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The BBC's Catherine Marston "Some winners received less money than they were entitled to"

Saturday, 20 May, 2000, 20:42 GMT 21:42 UK Lottery watchdog probes 'glitch'

Lottery prizes under #50,000 may have been affected

Thousands of winning lottery ticket holders could have been sold short due to a defect in the National Lottery computer software. Many of them may have received less winnings than they were entitled to, because a glitch in the software meant that more tickets were calculated than were actually bought.

The problem, which existed from November 1994 to July 1998, was identified four weeks ago when an "outside source" made allegations to the independent National Lottery Commission.

An investigation will now have to scrutinise billions of National Lottery transactions made over the four-year period.

A Commission spokeswoman emphasised that on "very rare occasions" the computer calculated there were more winners than actually existed and divided the prize money accordingly.

Dream tickets

"The computer would think that a ticket existed but there was no ticket and one had not been bought," she said.

"When the prizes were generated, the computer would take into account the line of Lottery numbers which didn't exist."

The discovery, which was confirmed by operator Camelot and software supplier GTech, is only expected to involve small sums of money.

The spokeswoman said it was already clear that prizes of #50,000 and above were all correctly paid and the problem had not affected Thunderball tickets or Instants.

It appeared that no-one had missed a prize that was due to them, and the glitch had not "put at risk the flow of funds to good causes".

Billions of transactions must be analysed

Investigations were continuing into the causes of the defective software, which were said to have been first discovered by GTech in July 1998.

In a statement, Camelot said it had not been aware of the defect until it was informed by the commission this week.

It added: "We are co-operating fully with the National Lottery Commission in their investigations.

"Until the National Lottery Commission has completed its investigation it would be wrong for us to comment in detail on the matter."

Camelot says it believes the damage will be minimal, with an estimated 0.0007% of transactions affected.

The company said it was committed to paying the money back to winners as well as retailers who might have been overcharged.

GTech spokesman Steve White was unwilling to collaborate Camelot's statement that the fault was identified by his company in June 1998.

He would only refer to "an allegation [that] has been made about an alleged software fault".

The firm, based in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, United States, was cooperating fully with Camelot and the National Lottery Commission in their investigations, he said, but declined to comment further.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_757000/757024.stm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 20, 2000

Answers

UK: Computer snag 'cut lottery winnings' By Chris Hastings

CAMELOT, the national lottery operator, has admitted that hundreds of winners may have been denied their full prizes because of computer problems.

Lottery chiefs are to carry out an urgent review of millions of transactions made during the first four years of the competition, launched in 1994. Depending on the outcome, Camelot may have to make hundreds of payments to retailers and players.

The inquiry could not have come at a worse time for the firm, which is battling to retain control of the lottery. The investigation has been requested by the watchdog National Lottery Commission, which has received information from an unnamed "whistleblower", who used to be connected with the competition.

Concern centres on equipment that malfunctioned during interruptions in the power supply. As a result, some sales were wrongly duplicated on Camelot's central computer, which calculated there were more winners than actually existed and divided the prize money accordingly. This reduced the amount in the kitty for the real winners. In addition, Camelot may have taken too much money from retailers who were under the impression they had sold more tickets than they actually had. A National Lottery Commission spokesman said: "The computer would think that a ticket existed but there was no ticket and one had not been bought."

Anyone who has won #50,000 or more is unlikely to be affected. But Camelot has confirmed that people who won less than that could be entitled to more money. A Camelot official said the fault had occurred only on the rare occasions when there was a power supply fault. Any payouts to those affected were likely to be small. She said:

"I think those few retailers who were affected lost something like #2 a year."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et? ac=000122257519214&rtmo=kNbJLCxp&atmo=YYYYYYbp&pg=/et/00/5/21/ncomp21. html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), May 21, 2000.

WIRE:05/26/2000 14:00:00 ET GTech Kept Quiet on British Lotto Glitch - BBC

WIRE:05/26/2000 14:00:00 ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A former employee of GTech Holdings says the U.S. firm knew a computer software glitch was short-changing some British lottery winners but held off telling the operator, Camelot Group. Britain's independent National Lottery Commission (NLC) said last Saturday the defect caused computers to think there were more winners than there actually were -- diluting the prize pool.

The BBC, previewing a report by its "Weekend Watchdog" program, said on Friday that David Armitage found the fault but was told by his managers that nothing would be said.

"In July 1998, I discovered that phantom tickets were being sent up from terminals and being logged on the central computer system of the National Lottery," he told the BBC.

"All I can say is that on every day I looked, there were hundreds of phantom tickets recorded on the central computer system and the phantom tickets had definitely won prizes."

Steve White, a GTech spokesman, told Reuters in New York that his company was aware of the claim.

"We have been informed that an allegation has been made about an alleged software fault in the UK Lottery, which was identified in June 1998. We are cooperating fully with Camelot and the National Lottery Commission in their investigations.

"We are not in a position to comment further until the NLC has completed its investigation," he said.

The lottery commission said the prizes in question, from tickets sold between 1994 and 1998, were all under 50,000 pounds ($73,590) and that no one entitled had missed out on a prize.

After working with Camelot and GTech, it said the glitch no longer existed and had limited effect.

"A defect was present in the software which, on very rare occasions recorded individual transactions twice, while issuing a single ticket to the player," it said last weekend.

"We have required the operator to analyze all transactions so that any amounts due to retailers and prize winners under 50,000 pounds can be met in full. We expect these amounts to be small."

Armitage said no one knew how many tickets were affected or how much prize money would have to be reallocated but noted that the four- year period covered billions of transactions.

Camelot, which says it will take less money for itself after being criticized for hefty profits, is battling Virgin boss Richard Branson's "People's Lottery" over the seven-year national franchise which is up for renewal next year.

Camelot has the backing of Britain's biggest lottery retailer, the Post Office, as well as Cadbury Schweppes, Racal Electronics, De La Rue and Fujitsu unit ICL.

The lottery commission will unveil the winner before the end of June and the license will come into effect from October 2001.

($1-.6794 Pound)

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20000526_2121.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 26, 2000.