18 November 2021
Cody C
C/O
[FYI request #17285 email]
Dear Cody,
OFFICIAL INFORMATION ACT REQUEST
I am writing in response to your Official Information Act request which was received by Lotto
NZ on 21 October 2021. Your request was as follows:
Please provide the number of times the website has been unavailable (including
operating in queue mode) in the past 12 months and the reasons for this (such as not
having enough server capacity or other IT limitations).
_________________________________________
Lotto NZ’s response:
Please provide the number of times the website has been unavailable (including
operating in queue mode) in the past 12 months and the reasons for this (such as not
having enough server capacity or other IT limitations).
In accordance with our Terms and Conditions Lotto NZ’s website, MyLotto, has set hours of
operation. This enables us to process the day's transactions. Therefore, every night the
website is “unavailable” in accordance with our Terms and Conditions. The hours of
operation are:
06:30-23:00 Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday;
06:30-24:00 Wednesday;
06:30-24:00 Saturday.
We publish these hours of operation on MyLotto. If there are any expected delays to opening
hours, these are also clearly communicated on MyLotto in advance – for example, to allow
scheduled maintenance to be completed or to process a high volume of tickets.
We can confirm that over the last 12 months, there were three occasions where Mylotto has
been unavailable to customers during the website’s standard opening hours. On these days,
we needed to delay our opening time to allow for extra processing time.
These occasions were:
• 8 December 2020 – MyLotto opened at 7:30am
• 23 March 2021 – MyLotto opened at 7:30am
• 21 October 2021 – MyLotto opened at 7:15am.
When MyLotto experiences high demand, customers who wish to log in to the site are
placed in a ‘virtual queue’. This manages the number of customers logged in to MyLotto at
one time and ensures a good experience for those customers who have logged in to
purchase and check their tickets.
Since its introduction in August 2021, the virtual queue has been activated on 12 different
days, with the queue sometimes activating multiple times – for example, both before and
after the Lotto Powerball draw. On two of these days, the virtual queue was activated during
pilot testing sessions.
The virtual queue was activated on 10 days between August and October 2021 when
MyLotto experienced very high demand due to the large Powerball jackpots on offer during
this period.
It is important to note that only the sections of the MyLotto website which require customers
to login are subject to the queueing system. The virtual queue does not prevent anyone from
viewing game and draw information on the MyLotto website. While waiting in the virtual
queue, customers are also able to see their estimated wait time, along with key updates from
Lotto NZ.
It’s important to keep in mind that Lotto NZ has experienced significant growth in the number
of customers choosing to play our games through our online channel, MyLotto – and this
trend accelerated over the past 18-months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To support the
move to online play and the higher proportion of customers choosing to play digitally, Lotto
NZ has made a significant investment in the upgrade of MyLotto which will ensure our online
platform is well-placed to meet both the current and future needs of our players. We expect
this project to be completed by the fourth quarter of this financial year.
Please contact me if you require any further clarification of this information on (09) 358 9366.
Yours sincerely
Sarah Hitchings
Senior Communications Advisor Lotto New Zealand
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