UK National Lottery sales to be suspended as Allwyn announces major tech upgrade
The operator has announced the date for its National Lottery tech transition.
UK. – Allwyn has announced that the UK will see National Lottery tickets suspended temporarily over August 2 to 3 as it undertakes a major tech upgrade. The Czech operator has been working to modernise the lottery since taking over from Camelot in February 2024.
It says that after next Saturday’s draw, it will launch new terminal software, transition systems to new platforms and make “a number of other crucial back-end tech upgrades”. It described the transition as the biggest tech upgrade since the National Lottery began in 1994, involving the delivery of more than 30 new systems and the transfer of large amounts of data, such as retailer records and transactions.
Ticket sales and other services will shut at 11pm on Saturday August 2 after the evening’s Lotto and Thunderball draws and will resume late on Monday morning before the evening Set For Life draw. It noted that final testing was still needed. Both in-store lottery terminals and the National Lottery app/website will be affected by the outage. Players will not be able to log in, buy tickets or claim prizes. Scratchcards will still be available.
Retailers have been advised to prepare for the transition and to keep terminals running online all weekend so that the software updates can take place, avoiding delays. Allwyn said the introduction of new Wave terminals means that retailers will be able to process transactions more quickly and provide users with more functionality once the upgrade is complete.
Allwyn director of operations Jenny Blogg said the changes will also allow the National Lottery to launch new games some time in the future.
“These critical tech upgrades follow on from our continuous progress in modernising The National Lottery, which hasn’t had a major refresh since 2009,” she said. “This includes introducing a fresh new look in our 43,500 retail partners with new stands, dispensers and signage, as well as rolling out state-of-the-art lottery terminals and a new in-store network provided by Vodafone.
“We’re very grateful for our retail partners’ continued support through these latest upgrades. We’ve been working hard to make sure retailers can get back up and running as quickly as possible after the weekend, so it’s really important that they follow the instructions in their support pack.
“While these significant updates will mean short-term disruption for players and our retail partners, they will allow us to deliver on our promise to bring new, exciting games to The National Lottery; a better player experience; and our commitment to double returns to Good Causes from £30m to £60m every week by the end of the 10-year licence.”
Earlier this month, Allwyn announced the sale of its German and Australian casino assets. Meanwhile, its Greek subsidiary has announced an agreement to acquire the remaining 15.51 per cent minority interest in the Greece and Cyprus-facing online sports betting and igaming business Stoiximan. OPAP is facing competition only from IGT’s Brightstar in its bid to retain the rights to Greece’s state-run lotteries.
