UK lottery site hit by high demand

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Chariot, administrators of the new Monday lottery, have admitted that their Web operations were disrupted on its first day of draws by what they called an "unexpected level of interest".

The lottery, which has been promoted as a fairer alternative to the more established National Lottery, is run solely through www.playmonday.com. Its launch on Monday was plagued by technical problems and saw the registration deadline for the draw extended by four hours.

"At one stage there were up to 10,000 players trying to access the site at once, although the general rate for the day was in the region of 4,000 enquiries at any one time," a spokesperson for Chariot told ZDNet on Tuesday.

"Clearly that put a lot of strain on the site and slowed it down, but the site did not go down at any point," he added.

The spokesperson claimed that Chariot now had a "clear idea of the level of interest" and would upgrade their systems by next Monday's draw. He added that Chariot had "learned a lot" from the debacle.

Chariot claims Monday gives 30p per pound to charities, five times more than the National Lottery.

Talkback

28p per pound goes to good causes in the National Lottery

via Facebook 10 May, 2006 13:04
Reply

Yes but the "good causes" are not all charities and the players don't get to choose where their money goes.

via Facebook 10 May, 2006 15:22
Reply

Strange the site couldn't cope when actual sales were only 5% of the forecast amount (£3m a week to good causes forecast, £150,000 actually donated). Also check independent today:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article363625.ece

Rather than the "fairer lottery",sounds incompetent and greedy.

via Facebook 12 May, 2006 12:10
Reply

this is beginging to look like a scam

misleading about the odds, mislaeding about prizes. far from £200,000 jackpots the biggest prize so far has been just over £10,000

misleading about comparisons with national lottery funding. misleading about the costs to the charities that are involved

boasted about attracting 10 million entries then didn't create a site that could handle it

kept all the luvverly jubbley boneses quiet

via Facebook 24 May, 2006 20:49
Reply

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