Lotto Operator Admits to Rule Violations

Nanum Lotto, which has been running the national lottery since December last year, is found to have occasionally broken rules, including continuing to sell lottery tickets after the winning numbers had been announced.

Controversy is thus rising over whether the company rewarded a winner who bought the winning ticket after the weekly Saturday announcement.

According to the report submitted by Nanum and the Lottery Commission to ruling Grand National Party lawmaker Jin Su-hee, Nanum closed the weekly sales tally after the announcement (9 p.m. every Saturday) four times between early December last year and early last month.

Over this period, 36 winning numbers were announced.

Based on the report, the company closed sales at 10:53 p.m. on Dec. 8 last year; 10:01 p.m. on Dec. 15; 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 22; and 9:05 pm on Jan. 5 this year.

In addition, the company breached the tally deadline of 8:30 p.m. seven times though the computation was done before the winning numbers were picked.

The operational rules say sales for the week must be completed by 8 p.m. Saturdays; Nanum and the commission cross-check the gross sales amount by 8:30 p.m.; winning numbers are to be drawn between 8:45 p.m. and 9 p.m. live on SBS; the numbers must be faxed to Nanum by 9 p.m. from SBS; and the numbers should be input in the Nanum computer system by 9:10 p.m.

Furthermore, statistics on gross and cancelled sales were different between the company and its supervising commission. To prevent foul play, the data on daily sales of each franchised seller and the number of cancellations are simultaneously transmitted to the servers of the company and the commission right after midnight every day.

On April 15, however, Nanum recorded 140 daily cancellations worth 600,000 won, while the commission had 141 worth 605,000 won. Three days later, the company filed 237 cancellations worth 1,077,000 won and the commission 236 worth 1,074,000 won). In monetary value, the average difference was 3,000 to 5,000 won (or three to five games).

The statistical discrepancies arose 12 times between December last year to July this year.

Lawmaker Jin said, “Of the 12 occasions, tickets were sold six times after the deadline. Theoretically, it was possible to pick the winning numbers once the numbers were announced.”

Visiting Jin’s office Friday, Nanum President Nam Ho-seong said, “There were some problems with the monitoring system. We had hardware problems in the early days of our business. Despite the technical problems, it was impossible to rig or manipulate the winning numbers.”

sys1201@donga.com