Live lottery draw review after unsold ticket ‘wins’
A REVIEW of the live broadcast Christmas lottery draw will take place after an administrative error meant that an unsold ticket was declared the winner initially.
The entire draw was re-done as soon as the problem was spotted, but for a short time a list of the void winners from the first draw went up on the ITV Channel website.
Jon Taylor, the presiding officer for the draw, said a small batch of unsold tickets made it into the first draw.
‘It was a clerical error,’ he said. ‘We were doing a live draw simultaneously with a live TV broadcast and it involves a lot of manual inputting, so it’s something that we will need to review and look at for future draws.
‘In previous years the audit would have been done before the draw, but we do it simultaneously because there’s been demand for the draw to be live, but we just need to look at how we can verify those tickets during the live procedure.
‘We’ve not had an error before, it’s quite a freak occurrence, but ultimately it was spotted and we responded very quickly and re-drew it immediately.’
The current format of drawing and revealing the winner of the lottery during ITV’s Channel Report has been in operation for the past three years.
The aim is to give the public greater transparency around the draw.
Mr Taylor said it was an unfortunate finale, but it was quickly rectified.
‘The nature of our lottery is not like the National Lottery where they draw seven or eight balls and there’s a winner. We have 67 prizes to draw so there’s only certain software available for us that’s cost effective.
‘It was difficult this year because of Covid and we were restricted to what we could do in a public place, so the draw took place in a States of Jersey building.
‘Ultimately I’m the presiding officer so it comes down to my invigilation. It’s never happened before, but fortunately the checks and balances from the third party auditors picked it up.’
The good news was that the winning ticket for the top prize of £630,852 had been sold in Guernsey for the fourth year in a row.
The second prize ticket for £50,000 was also sold in Guernsey. Both prizes had been claimed by lunchtime on Christmas Eve.
. The correct winning ticket numbers are all listed on cilottery.org
Charities' chance
The proceeds from the Christmas draw will go to charities and other worthy causes throughout the Channel Islands.
Guernsey registered charities or not-for-profit organisations operating within or for the benefit of the Bailiwick of Guernsey are now invited to apply for funding from the Social Investment Fund’s small grants programme.
Organisations can apply for a grant of up to £25,000 to put towards one-off projects or ongoing expenses of a year’s duration, such as salaries or running costs.
Applications can be made at www.sif.gg.
