The lottery draw was dramatically canceled, live on RTE television
“Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, the lottery draw cannot be completed as planned,” viewers were told
Image from a photo agency
The lottery draw was suddenly canceled live on RTE One TV shortly after it began broadcasting from the RTE studios.
Neither the National Lottery nor RTE have yet clarified what caused the sudden postponement of Saturday night’s draw or said when the draw will take place.
The weekly broadcast of the Saturday evening draw began at 7.55pm and was hosted by Kamal Ibrahim.
As he began his opening monologue, Ibrahim greeted viewers at the RTE studios and said the draws were independently observed when he deviated from his script by saying “Ah”. Then he laughed at something off-screen
“Unfortunately, the lottery draw cannot be completed as planned due to technical difficulties,” he said. “The draw will be completed as soon as possible. Please hold onto all your tickets and await further announcements. It’s live TV. So what can you do? See you soon.”
After the canceled lottery draw, RTE One returned to its evening film “Detective Pikachu”.
The National Lottery held its charity event at the Killashee House Hotel in Kildare yesterday.
A National Lottery spokesperson confirmed the technical issue: “The National Lottery would like to inform players that there was a minor technical issue with today’s lottery draw. However, there are no problems with the integrity of the draw or the numbers drawn.
“Tonight we interrupted the live broadcast of the Lotto draw due to a small technical problem when the Lotto Plus 1 draw machine started selecting balls earlier than the sequence should have started. “As usual, in the event of a technical incident, the recording of the draw will continue, but the live television broadcast will be interrupted. This is to protect the integrity of the draw and is consistent with our approved gaming rules and processes, all of which are independently adhered to by KPMG. “The balls originally selected by the Lotto Plus 1 machine are final. The Lotto and Lotto Plus 2 draws were then carried out offline. The results of all draws will be published on www.lottery.ie and later shown on RTÉ 1.”
