Germany Lottery draw glitch caused announcement of wrong numbers

Apr 4, 2013, 11:57 am (24 comments)

Germany Lottery (Deutschland)

German broadcaster ZDF gave Lotto ticket holders a moment of false hope on Wednesday evening, after a glitch with the ball machine meant presenters read out the wrong numbers.

At 6:50pm, 2.33 million people turned on their TVs to see if they'd won this week's lottery jackpot. But what presenters in the ZDF studio had not noticed was that that two balls, 46 and 47, failed to roll into the see-through Lotto drum.

This meant that the first set of numbers — 3,8,11,26,32,40 and 9 — were void. The actual winning figures were 16,21,23,29,31,38 and 24.

Shortly after, Dirk Martin, head number caller from the Lotto operator confirmed that Wednesday's results were void due to a "A technical fault that has never happened before."

A spokesman from the Lotto Rhineland-Pfalz company added that the incident "had turned everything upside down" and that action was underway to make sure it did not happen on Saturday.

Presenter Heike Maurer then said she had taken a good look inside the drum and that the way the light fell on it meant that it was impossible to spot the two hidden balls.

The last time the Lotto went wrong was in 2002, when the drum stopped during the ball-reading and new one had to be brought out.

News story photo(Click to display full-size in gallery)

Thanks to Erik B. for the tip.

The Local

Comments

tnhope's avatartnhope

oops!!Stop i guess

Ronnie316

Looking at the balls under those bright lights must be difficult. Chalk one up for pre-draw testing.

noise-gate

Their lottery has 7 numbers. Wonder what their odds are : 250, 000, 000 -1 ?
Puke

Ronnie316

Quote: Originally posted by noise-gate on Apr 4, 2013

Their lottery has 7 numbers. Wonder what their odds are : 250, 000, 000 -1 ?
Puke

Looks like its a 6/49 game. https://www.lotterypost.com/results/germany

luckyshoes's avatarluckyshoes

Grober fehler ! No No

dr65's avatardr65

So what...46 and 47  weren't in the results anyway. This isn't how people with
46 and 47 on their tickets would feel.
They'd insist those balls were held on purpose.
Some probably would have thought 46 & 47 at the very least would have helped
to knock all their winners in the shoots.

Some would have cried foul if there were any wiinners and the news of the
misdrop broke....some would have quit altogether crying fix! fix!
Any winner on the first misdraw doesn't stand a chance collecting UNLESS
the powers that be see it as a warped way to gain public admiration by
awarding the winner then awarding the true winner with the real draw.
"How nobel of them!" they'd say...."Nice folks there at lottery!" they'd say...

All kidding aside...it's easier to deal with one disgruntled winner rather than have
a massive revolt or angry exodus away from the big games.
Aren't public relations wonderful? Even when just being fair isn't the only motivation
to 'do the right thing'.

Gleno's avatarGleno

So how many American's play the German Lottery?No Pity! Guess some folks like to play the international games, but I  would not use a third party site to use a credit card to purchase them.

redhot7's avatarredhot7

Reminded me with another glitch.

Epic Fail LOL

JonnyBgood07's avatarJonnyBgood07

this is a load of chit....more like they had a predetermined outcome that got botched.

Coin Toss's avatarCoin Toss

Quote: Originally posted by noise-gate on Apr 4, 2013

Their lottery has 7 numbers. Wonder what their odds are : 250, 000, 000 -1 ?
Puke

This is for two of the games from the results link Ronnie posted:

Zusatzspiel: 27

Zusatzzahl: 24
______________________________________
 
The Zusatzspiel is like a consolation prize for not hitting all six of six, "A little extra" or "extra play". (Speil, Spielen means play).
 
It's not a 5 + 1 game in the sense of PB or MM but 5 + the Zusatzspeil pays more than 5.
 
Recently the Illinois lottery added Extra Shot to their 6/52 game, I wonder if it's some kind of take off on this. the Extra Shot is an extra dollar, when I was in Germany the Hessen Lotto with the Zusatzspiel was 1 DM if I remember right.
 
There was one drawing a week on Saturday nights.
dallascowboyfan's avatardallascowboyfan

Quote: Originally posted by Coin Toss on Apr 4, 2013

This is for two of the games from the results link Ronnie posted:

Zusatzspiel: 27

Zusatzzahl: 24
______________________________________
 
The Zusatzspiel is like a consolation prize for not hitting all six of six, "A little extra" or "extra play". (Speil, Spielen means play).
 
It's not a 5 + 1 game in the sense of PB or MM but 5 + the Zusatzspeil pays more than 5.
 
Recently the Illinois lottery added Extra Shot to their 6/52 game, I wonder if it's some kind of take off on this. the Extra Shot is an extra dollar, when I was in Germany the Hessen Lotto with the Zusatzspiel was 1 DM if I remember right.
 
There was one drawing a week on Saturday nights.

Texas is adding the "extra play" to its Lotto Texas game.

Stack47

Quote: Originally posted by dr65 on Apr 4, 2013

So what...46 and 47  weren't in the results anyway. This isn't how people with
46 and 47 on their tickets would feel.
They'd insist those balls were held on purpose.
Some probably would have thought 46 & 47 at the very least would have helped
to knock all their winners in the shoots.

Some would have cried foul if there were any wiinners and the news of the
misdrop broke....some would have quit altogether crying fix! fix!
Any winner on the first misdraw doesn't stand a chance collecting UNLESS
the powers that be see it as a warped way to gain public admiration by
awarding the winner then awarding the true winner with the real draw.
"How nobel of them!" they'd say...."Nice folks there at lottery!" they'd say...

All kidding aside...it's easier to deal with one disgruntled winner rather than have
a massive revolt or angry exodus away from the big games.
Aren't public relations wonderful? Even when just being fair isn't the only motivation
to 'do the right thing'.

The two numbers never fell into the drum and had no chance of being drawn. Sort of like programming an RNG for pick-3 and pick-4 games not to have any duplicate digits and watch all the doubles players trash their tickets.

rdgrnr's avatarrdgrnr

Quote: Originally posted by luckyshoes on Apr 4, 2013

Grober fehler ! No No

Grober fehler?

Grober fehler, fräulein?

Unverzeihlicher fehler!  Eek

Ronnie316

Quote: Originally posted by Stack47 on Apr 4, 2013

The two numbers never fell into the drum and had no chance of being drawn. Sort of like programming an RNG for pick-3 and pick-4 games not to have any duplicate digits and watch all the doubles players trash their tickets.

Im glad they had a do over. Make the real winner happy.

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