Media Release 11 June 2011


NZ Lotteries Advises Keno Players of Ticket Checking Issue

NZ Lotteries today advised its customers that a technical issue temporarily affected Keno ticket checking between 6.30 am and 9.20 am this morning. No other NZ Lotteries game was affected.

Any customers who checked Keno tickets in a retail store during this period were advised that their ticket was a non-winning ticket, regardless of whether their ticket was winning or not.

“We would like to apologise to all our customers affected by this issue and advise of the steps we have taken to rectify the situation”, says NZ Lotteries Chief Executive Todd McLeay.

“As soon as NZ Lotteries became aware of this issue early this morning, we notified our retail stores and then turned off the validation (checking ticket) process for the Keno game from 9.20 am.

“We then fixed the system issue and enabled Keno ticket validations again from 10.00 am.

“At this stage we do not know exactly how many customers were told their winning ticket was not a winner, but we have had several phone calls from retailers and customers advising of the issue.

“Therefore we advise all Keno players who checked a ticket in-store this morning between 6.30 am and 9.20 am to now take their ticket back to a store for re-checking.

“If their ticket has been thrown away then customers can fill out an incident report at any Lotto store, giving us the ticket details, and we will pay out any prizes owing.

The issue does not affect NZ Lotteries online customers who purchased through www.mylotto.co.nz and there were also no high-value prizes won in last night’s 6pm Keno draw by a retail customer.

NZ Lotteries will now conduct a full investigation into the circumstances that arose to this technical incident, which is the first such issue in Keno’s history.

ends

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