was on my mind. Perhaps this was a marketing ploy????

If more people buy today, does the prize fund increase?

seamus · 05-02-2015 5:48pm

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

Hardly ever do the lottery but bought 2 lines today because the boo boo was on my mind. Perhaps this was a marketing ploy????

If more people buy today, does the prize fund increase?

Yep.

The total prize fund for any lotto draw is made up 52% of the gross ticket sales up until sale close.

The jackpot is 46.15% of this (so 24% of the total ticket sales), plus whatever has rolled over from previous draws.

They are able to tell you that the jackpot is €10m in advance because they have a good idea of the minimum ticket sales they expect in advance of the draw.

But this is the reason why you only see the actual jackpot right before the draw.

FloatingVoter · 05-02-2015 6:19pm

I was talking to the lady in Centra this morning about the whole mess. She was telling me that regular punters were coming back to buy a second ticket for today's draw. And she was bang on...when we were running this, it worked. The New Improved Super Duper Lottery is a load of bollix.
They're all paying for my retirement anyway because I bought the winning ticket yesterday.

PizzamanIRL · 05-02-2015 7:13pm

So they only had 50% expected sales yesterday after guaranteeing 10 million so they pretended to have a technical fault so they could get another day of sales

brian_gall85 · 05-02-2015 8:15pm

PizzamanIRL wrote: »

So they only had 50% expected sales yesterday after guaranteeing 10 million so they pretended to have a technical fault so they could get another day of sales

They had less sales because the Lotto terminals couldn't connect to the main system in Dublin...

Amazingfun · 05-02-2015 10:37pm

Somebody won the 10 million! Congrats you lucky duck

The numbers drawn were 9,10,18,20,24,26 and the bonus was 35.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/one-winning-ticket-of-10m-lotto-draw-30968414.html

thelad95 · 06-02-2015 11:02am

seamus wrote: »

Because online takes a couple of seconds.

Granted, plenty of people will have a routine that includes popping into the shops, but I don't see the inside of a newsagent from one week to the next, I'd have to go out of my way to buy in a shop. Even then you have to queue in the lotto queue. Yawn.

Online, couple of clicks, done.

I reckon around 90% of sales still take place in shops.

brian_gall85 · 06-02-2015 11:33am

I'd say it's even closer to 95% myself, the online segment is mostly aimed at the 18-35 age range, (i.e. that god awful Guru advert promoting online play), while the vast majority of "draw games", (i.e. non scratchcard sales), in our outlet are to over 40s.

There are so many more options available to the younger gambler online than simply the lotto, whereas on the high street it's a simple bookies v lotto agent choice.

Greenmachine · 06-02-2015 12:40pm

Put in my numbers last night. It told me I had won a euro, in last night draw.
Had a look today at the numbers, looks like I won nothing. Showed the date of the drawing, but must have shown Saturdays numbers or something.

smash · 06-02-2015 12:50pm

Is it just me or have the new lotto owners massively reduced the 5+bonus prize. Top price 10.2m, 2nd prize only 25k?

Calibos · 06-02-2015 2:02pm

smash wrote: »

Is it just me or have the new lotto owners massively reduced the 5+bonus prize. Top price 10.2m, 2nd prize only 25k?

Its just you.

5+ Bonus was always €25,000 (IR£12,000 back 90's IIRC)

brian_gall85 · 06-02-2015 2:53pm

The 5 and 4 number prize categories are also based on whether or not the jackpot is won - if it goes they are lower and vice versa.

lass1 · 27-02-2018 8:03pm

Tried to get the lotto an hour ago all shops are down :-(

Is the Lotto down everywhere?

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