After five days of paralysis due to a computer problem, Loto-Quebec lottery ticket sales gradually resumed Wednesday evening.
Posted at 1:02 pm
Updated at 6:44 pm.
“Loto-Québec is pleased to announce that lottery operations are gradually returning to normal,” the state-owned corporation said Wednesday evening.
Ticket sales and verification are possible at retailers, on the lotoquebec.com website and on the mobile application. “It is also possible to claim prizes and receive the results of draws,” Lotto-Québec said in a press release.
Loto-Quebec’s most popular products, Loto Max and La Grande vie, have been frozen since Sunday due to a computer problem shortly after its 455 professional employees went on strike.
The return to normality does not concern Lotto 6/49, the release of a new version of which has been postponed due to a labor dispute among Loto-Québec’s professional employees. Verification of Lotto 6/49 tickets from the last draw is not possible before the launch of the new version scheduled for September 21.
Loto-Québec also indicated that “all draws that could not be made since September 11 for lotteries offered only in Quebec, such as Banco, Quebec 49 or Quotidien, have resumed.”
Loto-Québec has never experienced a computer failure of this magnitude. The state-owned company has confirmed that it has not been hacked and that the striking employees are not responsible for the problems that arose last Saturday to Sunday night.
Due to the labor dispute, it took more time to solve the computer problem and catch up with the backlog in data processing. Striking employees are back on the job after reaching a tentative agreement with their employer, yet to vote.
The products affected by the computer failure typically generate 2 million sales per day for Loto-Québec. They account for 70% of the Crown Corporation’s total lottery revenue, which exceeded $1 billion in its last fiscal year 2021-2022.
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