Some Ontario lottery players were hopping mad on Easter Sunday, during an hours-long system outage that prevented them from buying lotto tickets or checking to see if they’d won.
The system suspension at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation affected provincial and nation-wide lotteries, as many were unable to check tickets for the $5 million Lotto 649 draw. The draw did not turn up a jackpot winner, but it did award a single $1 million prize, as well as 25 additional $100,000 prizes. Seventeen of those winning tickets were sold in Ontario.
“I’m upset,” one man told CTV Toronto on Sunday. “Today is Easter, I was born on Easter, so I thought I’d have that Easter luck.”
Others complained that the outage prevented them from betting on a busy day of NHL, NBA and MLB action.
Toronto store clerk Huma Khan says she didn’t know what was going on when the OLG system refused to process transactions.
“When I started to turn it on, it says there’s been a technical problem with the machine, and so I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.
The system-wide suspension lasted all morning and into Sunday afternoon before it was resolved.
The OLG says the system was shut down as a “precautionary measure” due to an issue with time-stamping purchased tickets. “OLG continues to investigate the matter,” the corporation said in a statement on its website. “In the meantime, OLG is satisfied that the integrity of lottery games and prize redemption are not affected, and has re-activated all lottery transactions.”
The Hit or Miss lottery remained suspended throughout Sunday, but was restored on Monday.
“We thank our customers for their patience,” the OLG said in another statement.
With files from CTV Toronto
