Well, they are expecting to be selling up to 400 tickets a second in the run up to tonight's draw and that sort of volume is likely to put a bit of a strain on the system. Still, if this in indicative of things going forward they'd better invest in some additional capacity to cope fairly smartish.

You could have said exactly the same a week ago. They've patently done nothing of any consequence in the intervening period. If their techies were at all smart a week is plenty of time to spin up more resources in a provider like Amazon S3 or MS Azure.

It is fairly short term - the demand is because the jackpot has rolled over numerous times and is now ludicrously big. However it's not the first time we've had a multiple roll over and this happens every freakin' time.

Right now you can't even get to the static page that tells you their site is overloaded. *sigh* clowns.

Well yes.
They did send out emails saying to log in early if you wanted to buy tickets but it's a bit of a pants response.

Yeah, it was in the papers too. 'We're utterly crap at our jobs, please help us out'.

Well I logged into my online account around 11AM to find £35 sitting there. It's been so long since I've accessed the account I've no idea if it's money i won or funds I've added. Spent £34 of it on lucky dips and lines. Matched two numbers. I knew the numbers would cluster but most of them were out by one number or so eg 25/26 instead of choosing 26/27.

With the standard Lotto, don't you get a Lucky Dip for two numbers in a row now? Or have I got that wrong?

Channel Seven reporter's hug of weather presenter sparks Chris Gayle comparisons | Media | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/j ... omparisons

It looks more like a jokey moment that didn't come off IMO. I'd be interested to know if the ladies here think that sort of thing's OK, it's something I've seen women do in my office for instance.

My mum, 24th November, 1991 knocking on my sister's bedroom door in the morning:

"Happy birthday! Oh, Freddie Mercury's died".

Yep. I had a few quid in my lotto account, which has probably been there since Moses was a lad - I don't do the lotto very often. Anyway, I had a punt this weekend received an email telling me I've matched two numbers and won a Lucky Dip for Wednesday's lotto.

I also learnt that they increased the number opf balls to 59 and the odds of picking the winning six are now over 45 million to one!

This arrangement of words confuses me.

Yep. I had a few quid in my lotto account, which has probably been there since Moses was a lad - I don't do the lotto very often. Anyway, I had a punt this weekend, AND received an email telling me I've matched two numbers, and won a Lucky Dip for Wednesday's lotto.

Does this help...?

I missed a comma. How awful for you.

Yes, I know, grammatical correctness is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

However, IDGAF.

Nope and


Nope.

It wasn’t a comment on grammar (ha ha!) but a comment on my complete non-comprehension about the National Lottery beyond knowing that you pick some numbers, pay your cash, and wait.

Camelot recently (October IIRC) re-jigged the National Lottery game rules.

They decided that they make more money when there are roll-overs so they've made it harder to win the big jackpot so there will be more roll-overs. Where as before you had to pick 6 numbers from 49, now you have to pick 6 from 59.
Adding the 10 extra balls has meant that the odds of winning the big prize has gone from ~1 in 14 million to ~1 in 45 million (similar odds to winning the Euromillions lottery jackpot).

In compensation they've included a millionaire raffle in each draw so someone is guaranteed to win a million pounds in each draw (the raffle used to net you £20k with the occasional 'special' million pound one). There is also now a 'prize' for successfully getting 2 numbers - you get a lucky dip ticket for the next draw. Otherwise the prize tiers are the same as they were from when they increased the ticket price to £2 - 3 balls nets you £25 and more gets you more (usually).