On the fourth day of new public lottery operations, large-scale computer crashes again affected nearly one-third of lottery ticket-selling agencies yesterday morning.
At 9:10am yesterday, hundreds of distributors unexpectedly experienced simultaneous computer malfunctions which lasted for 40 minutes.
Successive crashes of the system were reported nationwide until 11:30am when the Taiwan Lottery Co (台灣彩券公司) finally remanaged to resolve the problems, which affected approximately 1,000 agencies in total.
"We've located the causes of the breakdown and similar problems will not occur again," said Chang Ruu-tian (張汝恬), president of the nation's exclusive Public Welfare Lottery operator, at a press conference.
Criticism
Nevertheless, distributors fired off a volley of criticism against the unstable lotto system and the government's perceived poor supervision, with one representative demanding that the whole system be closed down for three days in order to facilitate thorough troubleshooting.
"We are experiencing computer breakdowns every day at the moment. This is not our fault. But we have to keep apologizing to consumers, who often feel disappointed after waiting a long time to buy lotto tickets," said Lin Chun-fu (林俊福), secretary general of the lotto union which represents around 4,700 lotto agencies nationwide.
Lin suggested that Taiwan Lottery, a subsidiary of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), simply announce a halt to business for three days to resolve the problems.
"Otherwise, they risk destroying the credibility of the lotto system," Lin said.
In response to his suggestion, the Ministry of Finance said such a shutdown was not feasible as new problems might still spring up after the resumption of operations.
Improvements
"We'll continue to oversee Taiwan Lottery's performance and hope they can make improvements as soon as possible," said Tsai Ching-nain (
Charles Lo (羅聯福), chairman of Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀), which is responsible for lottery operations, has promised to dispatch part-time workers to around 250 agencies, whose daily transactions surpass NT$100,000 (US$3,075), before computer programs are upgraded by the middle of the month.
Chinatrust Commercial outbid three rivals in a public tender in late 2005 to become the nation's sole lottery operator from this year to 2013 by offering to pay the finance ministry a whopping NT$2.09 billion per year, 10 times the floor price.
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