‘Technical fault’ halts £10.5m National Lottery Lotto draw after ball fails to drop

Saturday night’s Lotto draw was blighted by a technical fault after one of the famous balls failed to drop.

The National Lottery operator confirmed that the programme was suddenly paused after the bonus ball didn’t drop into the draw machine.

Allwyn, the firm which took over the lottery last year, said it had stopped last night’s draw, with a rollover jackpot of £10.5 million, due to the fault, and would resume it on a new machine.

The fresh draw would take place ‘under the supervision of an independent adjudicator’, it confirmed.

The cause of the fault remains unknown, but the delayed draw went ahead without a hitch later on Saturday evening.

It told the BBC: ‘We expect to complete tonight’s Lotto draw and publish the verified results on national-lottery.co.uk later this evening and apologise for the delay.’

The glitch also meant that the regular YouTube stream for last night’s draw was unavailable.

It comes months after the new operator announced the ‘biggest tech upgrade’ in the game’s history.

Launched in 1994, the national lottery was operated by Camelot until is licence expired in January 2024.

Allwyn has continued to run the draw from Camelot’s previous base in Watford since winning its ten-year contract.

In July, the company announced it had ploughed more than £350 million into upgrading the lottery’s tech systems, which it said dated back to 2009.

The overhaul included the roll-out of ‘state-of-the-art’ lottery terminals, new ways to play, and was carried out through a ‘meticulously planned and thorough systems integration and testing programme of work’.

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