Lotto NZ Chief Executive Chris Lyman has issued a statement this week, outlining some of the details behind upgrade work to the lottery’s MyLotto website and app. He also apologised to players for the site’s subpar performance of late.
Work to upgrade the MyLotto website and app has been underway since 2019 and is due to be completed by early 2021. Described by Lyman as a significant project, it will require a $25m technology investment.
He said in his statement: “To support the move to online play, and the big increase in the number of people playing online, Lotto NZ is making a substantial investment in the upgrade of MyLotto. The current website is ageing, and the upgrade is required to meet higher demand online.
“While this work is underway we have been making interim improvements. However, regrettably there have been some issues on MyLotto. This has in turn resulted in some pretty poor customer experiences, and for that I sincerely apologise.”
The work to upgrade MyLotto will ensure the back-end processes are more robust, and able to deal with higher traffic on the site. Lotto NZ is also planning a full replacement of its gaming system in 2024.
Lyman added: “Planning is underway for further work in 2024 to replace our entire gaming system. The timing and costs are still being worked through; however this work will cover a full replacement of the back-end gaming system that supports MyLotto, and also includes our terminals in retail stores.”
The Chief Executive also made assurances that the integrity of Lotto NZ’s games have not been impacted by the recent issues on MyLotto. “While we have had some issues with slow processing speeds, and poor customer experience, I can provide absolute assurance that the integrity of our games have not been impacted,” he said.
Lotto NZ has seen a surge in online players since March, with the number of people playing online increasing by 33%. Prior to the lockdown in March, 25% of Lotto NZ’s sales were online and 75% were in-store.
Lyman explained: “We have significantly more people buying tickets online now than ever before. Nearly 200,000 people have registered to play online since 25 March – to put this into perspective, this is the number of new online players we would expect over a two-year period, not four months. This week alone 32,000 people have registered to play online, with around half of those from the Auckland region.”
