Mixed emotions: Auckland man unlucky, then lucky, lottery ticket

An Auckland man’s luck roller coaster with his Lotto ticket left him with more questions than answers after he was initially told he was not a winner on Saturday night.

While the man, who just wanted to be known as Robert, won’t pay off his mortgage with his $ 23 earnings, he was concerned that the Lotto website initially told him he was not a winner.

He only found out that he had obtained three numbers and a bonus after verifying the numbers himself.

While Lotto has apologized since then, they still had to reveal what went wrong and Robert was now concerned about how long the problem has been going on.

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“I checked my Lotto numbers [Saturday] night around 9 p.m. and it came up saying ‘it’s not a winning ticket, better luck next time’ so I thought it was fine.

“So I thought about checking it out and saw there were three numbers drawn and a bonus number. I thought ‘oh, surely there must be a prize for that.'”

Robert said he was not a prolific Lotto user, so he wasn’t sure what it took to win in all divisions.

He called Lotto customer service on Saturday night with no luck, before receiving a response on Sunday and told him the money was in his account.

But now his attention was focused on what happened and why and if anyone else had been affected.

“If I hadn’t bothered to verify, I wonder what the result would have been. It couldn’t apply to me.

“They have not explained it and simply said that the money is there. At the same time, they have not really given any explanation.”

“They expect customers to just accept that it is not a winning ticket when it is and that is the first time I have reviewed it afterwards and I think many people would not even bother, so there is no way of knowing if it is a common occurrence or just one time “.

I had just started buying tickets online in the past few weeks.

“I have a friend who generally shares Lotto. I saw that you could do it online, so I thought I’d give it a try in the past few weeks, but how are you going to know if you’re getting misinformation about the results?

“People should know that checking is recommended.

“Did it affect one person or everyone who had that set of numbers? Who knows?”

When contacted, a Lotto spokeswoman was unable to answer any questions about whether there was a technical problem or how widespread it was.

“We are currently investigating this and will be back in contact with [Robert] Once we know more. This may take a couple of days, and we sincerely apologize for [Robert] for any inconvenience. “

However, Jessica Wilson of Consumer NZ said they had not yet received any complaints on the matter, but if there was a problem, Lotto should be in the lead.

“If they are aware that there is a potential problem, they should investigate it and contact customers who have used the website and who may be affected.

“And if they can’t identify those users, they should reach out to Lotto customers and alert people to the problem.”

“If they discover that there is a problem with your website and it does not show correct information, they have an obligation to fix it and make sure they do everything possible to contact those affected by it … quite annoying if you have missed any possible profits” .