Prize Division Calculation Issue with Bullseye

Media Release                                                                                  

20 October 2009

Prize Division Calculation Issue with Bullseye First Draw
 
NZ Lotteries today announced that a technical issue temporarily affected some prize payment calculations for its Bullseye game.  The new daily game held its first draw last night at 6.00 pm.

“We became aware of the system error at 11.30 am this morning and immediately stopped Bullseye tickets being checked through our Lotto terminals,” said acting Chief Executive Warren Salisbury.

“We would like to apologise to all our customers affected by this issue, which we are determined to put right.

“We have now investigated how many customers claimed prizes in-store before 11.30 am this morning and unfortunately 249 Bullseye winners have been underpaid their winnings in Divisions Four and Five.  The details are as follows:

·         Bullseye Division Four: 25 prizes of $109 were paid out as $65.

·         Bullseye Division Five: 224 prizes of $23 were paid out as $14.

In total, 249 prize-winners have been underpaid a total of $3,116 for these two divisions. 

There were a total of 19,181 winning tickets for this Bullseye draw. 

“As soon as NZ Lotteries became aware of this issue, we notified our retail stores and turned off the validation (checking ticket) process for the Bullseye game.  When we have updated our systems, we will turn the validation function back on,” Mr Salisbury said. 

“NZ Lotteries will now work closely with those Lotto retailers who have already paid out Bullseye prizes for these two divisions to ensure their customers are paid the extra amount owing.   

“Any customer who believes they are affected by this underpayment issue should go back to the Lotto store that paid them their original prize money and we will arrange to have their prize payment topped up,” Mr Salisbury said.
                                         

Customers who purchased winning tickets via NZ Lotteries’ online sales channel MyLotto will have their accounts updated automatically by close of business tomorrow.

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